Round the classes 

Reception class: Jess

Enjoying our library. 

The last three Wednesdays we have had our new Receptions visit who will be starting school next term. We have enjoyed taking them on school tours and showing all the things we enjoy doing. One of our favourite places to visit is the library. We enjoy laying on the comfy beanbags and pillows, and sharing books together. Students love to choose a funny book for the teacher to read. As the weather is getting colder the students are even enjoying the library during play time. 

Our Hospital is open!

Students have dived deep into our hospital set-up in our classroom. All students take part and love playing out the different roles. Students can choose to be a patient, doctor, receptionist, surgeon or nurse. They all take their roles seriously and work hard. 

Please feel free to pop into our classroom and see our hospital, but be careful you may become a patient. 

Benefits of pretend play:

What are the benefits of imaginative play?

It fosters creativity by providing a safe space for children to act out scenarios of their choosing, including situations that they may not be able to experience in real life. Students don’t get to be a Doctor in Real life. 

It promotes physical development in a fun way. Students are using tweezers, droppers, bandages, which is engaging a lot of hand-eye coordination. 

It provides an opportunity for kids to practice and develop their language and social skills by merely being with and talking to other children.

It boosts the development of problem-solving and self-regulation skills. Not all students can be the Doctor at once, so students learn to take turns and negotiate roles. 

Reception class: Kelly

We have continued on our phonics learning sounds j, w, v and x. It is pleasing to hear the children use their sounding-out strategies to read and spell words. It has been enjoyable listening to the children read and wonderful seeing them read to each other. They are getting better at recognising the initial, middle and end sounds of words as well as listening and identifying rhyming words in Heggerty and fiction books. They have been working on their sentences focusing on their punctuation (capital letters and full stops) and finger spaces. Last week we read the story The Three Little Pigs. We discussed the main characters, the sequence of the story and the problems that happened throughout the story. 

We have started a new topic in mathematics. We are now looking at quantity and part-part-whole to 5. We have been learning to use same, more, less and fewer. Children have been using these words to describe stem sentences eg: 'There are fewer monkeys than bananas' or Tere are more trees than parrots'. We have been playing some games using these words to describe quantity - guess how many items in the bucket? and a 'how many more' card game. The children are doing a great job!

For Health we focused on the blue zone - what do we look like? And how can we look after ourselves when we are in the blue zone? It was wonderful seeing what tools the children came up with to look after themselves. Such examples included -

Going for a walk with my parents

Talk to someone about my feelings

Going to my room to have some quiet time

Having a cuddle

Last Friday, Jess and our class went to watch the boys play netball at the Uraidla netball courts. It was wonderful to see them cheer their school on (despite the cold and very wet weather).

Year 1 class: Jaya

In Literacy, the year 1s have been busy learning about how sometimes the same sound in words can be written in more than just 2 ways! Our focus this last week has been on ‘er’ in fern, ‘ur’ in surf and ‘ir’ in bird. We are getting more confident with our sentence writing and ensuring we sound out words that we don’t know. Another focus has been on adding the prefixes ‘un-’ and ‘re-‘ to the beginning of our base words. The class worked diligently and challenged themselves during our spelling review. 

We have been exploring what the word ‘persuasive’ means and what ‘persuasive writing’ is all about! We have started to think about when and where we use persuasion, and have discovered that we do it all the time, especially when we want extra free play or for someone to love an animal as much as we do! We have started looking at how important it is to give strong reasons for our opinions. We have been using picture prompts to begin our thinking and even created ideas about why baby ducks should wear life jackets and why Giraffes are not found up trees!  

Our maths learning is focusing on writing number sentences, and how a number sentence needs to be set out in a particular way to ensure it makes sense (just like our written sentences!) We are translating our Bond Block knowledge of part-part-whole into number sentences, exploring all the different ways we can make 10. 

