Teaching and Learning
MARC News from Mrs Gentry
This week in our MARC lesson we read two shortlisted books.
Amira’s suitcase is a beautiful story about growing friendships, symbolised by seeds growing in a suitcase. The students created their own mini gardens.
What Do You Call Your Grandma? celebrates all the different ways we say Grandma.
‘In every country around the world are grandmas short and tall. Though they go by different names, we love them one and all.’
Raywood CBCA Book Week 2022
Thursday 1st September
We will be celebrating Book Week this year with a dress-up parade followed by a range of activities based on some of the short-listed books. Dig through the dress-up box to find something fun to wear!
P-3 News from Mrs Lightburn
Apart from sickness taking hold in our class, we have been continuing with our community studies. We have looked at the states of Australia, especially Victoria, and found the main places on the map (including Raywood).
We are now looking at the Aboriginal Dreamtime stories in particular Tiddalick the Greedy Frog and How the Turtle got its Shell. We are also going to design a map using Aboriginal Art Symbols.
We are nearly finished with our Fractions unit in Maths and moving on to data and graphs next week.
The kids had lots of fun at Kelly Sports last Friday learning all the skills in Athletics.
Finally it was good to get to open the Raywood Station and to see everyone there to help celebrate.
Year 4-6 News from Mr Collins
A very warm welcome to Mr Jackson. The Year 4-6 class are so very fortunate to be joined by a pre-service teacher, Mr Barkley Jackson. Mr Jackson is currently in his final year of studying Primary Teaching at LaTrobe, Bendigo and has joined us until the end of term. Mr Jackson will be mentored by Mr Collins as he plans, teaches and assesses students across different areas of our school curriculum. Sometimes Mr Jackson may take a small group and other times he may work with the entire class- all with the support and guidance from Mr Collins. It is always great when our teachers and students can be a part of this process and we benefit too from having a fresh face around the place with some new and innovative ways of doing things.
The students have been extremely busy piecing together a rather large and impressive map of the world. This is part of their studies on countries, continents and regions and their place in relation to Australia. Over the coming weeks, students will continue to add oceans, seas, the wonders of the world time-zones, currencies and other pertinent information to their map. This is hands-on learning in action!
Students have also been busy learning about and trialling different methods for solving multiplication problems. By learning that there are multiple ways to solve these problems, students can then choose the most efficient method for the purpose.
Last week the Year 4-6 students begun studying a mentor text "Took The Children Away" by the late, great, Archie Roach. This text has rich language and a very powerful message and we have been using it to learn new vocabulary, look at author's purpose and motivation, connect to to the messages and content as well as reflect upon a dark, yet significant part of Australia's history.
News from Miss Coffey
Grade 4 Maths
Over the last two weeks, we have been looking at ‘Money’ concepts (including counting money amounts under $10.00, calculating change from $5 and $10 amounts and making amounts of money in the least number coins etc.). We have also continued our work with ‘Time’ concepts, revisiting telling the time to the nearest 5 minutes on the ‘past side’ e.g. 12.25 is the same as 25 minutes past 12 or 1.15 is the same at quarter past 1, and learning to tell the time on the ‘to side’ e.g. 5.35 is the same as 25 minutes to 6 or 9.55 is the same as 5 minutes to 10. Any extra work you could do with your child with these concepts, especially telling the time on the ‘to side’ using both a digital clock and an analogue clock (a clock with hands), would be greatly appreciated and very beneficial in helping help them master this often tricky concept.
Drama
The fun has continued in weeks 3, 4 and 5, with students participating in a variety of different drama related activities. We have focussed on acting/miming out scenarios such as, ‘imagine you are a chatty hairdresser cutting someone’s hair’, or ‘imagine you’re walking a very strong dog who’s on a lead.’ etc.
We have also begun to look at acting out some simple fairy tales including Goldilocks and the Three Bears, The Three Billy Goats Gruff and The Gingerbread Man, with an emphasis on our body language and movements, our facial expressions and use of voice to try to become the character we’re playing.
Outdoor Education
It was harvesting season at Raywood Primary School last week. The students were very excited to pick their home grown veggies and be able to bring some home. We have planted some more seedlings and also have some "summer crop" seedlings on order (they are generously donated to us by the Community Plants Program (Us2You). Our students are learning so much about what plants need to grow, how vegetables grow, plant parts, photosynthesis as well as having the joy of seeing your hard work and patience give rewards.
Responsible Pet Ownership
In recent weeks we were visited by Tracy McLellan from the Responsible Pet Ownership Program and her dog, Izzy. Students were provided with a presentation that taught them about the considerations of owning a pet, how to choose a pet, how to take care of a pet and also how to act around dogs. Students practiced how to approach an unknown dog and ask the owner if they can pat it and learnt what to do if a dog is scared, angry or injured.