In the classroom

Deputy Principal Learning and Teaching 

Buongiorno a tutti  

End of Week 5 already! 

We’ve reached the halfway point of the term, and what a busy few week's it has been! Students have been showing fantastic enthusiasm in both the classroom and playground, with plenty of creative projects and teamwork on display. 

Staff have been involved in two PD programs – Spirituality Day focusing on reflection, connection and renewal. The day was grounded in our Cultural Covenant and the call to help everyone live ‘life to the full’ (John 10:10). Deepening relationships, strengthening collegial connections and renewing the commitment to the children in our care were aims of the day. 

The Teach Well PD focused on enhancing the teaching practices of staff through evidence-based approaches. We were provided with sustained collaborative opportunities via the Ochre Education program already in the school to further enhance student learning opportunities. 

A big thank you to our wonderful families for your ongoing support — it truly makes a difference. Let’s keep the momentum going as we head into the second half of the term!

Ciao a piu` tardi!

Rosina Gemmill 

Foundation

This fortnight we celebrated our 100 days of school. It was great to see the whole class dress up showing their age and brightness. We have come such a long way in the last 100 days. We can now read and write lots of words! We can count to 20 using materials in the classroom. We have even learnt the words addition and subtraction.

As a class we celebrated throughout the day with lots of fine and gross motor activities based around the number 100. We cannot wait to see what the next 100 days bring for all our little learners. 

Throughout the classroom this fortnight we have also been learning about the journey that Jesus went on through the stories in the bible. The class has been engaged in Godly play sessions related to these stories allowing for creative thinking and reenacting.

Year 1

The grade one class have been busy reading at home.  It is fantastic to see so many of our students achieving milestones to be celebrated with our certificates.  This week we celebrated Tom - 125 nights, Lewis -100 nights, Arlo - 100 nights, Jacey - 100 nights and Darby - 75 nights.  Reading at home is such a great support for developing the love of reading and lifelong literacy skills. 

Year 2

Grade 2 students have been learning to use; arrays and equal groups to skip count, find the amount in the group and the number of groups. We have learnt about the silent letters M, B and W, and the letters that usually go with them. We have also learnt about G when it sounds like J and C when it sounds like S. We have loved singing songs to help us remember the rules for these sounds and spelling choices. 

Year 3/4

The students in the 3/4 classroom have been learning about contraction words in our Spellex Program. Contraction words are a short word made by putting two words together. An apostrophe takes place (‘) of any missing letters. The students learned a creative strategy to remember the process to make contractions with ‘cross, pop and slide’. 

Year 5/6

Numeracy

The class have just finished the unit on Angles and are experts at finding the unknown angles at a point! Our next unit will be on Decimals, with today's lesson looking at estimating answers by rounding decimals to the nearest tenth, hundredth and thousandth!

Literacy

We have almost finished our class novel Once by Morris Gleitzman and will finish it next week. Along with this novel, the students have been learning lots about Poland, and writing very informative reports on the people, culture, land and animals. Here is a paragraph written by one of the students in the classroom:

Emily Nuttall: Poland's Beautiful Flora and Fauna

Poland has interesting and colourful flora and fauna as well as a wide range of different landscapes. Poland has many types of flora like seed plants such as trees and flowers, and mosses, lichens, liverworts and fungi. One quarter of Poland is covered with forests and evergreen trees like oak, pine and spruce, that stay green all year. Animals like deer's, wild boars, beavers and elk live in forests, chamois, marmots, bears, wild cats and lynx live in Carpathian Mountains. European bison were almost extinct during World War 1 but are now popular again. Zoo animals help increase the bison population. Poland's waters have trout, perch, pike, bream and eels. These are all the fascinating features of Poland's flora and fauna.