Prep

What’s Happening in Prep: Weeks 5 and 6

What’s been happening

Over the past few weeks, we have had the Fire Brigade visit us at school. They taught the Preps what to do if there was an emergency at home and where their safe meeting place would be. They were also able to bring their fire truck to school. The Preps got to sit in the truck and even squirt the hose! We have also enjoyed a visit from Paramedics, Bec and Nick, who volunteered their time to educate the Preps about the role of a paramedic in the community. The Preps were able to walk through the ambulance and see all the different tools and equipment used in an emergency! Thank you Bec and Nick! All of these special visitors have been a fantastic addition to our inquiry unit and will help us to further understand how we keep our bodies healthy and safe.

What will be happening over the next fortnight

Wellbeing

Recognise our strengths and achievements

Phonics

Identify and write words using ‘r-controlled vowels’ /ar/ and /or/

Reading

Decoding words and blending to read smoothly

Writing

Write sentences correctly, to create a story with a beginning, middle and end
Identify and write sentences that tell, yell or ask a question (full stop, question mark, exclamation mark).

Maths

understand the place value of numbers
partition and subitise numbers

Inquiry

Big Question: How do we keep our bodies healthy and safe?

Over the next fortnight, students will be exploring the following lines of inquiry:

How can we keep ourselves safe at home, at school, at the beach or in the community?
Who are the experts in our community that can help us stay healthy and safe?
How can we contact the community helpers who can keep us healthy and safe?

Homework

Continue looking through Decoding Detective and Word Wizard book as well as take home readers. Students are encouraged to participate in daily reading. If students record 100 nights of reading in their journal, they will enjoy a pizza party hosted by Mr. Tapp. Please encourage students to read the same book multiple times per week as this is valuable to their learning and assists with their fluency. Please note that reading pages from the Decoding Detective/ Word Wizard exercise book counts as a reading entry in the student journal.

Optional: Mathletics and exploring the Prep-2 homework rubric located inside the students reading pouch.

Reminders

Remembrance Day Assembly – Monday 11th November
Circus Incursion – Wednesday 13th November
Prep – Year 2 Swimming – Monday 18th – Thursday 28th November
Open Afternoon – Friday 29th Afternoon
Prep Concert – Thursday 5th December
Reading Nights Pizza Party – Friday 6th December
Christmas Carols – Wednesday 11th December
Junior School Athletics Carnival – Friday 13th December

Year 1

What’s Happening in Year 1: Weeks 5 & 6

What’s been happening

The Year 1s enjoyed a less chaotic fortnight that enabled them to sink their teeth into all we have been learning. They really enjoyed learning about the different Australian coins and notes and were interested to find out that these were different to other countries around the world. The students have been busy practicing their skip counting to determine the value of a collection of coins. In Literacy, the Year 1s were focused on the features of a narrative including the beginning, middle and end. We used a Plot Mountain to determine how a problem is introduced and addressed throughout the plot. In health we began identifying our personal strengths and celebrating those of others. It’s going to be a big term but the Year 1s have already shown they are more than ready to tackle it! We can’t wait to see all they achieve.

What will be happening over the next fortnight in Year 1

Wellbeing

Students will identify their personal strengths

Students will understand the difference between strengths and qualities

Students will identify their personal qualities

Literacy

Literacy encompasses spelling, reading and writing. Students will be focusing on:

Spelling: Students will learn the different spelling patterns for the /aw/ sound. For example, lawn, haunt and caught.

Writing: Students will look at the different parts of a narrative. As a class we will co-construct a narrative diving deeper into the features of each section.

Reading: Students will continue to practice their reading, by reading texts that are based on our spelling focus for the week. This includes echo reading, choral reading, cloze reading and partner reading.

Maths

Year 1 students will begin learning about data, including developing a good question, accurately collecting data and displaying it on a graph. They will interview their classmates and then discuss different ways to represent the data.

Inquiry

During Health, we will continue to look at what makes us unique. We will learn the difference between personal strengths and qualities and then identify some of these in each other. Next, we will explore character strengths and qualities in some of our favourite picture story books and how they helped the character throughout the story. The students have also been focusing on being ‘Bucket Fillers’ after reading the story ‘Have you filled a bucket today?’ This involves writing notes of kindness to their peers celebrating their strengths and how that makes our class a better place to be.

Homework

Keep practicing spelling and reading the memory words that were sent home.

The students have been looking at time in the classroom, it would be great if students could practice this more at home!

Read every day to add to your 100 days of reading challenge and the Premier’s Reading Challenge.

Mathletics passwords are in the front of reading journals. Students can practice what we have been learning in class.

Additionally, students can choose a homework activity from the Prep - Year 2 homework rubric.

Here is a list of suggested books students may like to read at home besides their Take Home Readers:

Ella Diaries

Hey Jack!

