Classroom News

Foundation-Grade 1 Miss Bennett

Wow what another busy two weeks in the beehive with lots to celebrate and even more to look forward to as we move into Week 5! There have been so many lightbulb moments, lots of bucket filling and even more smiling over the past two weeks in the beehive and everyone has been 'ON-FIRE' with their learning. Here are the F/1 highlights from Week 3 and 4: 

- MSO excursion: Our trip to Shepparton for the MSO excursion was a huge highlight to the last two weeks. Seeing all of the instruments playing together live at riverlinks had us all in awe and helped extend our knowledge of music for Term 4 Inquiry. How lucky are we that we got to make a KIDSTOWN pit stop on the way home!? The visit to Kidstown was definitely a fan favourite with lots of F/1 students making their way down the HUGE vertical slide!! 

- Picture Prompt Writing: On Tuesday in Week 5, we began completing our picture prompt writing. This was a great chance to see how our writing has progressed since Semester 1. All students were given the picture prompt and 3 minutes to come up with an idea for their writing, they were then given time to write their story. The best part was when all of the students compared their writing to their previous piece in Sem 1. We have learnt and improved so much!! 

- Labelling in our new text-based unit: Our new text-based unit has been in the picture story book 'The Imagineer', we have just finished the lesson on labelling. There were so many things to label and everyone was blowing Miss Bennett away with how many things they could label. 

- Collecting the eggs: Our St Pat's chooks have been super busy!! They have been laying eggs for us to collect everyday. Last week the F/1 students were in charge of collecting the eggs. We took our job very seriously and made sure we were super careful taking the eggs to the office, Finding eggs to collect was our favourite part of the day. 

- Healthy Habits day: Getting to make our own healthy smoothies with the Sport and Health leaders was definitely a high point in F/1. A big thank you to the Sport and Health Leader, Rach from Ky Health and our parent helpers for helping us make smoothies and try new things. They were super yummy. 

 Grade 1-2 Miss Hayes

Heggerty 

In Grade 1/2 we have been working hard on getting our Heggerty done quickly. When we first started we were impressed with how quickly we could do it! But after Friday of Week 1 when we got under 3 minutes we set ourselves a goal of trying to achieve 5 days in a row under 3 minutes. On Monday we achieved this goal!!  

Writing - Text Based Unit 

Last week we started our new Text Based Unit on ‘Go Go and the Silver Shoes’. Our first few lessons have been on building our background knowledge so that we understand the language and concept of the text. This week we learnt about the following words: 

Suggested - shared an idea 

Announcement - information shared to tell people something

Shimmering - shine with a flickering light 

Absolute - total, complete, without doubt  

After learning about these words, we worked in groups of 3 to create word families. This is what we came up with: 

Excursion - Melbourne Symphony Orchestra 

Last Wednesday we went and saw the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra performing at Riverlinks in Shepparton. We saw lots of different instruments, learnt about their families and heard the differences between them. We enjoyed listening to the following instruments:  

Grade 3 Mrs Stock

Last week, the Grade 3/4's came together for their Inquiry lesson. They learnt what a melody is and then experimented with creating their own melodies, using the xylophone and music apps on their iPad. It was great to see everyone getting involved and sharing their music with each other. 

On Wednesday the 23rd, the students enjoyed the opportunity to go to Shepparton to attend Riverlinks and experience the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Concert. This was a great opportunity for the school to attend as it ties in so well with our Inquiry unit on 'Music'. 

The Grade 3's have just completed their unit on 'Chance' and have just begun their next unit on Mass. They enjoyed the Scavenger Hunt challenge, where they had to find objects around the room that equaled a mass.

For Literacy, the Students have been reading the book, 'The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr Morris Lessmore. They have been learning about how visuals work in texts to make meaning. They were able to label different illustrations from the book and share their ideas with each other. 

They have been very busy this week, preparing for our Class Liturgy. Our theme for the liturgy is celebrating all of our wonderful teachers at St Pats, linking into World Teachers Day.

Grade 4 Mrs Loughran

Inquiry - Music

We have been enjoying our lessons with Morgan each week.  She as been a wealth of knowledge.  We have been learning about pitch, tempo, rhythm, verse, chorus and bridge in music.

Over the next few weeks, we will delve deeper in music making and getting ready for our end of term concert. 

The students enjoyed the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra excursion and followed it up with an activity to show their understanding of where each of the instrument families are arranged. 

Maths

Our fractions and decimals topic is proving to be an awesome learning experience for the students.  They have been learning about converting improper fractions to mixed numerals and today we used bar models to find fractions of a quantity. 

Handwriting

The students enjoy writing in their handwriting books. Today we practised print writing, we use this to write dot points, lists and maps. Students enjoyed an activity where they looked up the main oceans of the world and labelled the map in print writing.

Grade 4 Liturgy

Thankyou to the amazing Grade 4 families who could take time to come to our Liturgy.  The students worked very hard to master their readings but unfortunately there were technology issues and the microphone stopped working!!  That didn’t bother the ever so resilient Grade 4 students. They adapted and spoke in confident, loud voices, they are all very proud of themselves.  This week we have been using the green screen to record our readings to put into a movie to send home to the parents so they can hear the amazing readings clearer. 

Grade 5-6 Miss Rasmussen

Our Grade 5/6 leaders have been embracing exciting new opportunities recently! Our Sport & Health Leaders ran an engaging Healthy Habits Day, and our Catholic Identity Leaders organized the impactful Socktober Day, raising awareness and support for important causes. Additionally, our FIRE Carriers experienced an on-country visit to Barmah National Park, deepening their connection to and understanding of Aboriginal culture. It's wonderful to see our students growing their leadership skills and stepping up in these roles!

A big congratulations also goes to those students who participated in the 3rd Cavalry Regiment Commemoration Service. From MC’ing to laying wreaths and carrying flags, they showed great respect and reverence throughout the event. We were especially fortunate to meet both current and past soldiers afterward and get a hands-on tour of an army tanker—an experience the students won’t soon forget!

In English, our class has been captivated by The Magician’s Nephew. We’re all a bit skeptical of Uncle Andrew and his mysterious intentions with Diggory and Polly, with many students making predictions about how this story might connect to our previous Narnia adventures. In Maths, we’re diving into algebra, learning that letters in equations stand for unknown values, and developing strategies to spot number patterns faster.

For Inquiry, we’re challenging ourselves to make music with Boomwhackers, building on our understanding of instrument families from Morgan’s lessons as we prepare for our Melbourne Symphony Orchestra visit. We were thrilled to hear such beautiful, layered sounds from the orchestra and loved that some of us got to answer questions in the audience!

Finally, we’re gearing up for camp! The excitement is building as we hear about activities like ocean fishing. How lucky are we to have these fantastic opportunities ahead?