Learning & Teaching

Author's Corner

Where the magic of words and the boundless imagination of our young authors take centre stage.

Today we are featuring Maya (Year 4) and Michael (Year 3). These children gained inspiration from the authors of the picture book 'Tree' and spring-boarded off the author's experimental sentence structures to design interesting sentences of their own: 

Maya:

The sun shining as Tree waves in the soft morning wind.

Long grass dances at the bottom of Tree's roots as his oak leaves fall from his branches to the ground. 

Tree watches slowly as the days go by and his little seedling is no more a seed, she is a big strong tree.

Michael:

Ancient and lost, Gem hovered, locked away in the forgotten vault in the old crumbling temple and the overgrown lush jungle.

Measurement is More Than Just Measuring.

The role of estimating and making choices about the unit and instrument to be used, are fundamental aspects of building mathematical reasoning in measurement.  Our Year 6 teachers collaborated to design measurement learning experiences that harnessed these opportunities in their current length unit.

To achieve this the team designed measurement challenges that required the children to use familiar benchmarks to make well-reasoned estimations of length. They also invited the children to make appropriate choices around measuring and confirming their estimations.

In the photos below our Year 6 children are estimating the length of the Holy Cross walking track using familiar benchmarks such as the dimensions of a footy oval. Following this the children chose to measure the length of the walking track in kilometres using a trundle, to confirm the accuracy of their estimations. 

Learning Through Play: The Holy Cross Vet.

Influencing children's learning through play-based experiences is a key feature to Discovery. Over the past two weeks, the learning has been evident through our current role playing station: The Vet Clinic.

Through this role playing experience the children have applied their learning from mathematics to record appointment times for patients and read analogue clocks to track appointments. The children have also been making links to their Geography learning by treating native animals for ailments that are typical to the local region.  Below you can see Dr Max and Dr Andy taking the blood pressure of an unwell koala, and treating her for smoke inhalation as a result of a local bush fire.