Pizza & Taco

Little Lunch

Billie B Brown

Spooky House

Captain Underpants

Dog Man

Ninja Kids

Paddy Mills – The big book

The Runaway Kitten

Bad Guys

Hot Dog

The Treehouse Stories

The Faraway Tree

Ella & Olivia

The Beach House

Big Dream

Olivia’s Secret Scribbles

The Tiara Club

Geronimo Stilton

How to Train Your Dragon

Dragon Girls

Rainbow Magic

Curry Career

School of Monsters

The Boy who never gave up

Harry Potter

Ninjago

Weirdo (Ahn Do)

Year 2

What’s Happening in Year 2: Week 5 & 6

What will be happening over the next two weeks in Year 2

Over the next two weeks of the term students will continue to enjoy one another's company both inside and outside of the classroom. The Year 2 students will be participating in the Junior School Cross Country in Week 5, which everyone is very excited about.

Wellbeing

As we continue to discuss swimming, upcoming end of year events and transitions, the students will be focusing on building their resilience toolkit/strategies. Our goal is to prepare our students as best we can for upcoming change.

Reading

Students will be focusing on comparing different texts as well as inferring and using evidence to support this. Students will continue to build fluency through whole class reading sessions, cloze reading opportunities and partnered reading opportunities.

Writing

The Year 2 students will continue to write Narratives and writing to entertain the reader. Students will also create a persuasive piece of writing to showcase their amazing writing skills.

Maths

Over the next two weeks, students will continue to develop their knowledge and language around money in Week 5. In Week 6, the students will begin to explore the terminology and content surrounding Algebra.

Inquiry

Year 2 students will be focusing on Health for Term 4. The big question for the term is “How can we promote better health and wellbeing in our environment?”

Students will continue to participate in workshops run by the Year 2 teachers all about social, emotional, physical and mental health and wellbeing. These workshops will provide students with the knowledge and resources that the students will need to complete their upcoming projects.

Reminders

Parent Helpers for Swimming

In week 7 & 8 students will be attending swimming. Each class will take two parent helpers to assist the classroom teacher. More information will be sent via Compass, along with volunteer sign up links.

End of Year Celebration lunch - 17th December

In the second last week of term the Year 2 students will have the opportunity to participate in a celebration lunch. Please refer to the Compass event for further details.

Parent Reading Helpers

The Year 2 teachers and students LOVE having our parent reading helpers visit on Mondays and Thursday.

Please find sign up links below:

2R- volunteersignup.org/8DB94

2AW- volunteersignup.org/WARQR

2H- volunteersignup.org/JAQML

2W- volunteersignup.org/CBHJT

Year 3

What’s Happening in Year 3: Term 4 Week 5 & 6

What’s been happening in Year 3

Hello from the Year 3 Team!

The Year 3 swimming program has been completed and the students should be congratulated on their enthusiasm and participation. There will be a one day swimming carnival which will include the Year 3 students on Friday 29th November.

All of the students are extremely excited about the up-coming camp. It is going to be a fabulous time!

What will be happening over the next two weeks in Year 3

Wellbeing

Our wellbeing focus is friendship and how we can continue to be good friends. We have discussed the characteristics of good friends and identified some of these characteristics within ourselves.
We are also looking at peers we work well with in preparation for choosing friends we would like to be placed with next year.

Reading

We are continuing to read our class novel ‘The One and Only Ivan’. Our class discussions and conversations around the book have sparked excellent debates about zoos and animals who are kept to as performing animals.
We will continue to build upon our comprehension skills as great readers using prior knowledge and fluency.
We will also be focusing on recalling facts and interesting points when reading to assist comprehension.

Writing

We will be revisiting how to complete a scientific report.
We will be increasing our vocabulary by learning the definitions of specific scientific words such as predictions and hypothesis.
Understanding that a clause is a unit of grammar usually containing a subject and verb.
Identifying the difference between a sentence, clause and phrase.
We have dedicated handwriting time where the students are explicitly taught correct letter formation. It is particularly exciting learning how the different letters join when writing in cursive.

Maths

We will be focusing on angles during maths sessions over the next few weeks.
Students will also be continuing to revisit number fluency and the relationship between different operations.
Students will continue to be encouraged to learn and recite their times tables.

Inquiry – Science

Big Question:

How does heat help us understand and explore the changes in materials?

Students will be completing simple science experiments during inquiry sessions. We will discover how to write a scientific report as experiments are conducted.

Homework

Students are asked to continue to read every night and to complete Mathletics tasks set by classroom teachers. Students have some optional activities to complete from the Homework Grid in their homework books.

Reminders

Diaries are expected to come to school every day with their reading recorded and ready to be checked by the teacher. We are keeping a tally of individual reading and as a class to hopefully win the prize of a pizza lunch!

Camp is rapidly approaching. Please ensure your child has all of the equipment they will need on camp ahead of the day. This will help to alleviate any anxiety that they may be feeling about time away from home.

