Round the classes 

Reception class: Jess

Well, that’s rap!!

Our big receptions have made it through half a year of schooling. We are just short of 100 days of Reception, but don’t worry we will celebrate our 100 days of school next term. 

These incredible people have developed and grown so much in the short amount of time they have been at school. One of the key abilities these students have learnt so far is the ability to work in a team. Our class has worked extremely hard on team building. It is a vital skill to learn in life. There are several reasons why teamwork is so important for students in the classroom, here are a few 

• Enhances Learning
• Develops Communication Skills
• Builds Relationship
• Promotes Accountability
• Prepares for the Future.

The students have developed wonderful communication skills to support them to problem solve, and to talk to one another in a respectful manner. In doing so Students in our class have become more independent and not seeking adult help as offered as they are able to solve conflict and find reasoning all on their own. I could not be any prouder of these young people and how far they have come. 

The future is looking bright!! 

Reception class: Kelly

WOW! I can't believe we are in the last week of term 2! Where did that time go? 

We have finished our sounds for Unit 4 - v, x, y and z. It is pleasing watching the children attempt to write both three- and four-letter words using these sounds. I have been amazed with how excited the children are when copying and writing sentences both on the whiteboard and in their handwriting books. We are still working on our punctuation (capital letters and full-stops) and our finger spaces between each word.

In maths, we have continued working on part-part-whole to 5. We discovered that there are four ways to make 3, five ways to make 4 and six ways to make 5! We have continued working on forming our numbers correctly and seeing how fast we can subitise numbers to 6. 

For Health, we focused on the yellow zone - what do you look like when you are in the yellow zone? How do you feel? And discussed ways we can take care of ourselves when we are in the yellow zone.

This week the Reception classes and Sallie's year 5/6 class worked on a video about bravery. It was wonderful watching them collaborate together to get the video complete 

We were lucky to have the Kimochi's characters come and visit the school this Tuesday. It was great to see Bug come along and talk about brave - the children were able to discuss ways they have felt brave too.

Year 1 class: Jaya

The year 1 class have been really enjoying listening to our class novel, The BFG (Big Friendly Giant) by Roald Dahl. The text uses fabulous imagery and descriptive language, helping us to create wonderful artwork of the BFG. The best part of the story is the fabulous vocabulary and jumbled up words spoken by the BFG! Sometimes the BFG forgets English words and uses his very own version of a word (they are often very funny!). Can you guess what ‘Crocodowdillies’ and ‘Hippodumplings’ are? (Hint: they are found in a Zoo!) 

Our class absolutely loved spending some time working with the year 3 class and Stephen, making some short clips about what it means to be brave. It was wonderful to see the 2 classes supporting each other and coming up with some creative and thoughtful ideas. Here are a few of our ideas about bravery: 

Harvey: They were having a race, and someone tripped over, so we all had to be brave to help each other.

Jemima: If you want to jump of something high you need to be brave.

Pearl: You have to be brave when you are a bit shy, and you have to talk to someone.

 Marcela: When you get up on stage.

The year 1 class would like to farewell and sends their best wishes to Marcela and Quinn who are moving to different school's next term. It has been so lovely having them both in the class and they will be missed by everyone! 

Have a wonderful, relaxing, and safe school holidays everyone! 😊 

Year 2 class: Samantha

Year Two students have had an exciting time collaborating with Alex’s Year 4/5 class on our ‘Bravery Videos’ project. The students discussed various ways to demonstrate bravery at school, such as being an up-stander, resisting peer pressure, and believing in oneself.

In math, we continue to explore the role of fractions in our daily lives, including in sports. We examined different sports and divided the total match time into halves and quarters. Using a bar model, we tackled several word problems, enhancing our understanding of fractions in a fun and practical way.

This week, Troy introduced us to Bond Blocks, an evidence-based system designed to develop counting and calculating skills. We learned how to use the equipment safely and how to care for the Bond Blocks kits. We're excited to start using them in Term 3!

