Year Three - Spotlight on Learning

Dear Families,

Students began the week with the excursion to see the performance "Waru - Journey of the Small Turtle’’ at Bunjil Place. Students were excited to be part of this special event, experiencing live theatre and all the elements that this holds, as well as understanding more about Dance, Drama and Music which they had been studying last term. This performance was presented by the highly acclaimed Bangarra Dance Theatre Company. Students were able to participate in actions and music responses with the cast of this play. They learnt some words that were native to the Pacific Islanders where the story is set. As an art activity and reflection, materials and instructions have been sent home today, where families and their children are invited to use the yarn to create. There is a PDF that has been sent home that includes the performance program that will include more detailed information about Waru. A big thank you to our wonderful helpers who came with us on this excursion, and helped supervise and look after our students on the buses and at Bunjil Place. And also congratulations to all of the Year 3 Ephesus students who were great ambassadors of St Thomas the Apostle School in the way they presented themselves. Below are some photographs of our students enjoying the performance and experience of viewing 'Waru - Journey of the Small Turtle' and going to Bunjil Place.

Another congratulations and thankyou to all families and students for having their hats at school and wearing them at recess times and at sport - great to see everyone is being sun smart at this time of year.

Our Learning Focus for Week 2

Mathematics:  In Maths, students have been continuing their learning about multiplication and division, identifying which to use when solving word problems, and looking at how these could be solved using their knowledge of fact families when related to these two operations. This unit concluded with students working through a rich task entitled ‘The Fruit Salad Problem’, enabling students to think creatively and use a variety of skills and strategies in multiplication and division.

English:  For English students have been writing information about the main character, Ivan the Gorilla,  from the novel ‘The One and Only Ivan’. Ivan is a gorilla who has been in captivity for many years, and only knows his surroundings in the circus and nothing about his early years in the jungle. Using this novel as inspiration, students are also learning about how to write a persuasive letter on the topic, ‘There should be a national ban on using wild animals in circuses’, starting with how to create a topic sentence to present their views and beliefs.

Religious Education:   Our Religion topic for  Term 4 is ‘The Bible’. This week we have studied the word ‘covenant’ and how this word appears many times in the Bible. Students have explored that ‘covenant’ means a promise between God and his people. They were then able to learn about some of the  people God made a covenant with - Noah, Moses and Abraham, and how these stories are in the Old Testament section of the Bible. Students also learnt that the Bible has been written by many different authors who were inspired by God.

Integrated Studies:   Continuing on from last week, students have been rehearsing the plays given out to groups at the end of Term 3. They were able to present their plays and performances in front of their classes and record these onto Seesaw. After each performance students were asked to reflect on what they had seen, writing about which students had performed and what they liked about the performance. Some students then went on to create a poster in the form of a brochure, demonstrating what they learnt about Dance, Drama and Music.

Auslan:   In Unit 7B,  students have learnt that signers can describe objects by using SASS signs - size and shape specifiers. In particular the objects students learnt to sign were  different pets like dogs, cats, fish, rabbits and birds. They have continued to consolidate previous learnings by adding the colours they learnt last week to describe these pets.

Reminders

Monday 4th November - School Closure Day

Tuesday 5th November - PUBLIC HOLIDAY - School Closure Day