Round the classes  

Reception: Katie

In the reception class we have been busy finishing off learning all the single sounds in phonics, ready to start learning some diagraphs next term. We have also been developing our oral story telling skills and last week participated in our first Big Talk. In maths we have been learning all about the number 10. We have also been learning about measurement and had an interesting conversation about 'What is big?". In HASS we have finished off learning about celebrations. We have also been busy making the final preparations to welcome our new reception classmates next term which we are very excited about. 

Reception Year 1/2: Jaya and Kelly

Last week, Kelly’s Year 1/2 class and Jaya’s Reception/1s joined Katie’s and Emma’s classes for a very exciting Big Talk and Big Write collaboration! During the week after our morning phonics, we brainstormed ideas, planned story structures, and explored WOW words by looking at other texts for inspiration. Our focus for our writing was on using adjectives to enhance our stories and punctuation to help organise our thoughts clearly. 

The topic? To write a story about a Fuzzle—a magical, mythical creature from a faraway land! Some of our amazing ideas included space Fuzzles, jungle Fuzzles, Fuzzle families, snow Fuzzles and even Fuzzles with pop-out legs! Everyone showed incredible focus, persistence, and creativity.

We finished with a sharing session in the gym, where we gave feedback and celebrated each other’s ideas with kindness and courage. We’re so proud of our writing growth and can’t wait for more shared writing fun next term.

Have a warm and restful holiday everyone!— Kelly & Jaya

Year 2/3: Emma

We have had yet another inspiring and exciting fortnight in Sam’s year 2/3 class! One highlight was our excursion to Summerhill Retirement home. This involved, First Nations Aboriginal artist, Ros Cameron, alongside Summerhill residents, sharing her stories and performing an interactive telling of Wombat Stew. Students learnt what it was like for Ros growing up within the missionary based in Alice Springs and then moving to Murray Bridge. She spoke about how important it was for her to reconnect with her family from Alice Springs and how this has enabled her to feel a sense belonging and identity. The students represented their school so well and respectfully contributed to discussions in such an empathetic way. 

Another highlight was watching districts football on the town oval. Uraidla played so well, and it was such a special event to be a part of. The children were so excited to cheer their team on and gave such a positive team spirit for the players.

During our library visits this term we have had an opportunity in sharing the space with the kindergarten children. During this session our class have shown the Kindy kids how to borrow books and have read with them. They were all such inspiring role models for the younger children and made them feel so welcome!

Within literacy we have been enjoying narrative writing, looking in particular at the structure. An emphasis has been on using descriptive words when introducing characters and setting.  Discussing how imagery can make a story come to life and give it that WOW factor! 

Within maths we have been looking at different addition strategies, one that students have enjoyed was column addition. This strategy draws upon students understanding of place value which is a valuable tool in all operations. 

We have been researching ‘Plastics in Our Oceans’, which falls under the sustainability strand in the HASS curriculum. Our focus has been on Sea Turtles and looking at the impact’s pollution and overfishing has had on this now endangered species. We have touched on ways of reducing plastics and have been creative in inventing some very impressive ‘Plastic Eating Machines’!

It has been an absolute pleasure spending the majority of this term with Sam’s year 2/3s, they are such a settled and inclusive class. Enjoy the holidays! 

Year 3/4: Stephen

We have been learning all about functional grammar to 'bump up' our writing.  This has involved learning how to make our individual sentences more interesting to read by focusing on the three key parts of Functional Grammar - The participant, the process and the circumstance (see the graphic).  Our goal is to apply our new skills to our own writing. We also enjoyed a hands-on approach to learning where we made a model landscape to illustrate how Aboriginal cultural burning works. We also enjoyed our second visit to the kindy to perform a song for their students.

Year 4/5: Rachael

In Maths the year 4/5 class has been exploring different strategies for addition to consolidate understanding of regrouping including the split strategy, adding from the left, the bar model and column addition. Students are becoming adept at explaining which strategy they prefer to use and why when solving worded problems. While some students have adopted adding from the left or the split strategy to their repertoire, the majority still defer to using column addition when they can!

In HASS we have commenced a Geography Unit called “Connecting the Dots.” The Unit aims to build on students’ mental map of the world and their understanding of place. Students have explored questions like; What is a map? What are the different types of maps? What are directions and scale? Students understand how to use map conventions using the BOLTSS (Border, Orientation, Legend, Title, Scale, Source) acronym when constructing a map and how to interpret maps using scale and ordinal points for direction.

Another highlight has been prop making on Wednesdays with Andrew for the class play. And we have also been having some wonderful open and thoughtful discussions about what each student needs to feel included. This is helping us understand each other better and importantly to recognise that everyone needs to feel included with kindness.