In Week 9, our latest persuasive Big Write topic was ‘Should we get a class pet?’. Our enthusiastic Year Two authors presented excellent reasons for or against getting a class pet. Will they manage to persuade their teacher, Sam? Scan the QR codes to read and listen to some of our writing below.

Year 3 class: Stephen and Troy

We have enjoyed our collaboration with Jaya’s year 1 students, making short videos on our iPads to show our understanding of what it means to be brave.

We decided that being brave means trying new things like a sporting activity, getting up again when taking a stumble and sticking up for our friends when they need our help.  Our teaming up with the year 1 students was equally a lesson in helping our younger peers to learn how to use the iPad apps to make interesting clips.

Year 4/5 class: Alex

This fortnight students have been focused collaborators on the Kids in Space project. Teams have been honing their collaboration skills and showing a lot more cohesion in their groups toward the end of the project. They became better at delegating roles so that different components could be worked on simultaneously. After working through all 5 steps of their design process, students have been making final improvements to their prototypes and 3D printing their models. Students thoroughly enjoyed creating posters to visually capture their design process for the Family Showcase on Wednesday night this week. Students thought about questions adults might ask them and wrote ideas for how they might respond with clarity and detail. On the night students were proud to share their journey and designs. Congratulations to all students for their efforts in this project. 

Year 5/6 class: Sallie

As you can imagine a major part of our learning this fortnight has been preparing for our parent showcase for Kids in Space. Corinne has been instrumental in helping with the 3D printing and helping us understand the best way to improve our designs to print successfully. We had a very successful night with high attendance by parents and students. Such great feedback from everyone. 

Another highlight for our class was working with Jess and Kelly's class working on our "bravery" videos. So much fun and interesting to see how the students connected with this concept. 

 In other learning areas, we have continued our work on decimals in maths and have enjoyed unpacking the novel Onion Tears (English and HASS).

Kids in Space Parent Showcase

What a great event we had in the gym Tuesday night! Students from our class (and Alex's class) presented their creative creations. The aim was to design something that would help the astronauts in the international space station move into or remain into the "green zone".  I was so impressed with the creative ideas and ingenious ways students solved problems.  Although everyone did really well, and we witnessed many fun and creative ideas - those that met the criteria the most and were selected to represent the class and school at the convention centre were: 

Ila, Nilah, and Lena

Innes, Ben and Oscar, 

Chloe, Kayla and Ivy

Congratulations! They will be representing us at the Convention Centre on the 24th of July (along with representatives from Alex's class).  

Indonesian: Ibu Susan

In Indonesian the younger students read the story Ronald the Rhino and learnt about Javan rhinos. They also watched a documentary about Birds of Paradise and saw their beautiful tropical habitat in West Papua. The older students have been looking at tropical forests around the world, including the significant forests found in Indonesia. 

PE: Troy

This week students started learning about tee ball. They got to test out our new equipment and focused on the development of their fundamental movement skills. They spent lots of time wearing gloves which many found quite different to wear. We look forward to turning these skills into some game-based learning next term.  - Troy

This fortnight in PE we practised catching with baseball gloves and throwing with baseballs. Students enjoyed squeezing their little fingers into these large looking gloves and positioning them ready for receiving the ball! We focused on keeping our eye on the ball and following through with our throws, finishing with extended arms. Students enjoyed incorporating these skills within inclusive games and relays. - Emma

Science: Philippa

We have been completing our Space and Physical Sciences programs for the term. Next term we move on to biology!

Jaya's class  enjoyed making and testing plasticine boats to finish off their 'push and pull' unit.

Sam's class  learnt about sound. A student is demonstrating how to spin a balloon so the metal nut that spins inside will make a whirring sound.

Sallie's class  learnt about the purpose of artificial satellites and did drawings of them.

Gardening: Jo

The 4/5 students finished the term with creating insects and bugs with food to consolidate their leaning about insect classification. To be able to answer the question are all insect bugs or are all bugs insects?