Learning Update

The following learning updates were provided at our recent Governing Council meeting.

Preschool

In Preschool, our children have enjoyed engaging with the fruit and veg shop in our home corner. We have been learning about money (coins and notes) because many of our children mostly see their parents purchasing items with bank cards or credit cards. The children who were able to attend the Father’s Day Stall enjoyed transferring this knowledge to exchanging their “Modbury Dollars” for gifts for their special person. We are shifting the focus in the home corner to a Healthy Eating Cafe, introducing aspects such as reading a menu, ordering food, preparing the order and serving the meal.

We have been busy celebrating birthdays, Father’s Day, Early Childhood Educators Day and other personal achievements. We were very excited to celebrate one of our families who recently became Australian Citizens. It is always a privilege to share the things that are important to our children, as well as their families.

The preschool educators have recently taken further training in Berry St and  Music Education to support the children’s wellbeing and learning at Preschool.

Early Years (Rooms 6,7 and 8)

It has been a busy term in Room 6 and 7! We would like to congratulate all of the Year 1 students on their FANTASTIC Phonics Screening data. We have welcomed some new students to our classes and it has been lovely seeing them make meaningful connections with their peers and develop a sense of belonging at Modbury School. In mathematics we have been working to consolidate our understanding of measurement concepts. It has been fun working with an inquisitive mind to explore our environment. In English we have been exploring different picture books and narrative text structures in our text-based units, working on developing a wide range of reading and writing skills which support our powerful engagement and learning. We are looking forward to Sports Day and a sunny end to Term 3! 

In room 8 students have been working on Set 1, 2 and 3 Read Write Inc sounds and working on using “Fred Fingers” to successfully decode words. We have been also practicing “speedy words” to gain fluency in reading with We focus on a new sound each day so that students successfully cover all the phonemes and graphemes within the program. Congratulations to the Year 1’s on achieving outstanding results in their Phonics Screening Assessment .

Primary Years (Rooms 9, 11, 12 and 14)

Room 9

In English, we have learnt about procedure texts and have just moved into looking at the purpose, structure and language used in report writing.  Our spelling program continues to be successful, with students showing excellent results in their progress assessments. In mathematics, we have covered the topic of fractions and we are now focussing on measurement. In technology, we are learning to code through creating algorithms and in visual arts we have creating our own pointalism designs.  In Science, we have been visiting the garden each fortnight and most recently observed the school’s worm garden, discussing what food can be composted and this process creates nutrients for plants. 

Room 11

Students in Room 11 are enjoying working on their animal information reports - searching websites, critically thinking about the content and selecting key words to write sentences to produce their own reports. 

In Mathematics the focus is statistics - colllecting, representing and analysing data and working on time problem solving.

Our Technology RAA showcase is nearly here - Friday 13th September. Four groups (12 year 4 and 12 year 5 students) have been selected to share their problem solving process and 3D models to make our students safer road users. In Week 10 all of the students in Rooms 11 and 12 will showcase their learning and designs with the whole school and community.

Room 12 & 14:

Mathematics: We have been consolidating our understanding and fluency with number and fractions. Students have learned to order and represent fractions, how to convert between improper fractions and mixed numbers and how to perform the four operations with fractions. We have connected this learning with decimal and percentage representations. 

English: We have consolidated our understanding of the text structure of information report writing. Students have practiced the skill of paraphrasing which is a helpful skill when collecting research from a range of sources. Students will demonstrate their understanding of information report writing through their science inquiry project where students research a planet in the solar system and explain how it could hypothetically be colonised by humans in the future. 

Primary Special Class (Room 10)

The students in Room 10 have consolidated their independent work skills, using visual schedules to complete multiple set tasks without adult support.

Students independently follow the familiar morning routine and literacy tasks, moving from one task to the next without the need for adult assistance.

Students are excited to have fortnightly garden lessons. Ms Dila has amazing scientific facts and knowledge that engages the students with the science behind the growing and caring for plants.  

Specialist Subjects

PE with Mr Isaac 

The reception - year 2 classes have focused on Fundamental Movement Skills (FMS). Through the first half of term 3. They have focused on Throwing, both overarm and underarm, Dribbling with their feet, Catching, Bouncing, Dodging and Kicking, both AFL and Soccer style. We have done this through a range of different games and activities with a different FMS focus for each week. 

The year 3-6 students have focused on Netball for the first half of the term. This included shooting, passing, the rules, the movement and the game sense. The years 3-6 students participated in mini games with netball focus; this included running and passing drills and games, and shooting mini games.

In the second half of the term, all classes will be focusing on all things Sports Day. This includes a brand new Health Hustle (which is like a warm up all students will do in their colours on the morning of Sports Day), practicing the new Sports Day chants, and doing all of the sports day events in their PE lessons in order for everyone to know how each activity on Sports Day is run. This includes sprints, hurdles, high jump and other tabloid events for the years 3-6 students, and the Fundamental Movement Skills activities for our Preschool - year 2 students. 

The Arts with Mrs A

This term we have been focusing on Drama and incorporating music through Drama.

Reception/Year 1

Students will be focusing on Drama through storytelling, looking at characters, emotions, and what makes a good character.

Year 1/ 2

The students will be focusing on Drama through story books and storytelling, doing a variety of activities, looking at characters, emotions, and what makes a good character.

Year 2/3

Using the elements of drama, students will engage in dramatic play to construct fictional situations. They will learn to bring these situations to life through body language, facial expressions, and mime, communicating ideas and emotions with purpose and impact.

Year 4/5/6

Welcome to Modbury’s Olympics, this term we will be incorporating Drama, Music and Movement (their learning into the activities). Students will learn about the Olympics, work together to complete tasks as a group/country (examples, bucket rhymes, Dramatic drama, Dancing beats, memory mind etc)

Japanese with Fox Sensei

R-3 Students are coming to the end of our unit on the Japanese Hungry Catepillar, they have been learning about the days of the week in Japanese and more recently Japanese numbers; building their ability to recognise the kanji characters used to symbolise this vocabulary. Students this week are putting this vocab into a sentence of DAY ni FRUIT o tabemashta - On (this) DAY I ate (this) FRUIT. Eg. On Wednesday I ate a strawberry. Suiyoubi ni ichigo o tabemashta.

Yrs 4-6 have been reviewing their vocabulary of fruit names, days of the week and the counter word for things(number plus tsu and learning about the sentence DAY ni  FRUIT HOW MANY o tabemashta. I ate HOW MANY FRUIT on DAY. E.g. On Monday I ate 5 oranges. Getsuyoubi ni orenji itsutsu o tabemashita. They will be using this sentence to write their own version of the Hungry Catepillar in Japanese over the coming weeks.

Some of the Year 5/6s have been chosen to represent the school in the North East District Schools Hiragana Competition on Thursday the 12th of September.

EALD with Mrs Young

Rm 6, 7, and 8 - Genre: Narrative

We have been focusing on descriptions of key characters and setting in the narrative genre by adding details before the key nouns.  Following the teaching and learning cycle, we deconstructed modelled text to learn how language is used to describe characters.  We have started on joint construction of writing a story together with language focusing on descriptions of characters and settings. 

Rm 9 - Genre: Information Report

We have been focusing on the purposes, structures and language features of the information report genre. 

Rm 11, 12, & 14 - Genre: Information Report

We have been focusing on developing knowledge and skills on paraphrasing.  The learning goals are to be able to identify and utilise credible sources of information, identifying key information and summarising.  We have looked at a few examples of modelled texts of information report and discussed language features such as title, subtitle, particular types of processes used in the genre, and topic sentences.  We are up to the joint construction stage of the information report and writing as a whole class.