Ulysses Community Report

Term 3, 2022

Dear Ulysses Families, 

It has been a fantastic finish to the term full of outstanding learning within the Ulysses Community. Our students have been busily working on their reading, writing, numeracy, inquiry and S.E.L. skills. The students have produced incredible work to demonstrate their understanding of these topics and should be extremely proud of their efforts.

Our Learning

Reading

Within Reading, we have been learning about the purpose, structure and features of a persuasive text. Persuasive texts are a way of learning how to persuade someone about our opinion. In Persuasive text students learnt about giving opinion on a topic, finding for and against arguments in the text. Students got the opportuning to give their opinion by agreeing or disagreeing with the topic. We read the book,” I wanna new room.” and students identified the arguments given by Alex and Dad, how Alex tried to convince his parents about getting a new room. Students learnt that the use of  strong emotive language helps to persuade the reader.

 The Ulysses community has continued to work on reading ‘just right’ books from the community library, whilst building our reading stamina. They worked in small groups for guided reading.

Writing

In Term 3, the students in the Ulysses community have been working on information reports and persuasive writing. We were learning about persuasive text, about its purpose and structure. We also were learning about how to use strong emotive language to be more effective in our convincing of the audience. The students had their own choice of topic they wanted to write about, so some of the topics were: Whales are the cutest mammals, Summer is the best season of the year, Dogs are the best pets and Children should pick their own bedtime. They all were very excited and passionate to share their opinions about their topics.

Maths

In Term 3, the Ulysses community has been learning about measuring and comparing length, capacity and mass of different objects. They were given opportunities to use different informal units to measure length and mass of objects in the community. They were able to estimate the mass of objects using hefting and use scale balance to compare mass of two objects. Students were developing their multiplication and division understanding using different strategies such as fair sharing in 2, 3, and 5 groups, then learning about groups of, representing arrays for multiplication and division, repeated addition and subtraction, solving worded problems involving multiplication and division, using number lines to represent multiplicative thinking supported by using materials. 

Here are some students’ work samples:

SEL 

In Social and Emotional Literacy (SEL), students have been exploring different ways to care for themselves, others, their school and their learning as these are our school values.  This term we explored our personal strengths and how to be proud of who we are as a unique individual. Students were encouraged to maintain a positive attitude and have a go at things that are difficult. They had the opportunity to explore different strategies to solve problems and were focusing on making good choices during learning time and outside play time. Students thrived in their learning environment and had extreme enjoyment sharing with their fellow peers their personal strengths both inside the classroom, outside and in their home environments. All students should be so proud of what they have accomplished this term.

Inquiry

In term 3 the Ulysses community has been learning about  the significance of Water. Students had the opportunity to discover where water comes from and why it is important in our daily lives. Students also had a fantastic opportunity to take part in an interactive school incursion from Yarra Valley water, where they met Welly, Wavy, Washy and Wade and they taught them ways to save water in their school and household. 

Students took part in a water audit where we went for a walk around the school and located all the water points and potentially what part of the school was using the majority of the water supply. Students then took home a water audit sheet, took note about where in their house they use water the most. With their new found wealth of knowledge we came back together with all our household water audits and co-created a pictograph and discovered that the kitchen and the bathroom are our main source of water usage. Collectively we discussed ways that we could decrease the water usage in our homes. The students came up with some brilliant ideas.

As a Community we discussed the best ways to advertise to our school the importance of water conservation. We again, did a pictograph of the different methods of communication such as: a song over the bell, video to email to the communities etc. We decided to create posters and put them up around the school. Students also made a speech to say over the speakers to inform all students about water conservation and to look out for our posters we created. The students were very proud of their efforts and were very successful in their learning. Students have displayed a fantastic knowledge of water conservation and the Ulysses Teachers are confident they can successfully share their new found knowledge with anyone. In the last week we will now reflect on our learning and discuss ways of improvement.

Important Notes to Remember

• Please make sure your child has a clearly labelled hat (preferable with a brim) as we are approaching the warmer weather. NO HAT NO PLAY.
• Please continue to label all of your child’s belongings.
• Bring clearly labelled water bottles to school every day.
• Please be aware that any toys or money given to children to bring to school is solely the child's responsibility
• Any pokemon cards that are brought to school and traded is the responsibility of the child 
• Please ensure your children are attending school as  ‘It is not ok to be away’. If child is away from school we need to be notified immediately, either by compass (note handed out with steps), calling the school on 8733 1000 or emailing your mentor teacher directly by compass.
• Please ensure your children arrive on time, as school begins promptly at 8.50am. 
  When they arrive late, they are missing out on valuable learning.

We are looking forward to working collaboratively with students and parents in Term 4. 

Ulysses Teachers,

Stacey, Gurmeet, Natalia and Amandeep.