Round the classes 

Reception class: Jess

We love the library. Our class really look forward to our Thursday afternoon library session. The Receptions are becoming more independent in choosing books of interest and books that are age-appropriate. They all know how to use the scanning computer and really enjoy sharing new and interesting books with each other.

You are never too old for playdough – 

Playdough provides a sensory experience that helps to develop fine motor skills, ease tension and improve imagination, aiding early childhood development in a playful way.

Playing with playdough is a very kinaesthetic activity that is good for the muscles, joints and bones in our arms and hands. Our class has enjoyed some homemade playdough where we have used materials like, pop sticks, straws, rollers, cutlery and wheels to manipulate and create wonderful things with our friends. It has provided plenty of opportunities for students to work on problem-solving, group discussions and using manners.  We will continue to use playdough throughout the term. 

On Tuesday, We had a visit from Sally from RAA to talk to our us about Road Safety. We learnt about how to best cross the road safely, and what we need to do to keep safe in the car. We learnt that when you are about to cross the road you need to STOP, LOOK,LISTEN and THINK. We even had a chance to use a large road mat to practise our road-crossing skills. It was lots of fun! 

Reception class: Kelly

What a busy two weeks of learning we have had. We have continued learning our sounds - Uu, Ll, Kk and Dd. The children have been working on their handwriting too and have been practising writing words and forming sentences. We have been focusing on our punctuation with our recount writing - looking at Capital letters and full stops. This week our school was involved with the National Simultaneous Storytime - listening to the story Bowerbirds Blues written by Aura Parker. We were excited to be part of this event!

For maths, we have continued learning about patterns and have been focused on worded problems. The children have shown amazing persistence and grit with the worded problem tasks. They have been introduced to Search and Sort - What do we need to find out? What is the problem asking us to do?. We then modelled (used materials to show how we worked out the problem) and represented our work (drew how we solved the problem) in our maths books.

Year 1 class: Jaya

Over the last 2 weeks, the Year 1 class have enjoyed some of the special events that have been happening around the school. Many students participated in Walk to School Day where they showed determination and persistence, and used their strong walking legs to walk safely to school. On Monday the 20th we celebrated World Bee Day by exploring the important role bees play in our environment and created some wonderful bee artwork. National Simultaneous Storytime on Wednesday the 22nd allowed us to enjoy the wonderful story ‘Bowerbird Blues’ and learn some fascinating facts about the Australian Satin Bowerbird. How lucky we are to have Corinne supporting and guiding us through amazing literature experiences!

In Literacy, we have been learning new sounds such as ‘-le’ in turtle, ‘ar’ in car and ‘a’ in grass. It has been challenging when looking at the suffix ‘-ing’ and how it changes our base words. We have started discovering the difference between a suffix and prefix. I have been so impressed by how determined and brave the class has been when giving these tricky concepts a go.

In maths, we are excited to be getting stuck into a new maths program called ‘Bond Blocks’. We are lucky to have Troy supporting us as we begin to explore how numbers can be made up of different parts to make the whole. For example, the part 2 and the part 3, make up the whole, 5. We have also been looking at a 0-10 number line, investigating the use of ordered numbers and how they can help us to solve simple addition and subtraction problems. We even went outside and created our own human number lines!

We are looking forward to celebrating Reconciliation Week next week. 

Have a wonderful weekend everyone 😊

Year 2 class: Samantha

In mathematics, our focus has been on understanding patterns. The students have delved into the concepts of 'unit of repeat', 'terms', and 'elements'. To reinforce their learning, we've used artwork as a creative medium, designing patterns on caterpillars and pattern bugs. We took our learning outside and recorded our own patterns using body movements and jumping on the new trampolines! This hands-on approach has made the learning process enjoyable and engaging. Additionally, we've been applying our understanding to problem-solving scenarios and learning how to systematically record a pattern using a table. The progress has been impressive, and the children are becoming quite the pattern experts!

In our Year 2 daily phonics lessons, we've been expanding our knowledge of morphemes and revising the various spelling choices for long vowels. Our daily phonics lessons are a cornerstone of this learning. Did you know that we read, spell, and write every day during these lessons? This consistent practice is crucial in developing strong literacy skills. We are becoming experts in recognising the correct spelling choices when adding a prefix or a suffix to a base word. This is important because understanding these patterns helps us spell more accurately and enhances our overall writing skills. 

In HASS lessons we have been investigating the different national and state floral emblems. Did you know that the Sturt's Desert Pea (Swainsona formosa) is the floral emblem of South Australia? This stunning and iconic wildflower is renowned for its striking blood-red flowers with a unique black centre. These flowers are adapted to survive the harsh conditions of the Australian outback, blooming spectacularly after rainfall (couldn't we all currently use some rain!?!). The plant's scientific name honours Charles Sturt, the explorer who documented the flower during his expeditions in the 19th century. Here are some of our Year 2 artists at work painting their version of the South Australian Floral Emblem. 

 We had a fantastic time participating in Walk Safely to School Day! It was wonderful to see so many children and parents getting active and enjoying the fresh air. Additionally, we had a visit from the RAA road safety team in Week 4, which was both educational and fun. The students learned valuable lessons about road safety and the importance of being aware and cautious as pedestrians. 

Have a lovely weekend everyone. 

Year 3 class: Stephen and Troy

We have spent some time collaborating with Sam’s year 2 students to prepare for our visit to the Summerhill aged facility next week.  This has involved making cards for the residents of Summerhill as an act of kindness and community spirit.  We look forward to meeting the residents and hearing about their own lives as well as sharing with them something about ourselves.  Preparing for Summerhill has also entailed learning a song to share with the residents: our first opportunity to perform to a live audience. The pictures below show our collaborative effort with the year 2 students.

