School News 

Prep News

What a fantastic fortnight we have had in Prep! We are so proud of how the children are approaching school with such enthusiasm and resilience. The Prep cohort has faced a few bumps in the road already, but our students have continued to show us how adaptive they are.  

Investigations are now the cornerstone of our learning in Prep and the students are consolidating their understanding of the rituals and routines of the investigations block. As we are learning about the roles in our community as part of our inquiry unit, it has been so wonderful to see the children engaging in dramatic play in our Prep hospital, hair salon and Police Station.  

The Prep students have been enjoying learning all about the features of books. We have studied the front covers of different picture books and learnt how to identify the author’s name. Students have been discussing the differences between letters, words and sentences. 

We have continued to implement our Smart Spelling program, with our ‘word of the week’ being a highlight of our Monday learning. The students have been applying their knowledge of the letters we have studied so far (C, A, T, N) when attempting to write three letter words and when decoding words in books. 

In Maths we have continued to learn about the numbers to 10, exploring how numbers can be shown in many different ways. The students have enjoyed playing dice games to practise their number recognition and using concrete materials to model counting. 

Our PMP program is now well underway and the Prep students have done a wonderful job learning the routines of each station and how we support each other to try our best. We have enjoyed having the grade 5 & 6 students participate as helpers at each activity and we thank them for their enthusiasm.

We had our very first Science lesson with Miss Smith last week and it was definitely a highlight. The students discussed their understanding of the role a scientist plays in our community and the ways that we can demonstrate safety in the science lab. We are very much looking forward to getting into our Science unit “Pets Alive” in the coming weeks.

We would like to thank all of our families for their support over the past few weeks and we look forward to getting to know you all a little better at the upcoming ‘Getting to Know You Interviews’. 

Kind regards, 

The Prep Team

Allie Harrison, Elyce Munnecke and Alarna Creed

Level 1/2 News

Level 1/2 have continued to have a brilliant start to 2022. Students have settled into their classroom routines beautifully and it has been magnificent to see lots of independence, kindness and responsibility. 

What’s been happening in Level 1/2? 

READING: 

Level 1/2 students have been learning to identify the features of narrative texts, including genres, characters and settings. They identified main and minor characters and settings in narrative texts and learned to sequence the events that occur in a text by considering whether they happened in the beginning, middle or end. Level 1/2 students learned to explore the problem and resolution of narrative texts, using illustrations and accompanying writing to express their ideas. Students learned to give a quick retell of a story. They considered the key parts of a story – characters, settings, problems, events, solutions and themes. Students learned to retell all parts of the story by using strategies including the 5W’s strategy – Who? What? When? Where? Why? and the SWBST strategy – Somebody (Who is the main character?), Wanted (What did they want?), But (What was the problem?), So (How did they try and solve the problem?), Then (What was the resolution of the story?). In the classroom we explored texts including ‘The Tortoise and the Hare’, ‘Wilfred Gordon Mcdonald Partridge’ by Mem Fox, ‘Corduroy’ by Don Freeman, ‘A Bike Like Sergio’s’ by Maribeth Boelts, ‘Enemy Pie’ by Camryn Manheim, ‘We Don’t Eat our Classmates’ by Ryan T. Higgins, ‘Koala Lou’ by Mem Fox and Pamela Lofts, ‘Ormie’, ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears’ and ‘After the Fall’ by Dan Santat.  

WRITING: 

Level 1/2 students have been learning to understand what a recount is and brainstorm ideas to write a recount about in their Writer’s Notebooks. They learned more about the structure of a recount – Title, Orientation, Events in Order, Ending and Personal Opinion. Students learned to write an orientation for a recount including the 5W’s – Who? What? When? Where? Why? They learned to write a sequence of events by considering time connectives or sequence words, including: first, next, soon, during, after, later, finally and then. Students enjoy creating a ‘Free Choice Writing’ piece on Fridays using their voice and their ideas. Level 1/2 students have been learning to develop a plan for a recount in their Writer’s Notebook. They have learned to write an orientation using the correct structure – Who? What? When? Where? Why? and ordering their events in chronological order using time connectives. They have been exploring using emotive words to add detail to their recount writing. 

