What's happening?
Foundation
We are nearing the end of Foundation and what a busy final few weeks it has been! The students have been working away and finished their narratives. They are full of super adjectives and it has been great to watch them enjoy writing. We look forward to you reading them at our portfolio presentation. A reminder that this will be on Wednesday 18th December at 3pm. It is a lovely chance for you and your child to reflect on the wonderful year they have had in prep! Please let your class teacher know if you are unable to make it and they will organise their buddy to be there. You are welcome to bring along a small snack you can share with your child as you look through their Portfolios together.
Last Friday, the students had such a lovely time celebrating Japanese Day. We started the morning off with traditional drumming in our morning assembly and then took part in some Japanese Summer Festival activities. We ended the day with a delicious sushi lunch and our weekly afternoon assembly.
This week was very busy! On Wednesday we had some very excited preps arriving early to school, ready to set off on a busy excursion to the Melbourne Zoo! We had such a great day and it was a lovely chance for the students to see all the animals they had been learning about in Inquiry this term. We started the day becoming ‘wild explorers’ during a great session with a zookeeper. We got to meet a some reptiles and explore the gardens with magnifying glasses and binoculars. We then split off into groups and started exploring all around the zoo, seeing the amazing animals up close. The students had such a fantastic time there. Thank you to all the parents who volunteered, we really appreciate it!
On Thursday, we sang in our very first Christmas concert. The students were very proud of all their efforts in practising their songs and dances.
Just a reminder on Tuesday 10th December, we will have ‘Up Day’ Foundation - Grade 6 and Thursday 12th December is Wellbeing Day.
Thank you to all parents and carers for being so supportive and volunteering throughout the year.
Grade 1
For our last 2 weeks of term we will be finishing the, “air, ear,” sounds and moving to oo, ew and ui codes and ou, ow. Due to a change in our Word Study approach, students will no longer require sound packs in Grade 2. We will send home the complete sound pack in the coming weeks, and encourage children to continue to use these to review and expand their knowledge of spelling codes in preparation for Grade 2.
The students enjoyed writing their narrative stories, about ‘A Bees Night Out’ and next week will be creating Christmas Narrative stories. We have also been busy writing a letter to Santa, begging (some demanding) an elf for our classrooms. We are keeping our fingers crossed that one may arrive in time to see us performing at the Christmas Concert.
In Maths we have spent the week reviewing our addition and subtraction strategies and will continue to do this into next week before finishing Maths groups for the year on Thursday.
For our Inquiry we are working on classifying minibeasts and will be researching our favourite to find out what they eat and what sort of habitats they are best suited to. We have also loved observing the silkworm moths that have finally hatched.
The students have worked hard on their Christmas Carol which they will be performing tonight. They are all excited about the evening.
Over the coming weeks we will begin sending home spare stationary and students work books. On Friday 13th December we will be collecting children’s take home readers and satchels. Satchels, write and wipe sleeves and headphones will all be passed on to their Grade 2 teachers, so please don’t be alarmed when they don’t return home.
We have had a great year teaching your students and will miss them when they move to Year 2. State-wide Transition is Tuesday 10th December, where your child will meet their teacher for next year. Thank you for all your help and support to make this year smooth sailing. We hope you have a lovely Christmas break.
Grade 2
The year is very quickly coming to an end! As this will be our last newsletter, we’d like to say an enormous congratulations to all the Grade 2 students for their amazing efforts throughout the year! We’d also like to say a very big thank you to our families for all of your support in what has been a fabulous year with our cohort, and we wish you all the best for the holiday break.
This fortnight, students have continued to develop their narrative writing skills with a focus on storyline/plot and building depth with ideas and descriptive language. When reading at home, having discussions around what the story is mostly about (main idea), problem/s and attempts to solve, and how the story ends not only helps with reading comprehension, but also helps towards them being able to plan these elements when writing their own texts. Students have been working hard to publish their narratives, checking and editing for adjectives and correct use of punctuation.
During our ‘Word Study’ sessions, students have been learning about the ‘1:1:1 Doubling Rule’ (also known as ‘CVC Doubling Rule’) and learning when to double the final consonant before adding a suffix. Finally, students have been building their understanding of the homophones ‘there’, ‘their’ and ‘they’re’, attaching meaning to spelling.
In Maths, students have been building on their understanding of Addition and Subtraction and the link between the two operations. As always, opportunities to explore these concepts in everyday situations at home will be a great way to consolidate and build on your child’s knowledge.
Our wellbeing focus this fortnight is on emotional literacy along with resilience, rights and respectful relationships and the ‘Zones of Regulation’.
Grade 3
The Grade 3 team would like to congratulate our wonderful cohort of students for their outstanding effort, behaviour, and achievements this year and thank all of our lovely Grade 3 families for your support. We have had a terrific year together!
Core Knowledge: To wrap up our ‘Earth Science’ inquiry unit, students have started creating their ‘Landform’ posters using the research they completed at home. They are working to a rubric which covers five different areas, and will present their poster to the class once completed.
Writing: Over this fortnight, students have been able to hone their narrative writing skills by identifying particular features within a range of different narrative texts, and then using that learning to try and write their own paragraphs in the same way. Students will get the opportunity to demonstrate their skills with a final assessment piece next week.