We had a lovely time making posters for our tuckshop and lanterns for the Winter Solstice. Stay warm everyone and enjoy the weekend 😊

Year 2 class: Samantha

As we wrap up another exciting fortnight of learning, here’s a snapshot of what our Year 2 students have been up to:

In Literacy, we have been focusing on our long 'o' spelling choices and have also introduced the prefixes 'pre' and 'sub'. Did you know that the morpheme 'sub' means under or below? We have been exploring the definitions of words such as submarine, subtitles, and subscribe. This has been an intriguing learning experience for our young minds, expanding their vocabulary and understanding of word formation.

In maths, we are continuing our exploration of fractions, including halves, quarters, and eighths. The students have engaged in hands-on games and designed their own gardens to explore these concepts practically. I encourage you to discuss fractions in real-life contexts at home, whether you’re cooking, gardening, or sharing a pizza. These everyday experiences can significantly reinforce their understanding.

In HASS, we are delving into the different states and territories of Australia. This week, we took a closer look at the floral emblem of the Australian Capital Territory (ACT), the Royal Bluebell. This beautiful flower blooms in the mountain ranges during summertime and has a delicate purple hue. The students were fascinated by its uniqueness and significance.

We have been working diligently on designing our own lanterns for this weekend's Winter Solstice event in Uraidla. The children enjoyed reading the amazing story of the Uraidla Demon that Alex's class wrote, which added a magical touch to our preparations. If you are attending the event, we hope you have a wonderful time admiring the students' creations.

Have a wonderful weekend and stay warm!

Year 3 class: Stephen and Troy

We have enjoyed our recent STEM challenge which was to make a wind powered car – just waiting for a windy day or two to test them out!!  Our STEM challenge involved problem solving, teamwork and trial and error.  We were also required to build our skills with measuring, cutting and shaping and using the hot glue guns.  Our task was to also incorporate procedure writing too as part of the process.  Our pictures below show our success.

In maths we have been learning about fractions, focusing on the half, third and quarter fractions. Our aim is to see how a whole can be partitioned to equal-sized smaller parts.  We are also looking at where fractions appear in everyday life to help us with our learning.  We have also enjoyed aiming to fulfill our personal learning goals for writing and maths. 

Year 4/5 class: Alex

This fortnight students have had a listen to the Winter Solstice story inspired by their Big Write narratives. The story that it is primarily based on is Ashton Geytenbeek’s narrative of the Uraidla Demon, which lives on in the sports teams in Uraidla. Elements from other students’ stories were also used such as description of setting. This story will be the urban legend used for the fun community event taking place this Saturday night the 22nd at the Uraidla Hotel. Students have also enjoyed a CFS visit and our Year 5s gave their best effort competing in SAPSASA netball. Congratulations on your efforts. 

In writing this fortnight students have been working on the structure of their persuasive paragraphs for a writing piece on whether all children should have pets. As a class they have brainstormed strong reasons for and against the argument. They then picked a side and have chosen their three strongest reasons to support their opinion. Students are now following the OREO paragraph structure to build convincing paragraphs including a statement of their opinion, the reason, examples and re-stating their opinion. 

In maths students have been applying their place value understanding to use the column method for addition. Students have also been looking at the 6 S problem solving process and unpacking each step.

In design and technology, students have been working with their groups on their Kids in Space project to construct 3D prototypes of their models. They have also been constructing a physical version of their models to demonstrate how it works. They have been practising their collaboration skills, fairly distributing tasks, supporting each other to get jobs done and solving disagreements in their teams by votes and electing a leader if needed.

In grammar students have continued to work on their spelling of the homophones their, there and they’re, to, two and too, where, wear, we’re and were and by, buy and bye.

In health, in connection with our ‘brave’ theme this term, students have been investigating what it means to be an upstander rather than a bystander when witnessing someone being treated unfairly. They have discussed strategies to use in such instances and how being a bystander can excuse the behaviour and contribute to the problem continuing. Students have also explored the concept of peer pressure and how sometimes being brave can mean deciding not to do something. 