We continue to enjoy problem-solving in maths, ensuring we follow the whole school approach for our tasks. In particular, we spend some time focusing on trial and error, and understanding that it’s “ok” to not get things right the first time.  In such cases, we are Brave and show grit – we persevere with our challenges.      

Here is an example of a problem we worked through recently.  Can you find the solution?

Source: https://nrich.maths.org/7205&part=

Year 4/5 class: Alex

This term students have been enjoying Wednesday afternoon gardening lessons with Jo. This fortnight students had their school photos, participated in an RAA Road Safety incursion and National Simultaneous Story Time. Congratulations to our Year 5 students who competed in Cross Country on Tuesday this week. Great effort!

This fortnight students put a great effort into their first narrative Big Write for the year. It was a celebration of all their learning in Term 1 and 2 through the Seven Steps to Writing Success program. We turned off the lights and put on candles and relaxing music. Students created imaginative stories about the Winter Solstice Legend, involving a creature and the local community coming together to solve problems. Thank you for all the family support in preparation, talking about students’ ideas for writing at home. 

This week in their Design and Technology learning students have begun brainstorming ideas with their group for their Kids in Space project. They have begun thinking about the criteria of the design brief and evaluating some initial design ideas. 

In maths students have been participating in targeted place value lessons to help with specific misconceptions they may hold. Students have been reviewing their 6S problem-solving process and applying this to multi-step problem-solving challenges. Well done to those students who are putting in the effort to practise their times tables at home. 

Year 5/6 class: Sallie

We have been working on our narrative writing over the past two weeks. Firstly we looked at our goals and noted the changes we wanted to make in our writing. Then we completed the BIG WRITE ( some really creative ideas were generated).  Our next step was to analyse our work and readjust our goals in readiness for our Brightpath assessment piece. Some goals included ...using sizzling starts, tightening the tension, using speech marks correctly, incorporating compound and complex sentences, and using wow words. The writing prompt was ....You have been told there are 3 days until the world ends.  I am looking forward to reading and marking everyone's work. Always such interesting and creative ideas generated! 

In maths, Henry has started us on a new investigation of fractions. Working on a number line outside with the sticky notes and wind and rain was challenging but gave us some good visuals to work with. 

We started our oral presentations in Geography this week. Students had to compare an Asian country and with an Australian destination. Some great information has been shared and the PowerPoint presentations have been creative and interesting to view. 

We are in the feature and sketching stage of our “astronaut zone regulator” invention and the creative ideas are flowing. 

District cross country took place on Tuesday and the 8 students at the event represented the school with bravery (long distances to cover). Thank you to Innes, Callum, Louie, Ben, Ila, Xavier, Harry, Harrison for competing and Ellie and Ivy who wanted to be there but had injuries. Also a big thank you to Ruth for being our school representative and Beau and Zoe for driving and supporting. 

Science: Philippa

Sam's class are learning about sound and how sounds make vibrations. Last week's lesson included a walk around the school to listen for sounds that we could hear in the environment. This week, we made sounds with percussion instruments.

Sallie's and Alex's classes constructed and successfully launched a number of bicarbonate of soda and vinegar rockets. These were exciting lessons! Students also did well with theories for why some of the rockets failed to launch (an important part of scientific investigations!). The next lessons are about how parachutes are used in space travel. 

In Week 4, students made model parachutes to help them in their understanding of how parachutes work.

Indonesian: Ibu Susan

In Indonesian the younger classes have been using the question "Siapa nama kamu?" (What is your name?). We have drawn self-portraits, made books, read stories and sung songs using this vocabulary. Sallie's class has started researching interesting and quirky facts about Indonesian animals. They are also using new verbs and nouns to write descriptive sentences about them. The year 3 and 4/5 classes have just started studying a story that describes what native Indonesian animals can or like to do. This will be the basis for the students creating their own short texts. All classes have also been enjoying watching some short documentaries about orangutans.

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PE: Emma and Troy

This week we have had fun utilising our hand-eye coordination through striking balloons with different implements. We discussed how a tennis racquet is easier to use as it has a greater surface area and a wooden spoon proved to be more difficult! We set personal goals on how many hits in a row we could get which helped with our persistence and courage.

Gardening: Jo

Insects and bugs are the gardening topic this term. The students in Alex’s class have looked at the classification of an insect, brainstormed all the insects they know, tallied how many they found in the veggie patch, talked about insect habitat and finally made  “Insect Snacks” in cooking. They have also pulled out the finished plants, watered and prepared garden beds for planting winter vegetables. 

Cross Country

On the 21st of the 5th Callum, Innes, Ben, Xavier, Ila, Harry, Harrison and I (Louie) went to cross country at Woodside for SAPSASA. The adults that had come were Zoe, Ruth and my dad Beau. We drove for half an hour with Zoe in hot pursuit. We arrived and there was forecast to be no rain but of course, there was (lucky we brought a shelter). As the day went by, for some reason we wasted all of our energy playing catch with a bouncy ball. Ila went first and got a good score and got into state running and then Ben went in 12-year-old boys and came in the top 6. Wow! Then it was time for 11-year-old boys. We went to the start line, and he blew the whistle which I wasn’t happy about. It was very hard. Innes came 4th not sure where Harrison or Harry came but I came around 20th and Callum came in not long after me. We all watched Xavier’s race. It was a great day and we all had fun! - Louie Griffiths