Word Study: We have been reviewing the Latin base ‘rupt’, and the Greek base ‘bi/bio’, and exploring a variety of prefixes and suffixes that we can add to those bases. We have reviewed the ‘y to i’ rule (when adding a suffix to a base word ending in y), and introduced more ‘weird words’ to decode and spell.
Maths: Over this fortnight, students have been working through our ‘Patterns and Early Algebra’ unit, investigating number sequences, patterns, facts with all four operations and choosing efficient strategies for solving. As always, we encourage students to continue building their knowledge and skills by practising at home.
Reminders:
Class Kris Kringle gifts need to be brought to school by Monday 16th December.
Holiday reading: We’d strongly encourage all students to continue regular reading over the holidays.
Thanks again for a wonderful year. Wishing you all a Merry Christmas and a safe and happy holiday break.
Grade 4
The year is very quickly coming to a close and what a wonderful year it has been! We are capping off the year with an excursion to Braeside Park and are extremely grateful to the parents who have volunteered to join us so far. Please contact your classroom teacher if you are interested in helping out on the day - the more, the merrier! The kids are looking forward to Wellbeing Day next week, as well as our final session of Bike Ed. The skills being learnt are hopefully being practised outside of the school grounds! Again, we thank the volunteers for being so incredibly supportive of this program.
Literacy: We are drawing to a close on our study of ‘Wonder’ and the learning and development of the kids can only be described as remarkable. The depth and content we are seeing daily continually amazes us and we are very proud of the learning being achieved. We were also impressed with the growth shown in our Narrative unit with our assessment write on the story prompt “Lost”, where students worked hard to apply figurative language and edit to uplevel their writing.
Numeracy: We have finished up with our Measurement topic and our final numeracy focus is quite timely, ‘Money’. The kids will be learning how to find change amounts from quantities such as $20, $50 and $100. They will also be finding totals of items using addition algorithms, as well as rounding and estimating.
Inquiry: The students have been working on designing their countries for their group projects, with some very creative ideas developing. They are doing a wonderful job of applying their understanding of the likely climate, vegetation and land features for the location of their countries.
Grade 5
Reading: Over the next two weeks in reading, the students will complete their read of ‘A Long Walk to Water’. Throughout the term, students have shown great improvement in their ability to respond to written comprehension questions and participate in discussions about their text, demonstrating their knowledge and understanding.
Maths: Students have been completing activities on developing itineraries and reading timetables. This week students will complete an activity exploring budgeting and planning a 10-day trip around Australia using Microsoft Excel and learning about formulas that assist in their calculations. This week students will also begin working through aspects of shape and their skills in creating their own 2D nets for prisms and pyramids and representing and identifying different views of isometric shapes.
Writing: Throughout the week students will begin to research, plan and write their own informational report about one of the given topics. Students have been developing their understanding of the structure and skills in writing their body paragraphs and developing topic sentences.
Inquiry: Students are in the final stages of their ‘Travel Expo’ country booklets and completing their travel budget. Students will use the remainder of the Inquiry sessions this term to begin preparing their stalls for the Travel Expo which will be happening during the last week of term.
Reminders:
Bounce Excursion - Week 11 Wednesday 18th December
*Please check Compass for the ‘Bounce End of Year Excursion’.
Year 6 2025 Jumpers
Payments are due 10th December.
Refer to the Compass event. Please select 'decline' in the event if you are choosing to use funds from your child's School Saving Bonus.
Grade 6
Literacy
The Grade 6’s are finishing their novel study on Rivet Boy. They have enjoyed reading a story about facing your fears, courage, adversity, and responsibility all set around the true story of the building of the famous Forth Bridge in 1800’s Scotland.
Writing
Our narrative focus has come to a close with the students writing some extremely impressive and engaging narratives over the past few weeks. They have also completed their post-assessment this week based on this picture prompt.
Mathematics
In Mathematics, they are finishing off our revision unit with a partner project on planning a one month Aussie holiday with a budget of $50,000. The criteria includes visiting at least 7 states, airfares, accommodation, car hire and deciding on which attractions or events they will go to. Their financial maths skills will come into play through balancing expenses and finding deals based on value for money.
Inquiry
The students are very excited about the upcoming Market Day. They have been busy manufacturing their products and designing their stalls. This week they presented their products to the Grade 3’s through a mini Expo. This gave the Grade 3 students an opportunity to peruse the many fantastic products which will be on offer on Market Day.
African Drumming
We had our last session of the African Drumming incursion on Wednesday and it was amazing to see the students playing collectively, not to mention the progress they made. They really enjoyed taking part in and being presented with another unique opportunity to experience something different. Thank you to Mrs Willis for organising this incursion.
We can’t believe, another year has flown by. The Grade 6 cohort has been an amazing group of students, and we are extremely proud of their countless achievements throughout the year. Their success across the curriculum has been impressive. From the classroom to the sporting arena to the stage to mention a few. The Grade 6 team would like to thank all the students for making this year a joy to share with them. To the parents, we couldn’t do it without you. Thank you for all your support throughout the year in the many different forms that takes.
We hope you all enjoy your Christmas and New Year break and wish you and your children all the best for the secondary school years to come.