Lighthouse Fives
In the Lighthouse
The first six weeks of the school year really have flown by in the Lighthouse! The Lighthouse Keepers have been super busy getting to know each other, their new surroundings as well as how we organise ourselves at school.
We started the year by making our Essential Agreement. An essential agreement is a set of guidelines that we all agree to, which will help us to feel happy and safe and ready to learn whilst we are at Preshil. A highlight of our discussion when making our essential agreement was the need to care for the land our school is on, by being responsible for our rubbish, "because the land our school is on is Aboriginal land". We also spoke about the fact that this land doesn’t belong to any of us, we are merely custodians.
The Lighthouse children have commenced their first Unit of Inquiry for the year. Our Unit of Inquiry will fall under the transdisciplinary theme of Who We Are, and the central idea that will focus our inquiry will be, relationships can define a space and help to shape who we are. The lines of inquiry we will investigate are: relationships are all around us, families share similarities and differences and the characteristics of a good friend. The key concepts we will be exploring throughout this inquiry will be connection and perspective and the learner profile attributes that we will zoom in on will be communication and being caring.
We started our inquiry by looking at what it means to be caring. To start with we read the story, Have you Filled a Bucket Today? The story explained that everyone carries an invisible bucket with them all of the time, and the bucket is full of good thoughts and good feelings about yourself. When you are caring towards others, then this will help to fill their bucket and keep them happy. However, if we make someone feel bad through our words or actions, this not only empties their bucket, but yours as well.
We discussed the simple, caring things we can do to help fill others buckets and also tried to identify during the day when someone did something that helped to fill our buckets. With a partner, the children created plays that demonstrated how we can fill or empty other people’s buckets.
The children have also started to explore the complex web of relationships that they have in their lives and how these relationships are connected. Stay tuned on Seesaw for more updates with our inquiry!
During literacy time, The Lighthouse children have been using the sounds s, a, t, p, i and n. We have practised saying the sounds and identifying words that start with these sounds. We have also started blending the sounds together in order to make words, wowzers! We also had a go at applying our knowledge of these sounds using the online phonics game, Nessy.
During maths time, the children have been exploring the numbers up to 10. We have not only been identifying and forming the numbers, but we have also been exploring how those numbers are made. For example, we discovered that 5 = 2 + 3 or 4 + 1 or 5 + 0. We have also started to explore addition and some of the different methods we can use to add numbers together. So far we have practised using counters and number lines to help us add numbers.
Mindfulness is an important part of our daily schedule in the Lighthouse. We make time each day to slow down and focus on the here and now by concentrating on our breathing. So far we have practised starfish breathing, butterfly breathing, balloon belly breathing and wood cutter breathing.
Bush school has been a very popular part of our curriculum in Term 1. We have been doing Bush School in The Pines area of the school with the Kinder children, which is always commenced with an Acknowledgement of Country. During Bush School, the children have been very busy engaging with nature in all manner of ways. From bug hunting to tree climbing to rock climbing and heavy lifting, all the children have been able to manage their own time independently in the great outdoors. As the weather has cooled down, we have also started to enjoy campfires during this time.
It has been a great start to the year for the Lighthouse children and we are looking forward to the year ahead!
Clinton Morgan
Fives Classroom Teacher