What's happening?
Foundation
WOW… Just like that, we are already halfway through the term! We are so amazed to see the lovely Foundation students so settled into life at school. We have now finished learning the letters ‘SATPIN,’ please check your child’s satchel, as wordlists and sound packs have gone home. Wordlists aim to build confidence in letter/sound knowledge and decoding words before children start reading. Soundpacks are a great way to practice the sounds we have explicitly taught, which students can use to consolidate letter/sound recognition and build, create, and decode words. Sounding out and blending to read words is also referred to as ‘decoding’. Inside the satchel you will also find your child’s sound pack, please see Seesaw for more information.
Decodable books will be sent home each week. All students are now on wordlists and will be on decodable books by March 12th. Class teachers will conference with each student at least once a fortnight during the first 15 minutes of the day. Readers are changed once a week, please remember to record all books in the yellow reading log. We encourage you to have your child reread their books several times to assist with fluency, comprehension, and importantly confidence. Additional helpful hints will be in their readers and videos uploaded to Seesaw.
Last week the Grade 6 Buddies organised a Pirate Treasure Hunt! Our students loved making a pirate hat and then following the map to their treasure. We are continuing to learn more about our ‘Super Six’ values and how to make strong choices in the classroom.
Next week we begin our fluid Maths groups based on our Wednesday assessment. We know the students will do an amazing job in their group and continue to have their needs supported.
A reminder that Foundation students will attend full-time from Monday 4th March.
Grade 1
Grade 1’s have been writing wonderful descriptive sentences about family and toys this week and next week will be focusing on what makes a good recount.
Our parent helper reading program has begun and it’s wonderful to see the students enthusiastic to read with parents.
In Maths this week the students have been learning about addition, committing basic number facts to memory using a part-part whole approach and the language of “and, make” for adding the two numbers together, e.g. 2 and 3 make 5. We continue with addition next week.
At home we hope the students have been getting into the habit of reading their take home readers each night, as well as practising their sound pack and Red Flag word list. Please note that in their homework book this week will be two new sheets. One explaining some ideas for Maths fluency practice at home and our first Word study practise page, which will hopefully give families an incite into this weeks word study focus of VC-e / Silent e syllables. We hope that your child will be able to teach you all about the important job of the silent e! If you have any questions surrounding these pages, please contact your child’s teacher.
Grade 2
We’d like to congratulate our Grade 2 students on their terrific effort and behaviour during their swimming lessons this week and thank parents for your support with the program.
In Writing, students have begun to explore the features and structure of Information Reports. They were busy last week researching an animal and this week have been writing their information reports with the inclusion of a title, subheadings, descriptive paragraphs and a conclusion.
As part of our ‘Word Study’, we have been focusing on decoding strategies and dividing words into syllables to support reading and spelling. Students have also been learning to apply their knowledge from our ‘Syntax Project’ lessons to edit their sentences for accurate punctuation, as well as correctly identifying proper common nouns and capitalise proper nouns.
In Maths, we have been revising the features of 2D shapes. Your child may move between teachers for Maths throughout the year depending on their assessment results for each topic. This ensures they are working in a group that best fits their needs for each topic.
As part of our Inquiry topic, ‘Animals and their Habitats’, students have been learning more about animal adaptations and how these help them survive in their habitat.
Our students are now set up with a homework folder that ‘lives’ in their reader bag (so it can go between home and school each day). As per the Grade 2 Information Book, homework expectations include: regular reading aloud and ‘Red Flag Word’ spelling. Students also have access to ‘Nessy Reading and Spelling’ (instructions are in blue homework folders) and ‘Sunset/Jetpack Maths’ (using the Essential Assessment code stuck inside hard reader covers) if they are looking for something more.
Grade 3
Reading/Inquiry: This fortnight, students have been learning all about Earth’s natural resources, developing their knowledge and vocabulary in relation to the following important concepts: fossil fuels (coal, oil, gas), alternative energy sources (solar, wind), renewable versus non-renewable, deforestation, and sustainability. We have also focused on the reading strategies of visualising and questioning (before, during and after reading) to help better understand the text.
Reminder: Please encourage your child to read daily for a minimum of 15-20 minutes and help them to record this in their diary (parent to sign at the end of the week). Diaries are checked by their classroom teacher every Friday and house points are given.
Writing: Students are currently building their skills with persuasive writing, focusing on structure, and presenting quality arguments backed up with supporting details to support their opinions. In our grammar and syntax lessons, we have explored the different types of sentences and practised writing statement, command, question, and exclamation sentences with the correct punctuation. In our spelling lessons, we have looked at the graphemes 'ar’, ‘or’ and ‘er’, as well as r-controlled syllables and the syllable division pattern vccv.
