Spotlight on Learning

Stage 1

It's been a great start to the year in 1J with all students settling into Year 1 smoothly. We've also had the pleasure of welcoming some new students into our class!

In writing, we've been delving into informative writing. Students have thoroughly enjoyed learning about a variety of animals from ‘Eric Carle’s Book of Amazing Animals’ and researching extra information too. Some favourite animals 1J enjoyed writing about include the narwhal, sloth, duck and elephant. Students now know the terms: ‘appearance’, ‘diet’, ‘habitat’ and can structure their writing into these subheadings. They are also learning to identify nouns, adjectives and verbs within the sentences they are writing.

Our current focus in Maths has been measurement. Our journey began with length, where students used unifix cubes to measure the length of various items around the classroom. Students understood that there should be no gaps or overlapping with the cubes when measuring. From there we learnt about area, using grid paper to calculate the area of various rectangles. Next, we explored capacity, estimating and measuring the capacity of different containers using rice. We learnt that different shaped containers can hold the same capacity and that height alone doesn't correlate with capacity!

Students have also been actively engaged in a range of other subjects, including phonics, visual arts, health and sports. In sport, students have been building on their fundamental movement skills in a range of coordination and teamwork activities. In art, many of our lessons have aligned with our writing unit and students have enjoyed experimenting with paint, oil pastels and different materials. Below are some snapshots of students immersing themselves in these activities throughout the term so far!

Miss Jacob - 1J Classroom Teacher

Stage 2

This week saw the start of NAPLAN for Year 3. Some students may be feeling a little nervous, but they have been busy doing lots of preparation and Mr So has made sure that everyone knows what to expect. Year 3 have such a great attitude towards NAPLAN and are ready to embrace this next step. 

Week 7 also saw the start of a new text for Stage 2. We jumped straight in and started to explore the text ‘Icebergs’ by Claire Saxby. 

This rich text will provide us with new opportunities to experiment with vocabulary. Did you know we can categorise vocabulary into 3 tiers.

TIER 1: These words are commonly used in everyday conversation. They include sight words, nouns, verbs, and adjectives.

Examples: sad, eat, red, phone, baby, sit, car, sun, cat

TIER 2: These words are not widely used in speech and daily conversation. Instead, they are often used and found in books and written text, and often have multiple meanings.

Examples: elderly, rule, foundation, fine, energy, analyse, blush, bolt, process

TIER 3: These words are low-frequency and occur within specific contexts, such as school subjects, occupations, and hobbies. They have distinct meanings and purposes.

Examples: molecule, aorta, thesis, economics, isotope, asphalt

Stage 2 are learning to understand the different categories and how we can expand our writing by using different vocabulary. As a class we took a sentence that had Tier 1 vocabulary and changed it to use Tier 2 vocabulary. Students saw how powerful this was by just changing a couple of words.  

These past two weeks, students have enjoyed the hands-on length maths activities. Classes have learnt to select the appropriate scaled instrument to measure lengths and distances, including finding the perimeters of various objects. They have also learnt how to convert between millimetres, centimetres and metres.  

Stage 2 Teachers

Stage 3

Throughout Term 1, Stage 3 students have explored narrative writing. Our students were encouraged to express their creativity through imaginative and captivating narratives. We have been working on developing a range of writing skills, including characterisation, setting, plot, dialogue, and descriptive language.

Students have been working on various narrative writing tasks, including short stories, descriptive writing, and character profiles. They have been challenged to think outside the box and come up with unique ideas that captivate the reader's attention. We are proud of the progress Stage 3 students have made in their narrative writing skills. Their dedication and hard work developed some outstanding pieces of writing that showcase their creativity and imagination. Many students were able to achieve their learning goals as a result of this.

Mr Yu - 6Y Classroom Teacher