Classroom News

Foundation: Mrs Fleming

Our Foundation students have made a fantastic start to the year, building their stamina and confidence as we launched our InitiaLit, Storybook and InitialWrite lessons. It has been wonderful to see their focus and enthusiasm as they engage in structured learning routines each day.

In InitiaLit, students have been exploring syllables and rhyming words through a range of hands-on and interactive activities. They have enjoyed tapping out the syllables in their names, sorting pictures by syllable groups, and matching rhyming pairs — all while strengthening their early phonological awareness skills.

As a class, we have loved sharing our first Storybook, How to Catch a Star. Together, we explored new vocabulary, discussed the events of the story, and made meaningful connections to our own experiences. To finish, students created a beautiful piece of artwork inspired by the book, now proudly displayed in our classroom.

We are so proud of the way everyone is focusing, participating and giving their best effort as they settle into their learning journey. What a wonderful start! 

Our Foundation students had a wonderful time at their very first whole-school Swimming Carnival! They did an amazing job participating in the planned activities and giving everything a go. We were so proud of the way they joined in with enthusiasm, showed courage in trying something new, and demonstrated excellent sportsmanship throughout the day.

Most importantly, it was a day filled with smiles, laughter and lots of fun. What a fantastic first Swimming Carnival experience for our Foundation students!

Here is what we thought the best part of the day was:

Liam: Swimming!

Josie: The free swim.

Jack: Having the noodle in free swim time.

Ava: Free play time.

Connor: All the swimming we got to do.

Erica: Getting ribbons, all the races and watching the big kids.

Georgia: Swimming.

Layla: Racing in the little pool.

Ruger: Walks in the water.

Huxley: The small pool and the big pool.

Grace: Getting a green ribbon.

Joey: Going in all the races.

Ruben: Racing.

Sammy: Swimming in the pool.

Lochlin: Playing with the toy frog in the little pool.

Grade 1/2: Mrs McKiernan & Mrs Tyler

How are we halfway through Term 1 already?! We have been very busy with our learning and making friendships in our classroom. In Maths we have looking at number and place value. Specifically, bundling and partitioning two-digit numbers, a necessary skill that will later assist with addition and subtraction. We have been having fun using base ten blocks (MABs), ten-frames and popsticks as it is important that students link the physical representations of numbers with abstract digits. 

In writing the Grade 1 students acted out a trip to the moon and have been working hard to write a recount of the events. We have been using words such as firstly, next and last to plan our recounts and then write them. 

We have thoroughly enjoyed having our learning conversations and meeting with all our parents and families over the last couple of weeks. Thank you for making time to see us. We look forward to an exciting year with you all!  

Grade 1/2: Miss Wooden

We have had another wonderful few weeks in our Grade 1/2 class, filled with learning, exploration, and creativity! Here's a glimpse of what we've been focusing on lately:

We’ve been practising crafting simple sentences that clearly express our thoughts. The children have enjoyed using their imagination to create fun stories and share them with the class. 

We are diving into a new Maths unit focused on Place Value! Understanding the value of digits in a number is crucial for our young mathematicians. The students will engage in hands-on activities, using manipulatives to explore how numbers are built and broken down. 

In our Religion classes, we have just completed our unit on 'Growing in God's Love.' This unit has helped the students understand the importance of kindness, compassion, and community. Through stories and activities, we’ve discussed how we can show love and support to others around us. 

In Science, we've been exploring the exciting concepts of push and pull forces! The students have enjoyed experiments to see how these forces affect different objects. 

As part of our school community, we’ve also been focusing on the Schoolwide Expectations Matrix. Educating the students about our expected behaviours in different settings has been important. We’ve discussed how to be respectful, kind, and safe.

Thank you for your continuous support and involvement in your child’s learning. 

Grade 3: Miss Taylor

Watch out Albert Einstein… St Pat’s Year 3s are here to take your throne! 

Our young scientists have begun exploring the world of heat energy. We’ve been learning about different sources of heat and the ways heat can move - through conduction, convection and radiation. Students are also discovering how we measure temperature and investigating how heat travels between objects. Through hands-on experiments, we are exploring how different materials can absorb or reflect heat, and how this connects to everyday life.