MATHS: 

Level 1/2 students have been learning to recognise and investigate the place value of numbers. Dependent on their ability level, students read and wrote numbers to 100, to 1000 or beyond 1000. They learned to use MAB to demonstrate numbers and played place value board games and place value bingo. As a problem-solving activity, students completed a ‘Guess My Number’ Activity, getting 3 clues to guess a number from. They then created their own ‘Guess My Number’ Activity – using 2-digit, 3-digit or 4-digit numbers, dependent on their ability level. Level 1/2 students learned to read, write and order numbers to 100, to 1000 or beyond 1000, dependent on their ability level. They practised putting numbers in place value columns correctly, rolling dice to generate random numbers, making numbers, expanding numbers and ordering numbers. As another problem-solving activity, students considered 2-digit problem-solving cards or 3-digit and 4-digit problem-solving cards, dependent on their ability level. 

Level 1/2 have loved getting together for 1/2 Sport on Thursdays before lunch time and exploring new subject areas like Science with Mrs Granger. 

We would like to thank you for your ongoing support and hope that you and your child/ren enjoy your curriculum day from home on Friday 18th February! 

The Level 1/2 Team: 

Daena Hailey, Llinos Poole, Mykaela Oakley, Kayla Hartrick and Tim Wilson. 

Level 3/4 News

It has been a busy start to the year with lots of learning happening in Level 3/4!

Students have set up their book boxes in Reading and have been enjoying a variety of texts over the past few weeks as we build up our reading stamina. We have been learning about various reading strategies, with a focus on narratives, including visualising and making connections - to self, other texts and the world.

In Writing we have been learning about narratives and their features. We have used our Writer's Notebooks to brainstorm superhero characters and favourite places that could be used as settings. Students have also reflected about themselves as writers, their strengths and their goals for the term.

We have introduced Smart Spelling this year and the students have been working hard to practise and learn their chosen words based on our sound focus each week - so far we have looked at 'er' as in fern, 'ge' as in cage and 'y' making the 'e' sound as in pony.

Maths has been all about Place Value recently, with lots of learning using numbers up to and beyond 1000. We have explored different ways of representing these numbers, both in expanded and contracted form. We have also started to look at rounding, to the nearest ten, hundred and thousand.

In Inquiry, we have been looking at the communities of the First Peoples of Australia and the first European Settlers, including those of the First Fleet. We have been comparing the differences between cultures and building a glossary of definitions to enhance our understanding.

We are learning about biology in Science this term and have started to look at the specific criteria to classify things as living or non-living. Students have enjoyed being able to get outside and do fieldwork to identify items that belong to each category.

Students are loving being back and we have been so impressed with how they have approached their learning over the last few weeks. Keep up the great work, everyone!

Kind regards,

The Level 3/4 Team

Carolyn Allan, Damien Smith, Rachel Boyle, Katie Smith & Hayley Peirce

Level 5/6 News

Two weeks ago all the students returned to school. Lots of the the level 5/6’s were probably most exited for our new 5/6 Sport teams this term! We had a choice between volleyball, softball, cricket and tennis for our summer sports. Every Thursday the 5/6’s get together to practise the sport that they have chosen for inter school sports. We have loved this!

As well as the 5/6s having fun with our sports the preps are also very excited for their new PMP. Every Friday the preps join Mrs Layton in the gym. Mrs Layton gets one student from each 5/6 class to help with the preps and their activities. The preps learn hand eye coordination, balancing and lots more. During PMP the preps and 5/6’s have a blast. Every 5/6 student will get a turn to help which is awesome. 

When we returned to school there were lots of new things. One of our newest things is the new science room. So far, we have had two lessons, and we can already tell that it’s going to be another great Specialist. We got to learn about different biomes and what unique animals live in them. 

By Jazz and Ryley, Grade 6 students 

On behalf of the Level 5/6 students and teachers 

Thank you to the parents who attended our Level 5/6 Info Night this week, we have posted the presentation to Compass for those who were unable to attend. 

The Level 5/6 Team

Brendan Van Haaster, Claire Cripps, Clare McCandlish and Teagan Cairns