Year 5/6 class: Sallie

This fortnight we have completed our fractions unit and moved on to decimals. Henry has inspired our inquiring maths minds with questions revolved around the connection between decimals, place value, ordering and rounding. Students have been working in small groups to collaborate their problem-solving techniques and answering questions posed. I have been fortunate enough to step in for Sallie this fortnight and I have been incredibly impressed with the students’ persistence and enthusiasm during all learning tasks, particularly during steps used to solve maths problems.

We have delved into persuasive writing as our new literacy topic this week. Students have enjoyed analysing advertisements and how their language and text features are combined to creative a persuasive effect. We have discussed our understanding of persuasive digital media advertisements and highlighted the language features and techniques used to capture an audience. Students have taken part in a whole class debate about whether Aliens do exist, this provided a platform for them to voice their opinions in a diplomatic and empathetic way. They learnt how to formulate and brainstorm their ideas as a group in response to their opposing teams’ views. The energy and enjoyment in the room was inspiring!

During history we have introduced the memoir, The Little Refugee by Ahn Do and Suzanne Do, which tells the story of Ahn Do escaping on a boat from Vietnam to start a new life in Australia. After reading this story students were posed questions about what it means to be Australian and have a sense of belonging to a nation. They also discussed what the difference is between a migrant and a refugee. Students enjoyed working in groups to create posters that drew upon their perspective of what immigration means. It was wonderful to see all students engage in this topic and show compassion towards some of the stories they have learnt about. Their understanding of Australia’s multicultural society and the diversity of its people has broadened since discussing this as a class.

Indonesian: Ibu Susan

In Indonesian we have been learning about mouse deer and Komodo dragons. Did you know a Komodo dragon can regrow a tooth and that a mouse deer can hold its breath under water? We have also enjoyed traditional folk tales about mouse deer (Kancil) who outsmarts other forest animals. 

The year 5/6 students have completed their animal research and have discovered and shared many unusual facts about native Indonesian animals. 

PE: Troy

In PE students have been completing their unit on netball. Throughout the topic students have learnt fundamental movement skills (throwing, catching, shooting), game-based strategies (attacking and defending) as well as sport-specific rules and skills. We have finished by playing full and modified games with students from years two to six. 

Next week we will begin our unit on tee ball. This is the first striking and fielding game we have played for the year and involves different strategies and skills from all the other sports we have been exposed to this year. I look forward to sharing some images of our students using our new equipment purchased through the Sporting Schools grant. 

Science: Philippa

Kelly and Jess's classes

We have had fun investigating how balls of different shapes, sizes and materials roll and bounce and now it is time to spend a couple of lessons learning about how animals move. The students all have their favourite animals and are keen to learn about how they move.

Jaya's class 

Students investigated the effect of small pushes and big pushes on balloons and also toy cars. Next week students will make plasticine boats and learn about the pushes and pulls exerted on them by gravity and water.

Sam's class 

Students observed a demonstration of a 'dancing rice' experiment. Sound vibrations from a drum make grains of rice bounce on plastic wrap stretched tight over a large bowl. This week the class used musical instruments to make a soundscape for the story 'We're Going on a Bear Hunt' by Michael Rosen.

Stephen's class

Students learnt how to use thermometers to measure the temperature of room-temperature water, hot water and iced water. This week's investigation is about how long snowpeople take to melt if they have insulation (we will use large ice cubes instead of snowpeople!).

Alex and Sallie's classes

Our Space topic continued with learning about life on board the International Space Station. Next we will be focusing on satellites - what are they and what are they used for?

Gardening: Jo

Group 2 in Alex's class looked at the importance of bugs and insects in our environment and why we need them. They discussed the differences between bugs and insects and how they are classified. In the last week, the students harvested potatoes and herbs and were quite creative in making insects out of limited ingredients - most of them looked quite bug-like!