Specialist

F-2

This term in STEM, the Foundation and Grade 1/2 students have been delving deeper in to Physics. The students have continued to learn that energy can be caused by forces, such as push or pulls. Students have learnt about the force of gravity. That gravity is the force that pulls things down and keep us on the earth. The Foundation students explored gravity by rolling marbles down different objects. We discussed how the marble was affected by friction. The 1/2s continued to develop their knowledge on air resistance. We created 'crawling caterpillars' using an origami technique. The students had to use a straw to blow a force that made the caterpillars crawl. We had some caterpillar races that were very fun! 

Year 3-6

This term in STEM, the Grade 5/6s have been exposed to a deeper understanding of potential and kinetic energy. The students learnt about gravity and friction and how this will affect a marble move. They began to plan and develop a model of a marble run. They then had to gather the materials they would need to engineer it. They worked in a small groups to solve how to get the marble to move from the top of the run to the bottom of the run successfully. It was great to see students working together and critically thinking about the physics behind their runs. The 3/4 students created friction ramps. They used shoe boxes to create different ramps using different materials. This altered the friction and then the students timed the monster trucks going down their ramps to see how friction affected the time it took to travel down a ramp. 

School Values Certificates/Whole School Assembly

This week, these two students will receive a STEM award; 

PA- Mohammed Al Rahman from Prep for showing kindness and enthusiasm 

5/6B- Adeel W from grade 5 for working well with others and showing great determination to complete his marble run. 

FOUNDATION:

In our Foundation sessions, we completed a colouring competition for Dallas Neighbourhood house; we are looking forward to seeing if we have any lucky winners :)

We also created funny faces using collage materials.

GRADE 1/2:

In grade 1/2, we have worked on different methods of applying watercolour paint. We looked at the 'wet on wet' watercolour technique and blended colours. We are also focusing on creating faces depicting different emotions and also the colours that represent our feelings.

GRADE 3/4:

In grade 3/4, we are learning about Japanese artist, Yayoi Kusama. We created some pumpkins, based on her works and added a zentangle background to make our drawings stand out. We attended the Art Gallery on Tuesday 25th March, which was a huge success. Many of the students had never visited the NGV and enjoyed their excursion. While we were there we were able to complete a workshop where we made glow in the dark dancing pumpkins and we watched them glow under UV lighting. The NGV generously paid for all of our excursion, including transport, lunch and entry. 

GRADE 5/6:

In grade 5/6, we have started to paint pieces of paper using different colours for an upcoming collage. Students will be constructing an art piece using small pieces of paper cut into shapes.

School Values Certificates/Whole School Assembly

This fortnight, the two students chosen for an award were:

5/6B Nicholas G  

1/2A Shehryar A 

Physical Education [PE] is a tremendous way to get students active while also teaching them important life skills, improve their physical health, and develop a love for being active. 

During PE, students will:

• focus on fundamental skills [e.g. running, catching, balance]
• play games to reinforce the skills
• foster social skills
• celebrate their efforts, building confidence and a love for sport.

Each session will have a:

• warm-up activity to get their muscles ready
• skill development activity 
• fun game - teamwork and cooperation.

We have started PE this term by playing students’ favourite games, teaching the skill of running, and for the 5/6s playing Interschool Sports.

Foundation A/B students have been working on sound and letter recognition. They have practised hand-writing different letters of the Spanish alphabet. We enjoyed watching different words that are very similar to the English language, but with slight differences in pronunciation. As an example, we had the word DOCTOR (In English "dok" + "tuh") and in Spanish DOCTOR ("dog" + " tor").

Grade 1/2 students have engaged in learning different colours in Spanish. They’ve worked on understanding the question: ¿De qué color es? (What colour is it?) to associate colours and objects. Spelling colours names and word association played an essential role during this week as students were able to identify word patterns like rojo is (red), naranja is (orange), amarillo es (yellow)... 

Grade 3/4s have been working on telling the time in Spanish. We've been working on understanding the language used for time-telling and clock-reading. We’ve completed activities and online games that have helped us understand ways to read the clock and appropriately choose words depending on the time of the day. By the way, ¿Qué hora es?⌚

Grade 5/6s have continued to work on the ‘activity booklet’. This has been done in groups. Each group has been allowed to interact with different puzzles and games contributing to their knowledge of the Spanish language. Students have then completed activities like correcting the sentence, filling in the missing letters, and choosing suitable words based on the context. These activities have challenged them to appropriately address language chunks within specific real-life scenarios.