Classroom News

Foundation-Grade 1 Miss Bennett

We have come back with a BANG for Term 3 in the Foundation/1 beehive with lots of smiles to see one another after a 2 week break. Here are some things we've been doing since we have returned from school holidays.

- To start off Term 3 the F/1 busy bees loved every second of SWIMMING WEEK! Miss Bennett has been SO impressed with how everyone kept themselves and belongings organised each day. There was lot's of learning, listening and swimming in the pool each day. We have all turned into little fishies just wait until summer rolls around!!

- We have been so excited about the new addition into our school yard: the GAGA pit. The students in F/1 and the whole school have been buzzing to join in on the gaga pit games during snack and lunch. We even got the chance to play a quick game during our brain break with Mrs Corso. 

- To tune ourselves back into learning we have officially started our whole-class 'Reading Fluency'. Each day in our fluency pairs we read for 3 minutes and then provide 1 minute worth of feedback for our partner. They change their books twice a week and we have a different reading fluency focus every day to encourage us to get better at reading fluently. 

Keep your eye out for the next newsletter edition where we will have more learning to celebrate and show off!! 

 Grade 1-2 Miss Hart

Welcome back to Term 3! What an exciting term we have planned. We started off with a bang, with our Swimming Week over in Echuca. The students learnt a variety of strokes, floating techniques, life-saving skills and they even got to enjoy some games in the pool. 

On Friday, students completed a small reflection about the week that was. They were to talk about their favourite activities and what they enjoyed the most. Here’s what the Grade 1/2s said were their favourite parts of Swimming Week:

Heidi - ‘The best part of swimming at the Echuca pool was having a free swim at the end of the week.’

Ollie - ‘The best part of swimming at the Echuca pool was making a whirlpool in the small pool with the whole class.

Kynan - ‘The best part of swimming at the Echuca pool was jumping off the diving block.’

Marla - ‘The best part of swimming at the Echuca pool was the free swim and making a whirlpool.’

Addie McG - ‘The best part of swimming at the Echuca pool was the free swim on Friday.’

Addie - ‘The best part about swimming at the Echuca pool was learning how to float like a starfish.’

Alex - ‘The best part about swimming at the Echuca pool was jumping off the diving block.’

Tully - ‘The best part of swimming at the Echuca pool was jumping off the diving block into the water.’

Oonagh - ‘The best part of swimming at the Echuca pool was jumping off the diving block at the deep end.’

Charlie - ‘The best part of swimming at the Echuca pool was jumping into the water using the diving block at the deep end of the pool.’

Harlow - ‘The best part of swimming at the Echuca pool was having a free swim.’

Grade 3 Mrs Stock

What a fantastic start to Term 3! The students loved the opportunity to participate in swimming lessons over in Echuca last week. It was wonderful to see all students giving it a go and enjoying themselves as they practiced and learnt new skills. 

We were also very fortunate to have two guest speakers, Helen Heard and Bev Williams, come and speak with all the students about the history of St Patrick's Primary School and Tongala. Then we had Murray Ross meet us and take us for a tour around Tongala, where he explained the stories behind the amazing murals he had created. This was a great tuning in experience for our Inquiry Unit on History and we are very appreciative of the time and effort that these special guests put into this for our students. 

For Maths this term, we are continuing to learn about Multiplication and its relationship with Division. We have started our new topic on Time and the students enjoyed going outside and creating a large clock with chalk. They helped put the numbers around the analogue clock and then they had a turn at being the hands and making different times on the clock. Afterwards, the students made their own analogue clock. 

Grade 4 Mrs Loughran

As we begin Semester 2, it has been noticeable that the students in Grade 4 have taken the next step in their learning.  I would like to thank all Grade 4 students for continuing to follow the routines in our classroom to make it a safe and enjoyable learning environment for everyone.

Swimming

The weather didn’t stop the Grade 4’s from the fun that swimming week brings.  All students showed a enormous amount of improvement, listened to their instructors and had fun at the same time.

Inquiry

We toured the streets of Tongala to learn about all the street art around the town.  The students had inquiring minds and asked many questions about the art.  Students work on their own art pieces in the art studio which was entertaining. It is always wonderful to take our students on excursions as their behaviour is exceptional.  

Maths

We have learnt a new maths game this week called ‘Multiple Machine’  Here is the link, you may want to try this at home.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGc0Pv7wJfU

Public Speaking

Congratulations to Jim!!!  What a superstar.  He came Runners Up in the Lion’s Public Speaking competition.  Jim should be very proud of the effort he has put in to getting this far.

Prayer Space

We have set up a new prayer space in our room.  We love it because it’s welcoming to the visitors to our class and we can focus when praying. 

Grade 5-6 Miss Rasmussen

The Grade 5/6s have settled well into Term 3. We loved the swimming program and it was exciting to see everyone progress in their skill and confidence in the water. We are nearly finished reading our class text 'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe'. We cannot wait to hear how it ends! We have been working hard at developing our sentence structure. One of the tasks we completed was to compare Aslan and The White Witch from 'The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe'. We are really getting the hang of making our sentences more interesting.