Year 5/6: Sallie

It is hard to believe that we are half way through the year. In the Year 5/6 class we have completed lots of sporting activities, the Readers Cup quiz (for those brave enough to commit to 5 novels in a term) and a fabulous excursion to Arbury Park. We have finished another narrative assessment piece of writing and I can see lots of improvements.  Looking back at our writing also gives us an opportunity to make new goals and make a judgement call on whether or not we have achieved individual goals. We have continued our journey with the children of Narnia and are learning new vocabulary and reading comprehension skills through this fabulous book. In maths we have been working on the core subjects of fractions, decimals and percents but also reviewing areas that we completed earlier in the semester.  We are winding up our Makers Empire, " Make a Difference" and completing a persuasive poster trying to get people to buy our product to raise funds and awareness for our chosen charity.  Our Federation research project is taking shape and we are nearly finished.  Have a restful but eventful break everyone.  

Year 5/6 Podcast

This week's Podcast is brought to you by Sophie and Jessica. They are discussing Maths and some of the ways we do Maths in our classroom.

District Netball 

Eloise and I did district netball last Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. To get into district netball we had to do 5 or 6 trails to get into the team. There was 64 people that trailed and there were two teams of 10 therefore there was twenty spots to fill. Then after we did that we had one more trail to make the two teams div 2 and div 4. After that we had one training session before the carnival. We played three games of netball each day and won 8 out of 9. I am a defender and Eloise is a mid courter. We ended up getting first out of 10 in div 2. My favourite position is GD and Eloise’s is C. On the third day we beat the underfeated team called Southen Heights. It was a lot of fun playing netball with people you don’t usually play with and is definitely a memory I will never forget. By Ruby.

SAPSASA Netball

We had to play against 2 teams Saint Michaels and Crafers Primary. In our team we had 9 people, Ruby, Layla, Lila, Maddi, Tilly, Immy, Eloise, Ellie and Sophie.( We played 15 minute quarters) The first game we played was against Saint Michaels and it was a tough game but in the end we lost 17-18. Tilly played GK most of the game but a little bit of C, Ruby played GD for the whole first game, Ellie played WD in the first quarter but for the rest of the game she swapped with Immy and Lila.  Lila also played half of a quarter in GS, Eloise played C for most of the time and had a quarter in GK. Maddi played WA for the whole first game. Layla played GA for the whole first game, Sophie played GS for nearly all the first game.

In the second game we played Crafers and won 22-9 Sophie played GS, Layla played GA,  Maddi played WA, Eloise played C and GS, Immy played WD and GK, Ellie played WD and WA, Lila played GA and WD, Ruby played GD and GK, and Tilly played GK and C. Thank you to Jo and Hayley for driving us there and to Hayley for coaching, Jo for umpiring and Angela and Min for scoring. We were lucky with the weather because since then it has been rainy and cold! 

By Lila and Layla

Sallie's Class Arbury Park Excursion

On Thursday week 8, the year 5/6 class went on a bird watching excursion to Arbury Park. First, the instructors led us to a table with lots of bird related items (that includes bird legs, nests and things they eat), then they taught us how to use binoculars. After that we went to the meeting place, then got split into two groups.  One group went to the curiosity room while the other group went on the deck above us to do bird watching.  The curiosity room was filled with interesting things.  There was a collection of stuffed animals and birds, eggs and even snakes preserved in jars!  On the central table there was a range of stuffed local birds that we had a chance to identify and talk about.  After, we went up on the deck to do bird watching using the binoculars. Once all groups had that opportunity, we went back to the meeting place (a campfire circle) then went off into the bushland and scrub to do bird watching (finally!). While we were bird watching, we even found a rare bird called the Bassian Ground Thrush. By Brody and Mac

SAPSASA Football

In knockout football we played against Unity College a school from Murray Bridge. We started at 10:15 and finished at about 11:30. Unity college were a very fast and tall side. We played four 14 minute quarters. Our goal kickers were Ted who creeped 1 in, Callum snagged 2, Harry popped 2 in and Tom sneaked 1 in. Some highlights were all the classes that came to watch us. The quarters we won were 1 and 4 Unity won quarter 2 and quarter 3 was even. The end score was Uraidla 44 and Unity Collage 39. So we now go onto the semi finals! Thanks Sam for coaching and Brad goal umpiring and scoring and all the parents who came out to support us.  By Xavier. 

Readers Cup

On Tuesday our two Readers Cup teams went to Stirling East Primary School to compete against other Hills schools in reading and comprehension quiz. They had to read 5 books. The books were The Lost Library by Rebecca Stead, Ming and Flo Jackie French, All The Beautiful Things by Katrina Mannestad,  The Kindness Project by Deborah Abela, and  Malala Yousafzai written by Hiba Noor Khan. All different books but interesting to read. In week 3 we will going to Bridgewater  to compete in the presentation stage.