On Tuesday, our class became heat investigators! Our experiment involved four cups, each set up with different materials to see which would keep heat the best over time. We started with a “control cup” (and learned what control means in an experiment!), then tested a cup with a lid, one wrapped in a tea towel, and one covered in foil. Can you guess which cup kept the most heat? If you guessed the foil cup - you’re absolutely right! It was fantastic to see students working so thoughtfully, making predictions, and then carrying out the experiment like real scientists.

In Maths, students have been learning about partitioning numbers (breaking numbers into parts!) and using this skill to help solve addition problems with larger numbers up to 3 digits. Our class has also been loving the introduction of a “King” and “Queen” of the lesson, which has brought lots of enthusiasm and excitement to our daily maths time. It’s becoming harder and harder to choose... they are all showing such fantastic thinking and effort! 

In English, students have been strengthening their understanding of the basics, focusing on nouns and verbs and exploring the different types of each. We are also continuing to build our persuasive writing skills, learning that to persuade means to convince someone of our point of view. Inspired by our class novel, Kensuke’s Kingdom, students have been sharing their thoughts on whether they would like to live on an island. There have been some thoughtful ideas and lively discussions! We are well into our class reading, enjoying the story together and building confidence through partner reading.

We have also launched our new spelling program and are learning an important rule: our “1:1:1 — double and add” rule! Students are practising when and why we double the final consonant before adding endings like -ing and -ed.

A busy couple of weeks coming up but I know our Year 3's have got the fire in them at the moment! Keep it up team!

Grade 4/5: Mrs Stock

Last week we enjoyed our first visit to Tongala Aged Care for the year. The Grade 5 students had not visited since they were in Grade 3, and for our Grade 4 students it was their first visit since Term 1 last year. On our walk back to school, it was wonderful to hear how much the students enjoyed the experience and how meaningful they found their time connecting with the residents.

Students also participated in their first ‘Inform and Empower’ session, where they explored digital footprints, online identity, and ways to keep devices and accounts safe. The session was highly interactive, and students particularly enjoyed participating in a Kahoot while learning practical strategies to stay safe online.

During English, both Grade 4 and Grade 5 students have been developing their typing skills and building reading fluency through regular practice. The Grade 5 students are currently completing the final body paragraph of their persuasive texts, where they have been writing about why learning about family history is important, using strong arguments and supporting evidence to convince their audience.

The Grade 4 students have been revisiting key literacy foundations, focusing on nouns and verbs and exploring the different types of each. They have also been developing their persuasive writing skills, learning that to persuade means to convince someone of a particular point of view. Inspired by our class novel Kensuke’s Kingdom, students have begun sharing their opinions on whether they would like to live on an island, leading to some thoughtful discussions.

In Mathematics, our focus has been on identifying factors and multiples. Students have been learning to express natural numbers as products of their factors, recognise multiples, determine if one number is divisible by another, and design and use algorithms to identify and explain patterns in factors and multiples. This has been a challenging topic, and I have been very impressed with the way students have approached their learning, showing persistence, problem-solving skills, and a willingness to work through tricky concepts together.

Grade 5/6: Miss Rasmussen

It has been a busy and productive time in Grade 5/6, with plenty of rich learning happening across the curriculum!

In Maths, we have finished our unit on Factors and Multiples and have now moved into our new unit on Multiplication and Division. Students are learning how the distributive property can help us break numbers into more manageable sums when solving multiplication problems, making tricky calculations much easier to tackle.

We are also learning a range of tips and tricks to help us recognise whether numbers are divisible by different numbers, strengthening our number sense and confidence. Maths is certainly working our brains hard, but we are seeing how it is helping us expand our thinking and deepen our understanding of how numbers work.

In English, we are reaching the pointy end of our class text, A Ghost in My Suitcase, and the tension is building! We have discovered that Celeste, Por Por and Ting Ting need to fight the ghost Shen De Pai, who is continuing to grow in power. Students have been using high modality language to answer questions about this upcoming battle, helping them develop stronger, more persuasive responses.

We are also midway through writing our persuasive texts on “Why It’s Important to Know Your Family History.” Students are learning the importance of using clear topic sentences, supporting details, and strong conclusions within every paragraph to ensure their arguments are convincing and well-structured. Along the way, we have explored juxtaposition as a writing technique, comparing opposite ideas using contrasting language to strengthen our writing.