Maths: Students have been using their number and place value knowledge this fortnight when solving addition problems and are continuing to build fluency with the ‘hundred basic facts’, consolidating strategies such as counting on, doubles and near doubles, and bridging to a ten. They are also learning about the split and jump strategies, and further developing their understanding of vertical algorithms (with regrouping).
Wellbeing: As part of our focus on student wellbeing and social skills, we revisited the ‘Zones of Regulation’ which support students in developing strategies to help self-regulate behaviours, emotions and sensory needs. Students are also learning about ‘Kids Rights and No-Go-Tell’ which guides students through the process of asking for help in difficult situations.
NAPLAN: Grade 3 students will have a session next week to familiarise them with the NAPLAN online platform. Information regarding dates and headphones has been posted to Compass.
Grade 4
We can’t believe we are almost half way through Term 1. This year is already flying by! The students have begun their one week swimming program at Mentone. We are so far impressed with the organisation, speed and respect the students are displaying at the pool.
Students have also completed their ‘Passion Project’ presentations and we were blown away with the effort and preparation that they were able to display to their peers. Well done to all Grade 4s!
Literacy: Information reports are our focus this term. Students have completed a cold write which has highlighted the areas in which we are going focus on with them. We are looking forward to researching explorers, creating structurally organised and engaging information reports this term.
Numeracy: Our measurement topic of ‘Location and Transformation’ has been our focus. Using the mathematical language of translate, rotate and reflect, students are able to manipulate objects and shapes and plot points and references on grid maps. Our next topic will be ‘Addition’.
Reminders: Please ensure your child is bringing their diary with them each day, and recording their reading each night. Students can also complete ‘Splash Learn’ Maths tasks at home using their unique log in code. We encourage any quick multiplication facts.
Grade 5
Maths: Throughout our Maths sessions this week we have continued our unit on addition and subtraction. Our focus has been on rounding, estimating and applying our skills to real life situations.
Writing: This week in Writing we have been learning about the features of a persuasive text. We are looking at examples of persuasive writing and developing ‘for’ and ‘against’ arguments for a variety of topics. Throughout the next few weeks, students will be learning how to back up their arguments with supporting evidence to persuade their reader.
Reading: In reading this week we have continued to develop our inferring, questioning, predicting, clarifying and summarising skills. Our focus has been reading about energy transfer and transformation and answering questions about different non-fictions texts with detail.
Inquiry: During Inquiry this week we continued our ‘Why is it so?’ unit with a focus on results and data. We conducted the ‘Skittle Diffusion’ experiment where we collected and analysed observational data and wrote the scientific method about the experiment.
Reminders:
The Grade 5’s are looking forward to their exciting excursion to Mordialloc beach for their beach program tomorrow. Please make sure your child has packed the following in their school bag or a backpack:
- Snack, fruit, lunch and drink bottle (water only)
- Rash vest OR old T-shirt, sunscreen and school hat
- Towel and a change of underwear
Students are to wear their bathers under their school or sports uniform and have sunscreen applied when they come to school.
Grade 6
Literacy
The Grade 6 students are well into our novel study of Treasure Island. Over the last couple of weeks, have been looking closely at how the use of figurative and descriptive language helps create a memorable plot and interesting characters. Students have also been learning about the use the relative pronouns who, whom, and whose correctly in sentences as well as practicing using words with the root ‘bio’ in sentences.
Writing
We have completed our focus on descriptive writing with students demonstrating an improved understanding of the structure and the increased use of adverbs, adjectives, technical language and figurative language. The students completed a written piece of their choice on Wakanda, Atlantis or The Shire picture prompts. Our next focus will be on persuasive writing, which will also link in well our government inquiry topic.
Grammar
Or grammar focus is identifying speaking verbs and use them to convey the speakers’ tone, thoughts and feelings.
Mathematics
In Mathematics, students have been consolidating and developing their understanding and application of the four operations. Our next topic will be decimals and percentages. Our Friday sessions are focusing on Bar Models as a strategy to solve worded problems.
Inquiry
The Grade 6 classes have continued working on their ‘Political Power’ theme covering our nation’s system of government. The last few weeks we have focused particularly on the House of Representatives and the Senate as well as their functions. We have also looked at the three levels of government and their respective responsibilities in more detail.
Interschool Sport
The Grade 6 students are enjoying the opportunity to play interschool sport and had their first away game a few weeks ago playing against St. Patricks and against St. Brigid's last week. The focus of interschool sport is on having fun, participating and good sportsmanship. They are doing a great job of representing our school and making the most of this opportunity.
Beach Program
Grade 6 participated in the Beach program this week, which gave them the opportunity to discovery and participate in various beach lifesaving activities. The program also incorporates some beach safety, such as how to recognise rips and the importance of swimming between the flags.