Year 4

What’s Happening in Year 4: Term 4 Week 5 and 6

What will be happening for Weeks 5 and 6

As part of our Geography unit, the students will be going to The Melbourne Zoo on Thursday 7th of November. The students will be exploring the zoo in small groups, learning about how animals from different countries have adapted to the land. The students will participate in a program called ‘Features, Life Cycles and the Environment’. We're looking forward to a fun day!

Wellbeing

Listening to the ‘Grow your Mind’ podcast and completing the activities
Students will complete lessons based on ‘how to be a good friend’

Reading

Whole class reading and building vocabulary
Focus on fluency through a range of whole, paired and independent activities
Use context clues to infer meaning and respond to questions about different text types
Book Club -Groups will meet weekly to discuss characters and events from the story- Students need to have their books at school each day.

Writing

Narrative Writing

Students will be writing a narrative based on the topic ‘Celebration’

The success criteria includes:

Plan my writing by clearly grouping my ideas using the planning template
Produce an original, varied, interesting and entertaining piece of writing
Use paragraphs
Use simple and compound sentences correctly (use correct grammar and punctuation)
Experiment with complex sentences (ISAWABUB)
Use interesting and varied vocabulary
Spell familiar/unfamiliar regular words using phonic and morphemic knowledge
Reread and edit my work to improve its meaning

Persuasive Writing

Students will also be writing a persuasive paragraph
They will need to brainstorm multiple arguments for a topic
choose 3 strong arguments
use the TEEL structure to make a paragraph for 1 argument
Finally, they will write a whole persuasive piece using a range of persuasive techniques (e.g., repetition, rhetorical questions, exaggeration, statistics, rule of three, emotive language)

Maths

Over the coming weeks in our maths sessions, we will be focusing on graphing.

Create grid references
Interpret grid references
Use grid coordinates to locate and move positions.
Locate an ordered pair in any one of the four quadrants on the Cartesian plane.

Students will then apply their knowledge of maps, to create their own map of Black Beard’s Bounty

Their map must include:

include a title
include a compass to show orientation
create a legend on a map to represent landmarks
use a grid to create a map to show position and pathways
show how a scale is used on maps to represent distance

Students will also complete problem-solving tasks based around our visit to the zoo.

Inquiry

Big Question: How does where we live affect how we live?

We will be exploring:

How are the continents of Australia, Africa and South America similar and different?
What are the geographical features and cultural practices that make these places unique?
How do people and animals in different climate zones adapt to their environments?
How can people use the natural resources available in a sustainable way?
What features might attract tourism to a certain place?

Homework

Homework consists of 20 minutes reading a night, 3- 4 Mathletics tasks to reinforce the concepts being taught at school, and an optional choice board of activities to be completed at your family’s discretion. Diaries will be collected every Friday.

Reminders

Library Days:

Monday – 4R
Thursday – 4B, 4L

Year 5

What’s Happening in Year 5: Term 4 Week 5 & 6

Wellbeing

Students will work on resilience, respect, relationships and responsibility.

Literacy

Students will practise reading fluency (accuracy, rate, prosody) through repeated oral strategies and information texts related to the Can you See Me? novel study and Health inquiry unit.
Students will read and respond to queries from our class novel ‘Can You See Me?’
Students will use and understand new words from the class novel.
Students will generate sentence stems containing a semicolon and a conjunctive adverb (however, therefore).
Students will join sentences using connectives to link arguments, evidence and reasons.
Students will write simple, compound and complex sentences.
Students will write complex sentences beginning with subordinating conjunctions.
Students will plan and write the introduction for a persuasive letter.
Students will plan and write body paragraphs for each argument of a persuasive letter.
Students will plan and write a conclusion for a persuasive letter.

Maths

Students will revise multiplication and division concepts.
Students will use the order of operations to solve problems.
Students will identify and explain patterns in the factors of numbers.
Students will identify and explain patterns in the multiples of numbers.

Health

Identify changes associated with puberty.
Explore what it means to be physically, socially and emotionally healthy.
Investigate strategies to establish and manage relationships.
Explore and celebrate how cultures differ in behaviours, beliefs and values.
What are some preventative health strategies that promote health, safety and wellbeing for individuals and their communities?
How does the media influence personal attitudes, beliefs, decisions and behaviours?
How do members of the community influence personal attitudes, beliefs, decisions and behaviours?

Homework

Please refer to the Year 5&6 Homework Rubric

Students are expected to be reading every night and completing assigned Mathletics activities over the fortnight.

Reminders

8th November Count Like a Computer Mathematics Webinar

13th November Elephant Education Session 1

St John Ambulance First Aid in Schools program

14th November St John Ambulance First Aid in Schools program

19th November Beaumaris Secondary College Visit

Year 6

What’s Happening in Year 6: Week 5 and 6

We have had a busy few weeks in Year 6 with the students enjoying the final Talk Money workshop and Elephant Ed session. The softball team, Hotshots tennis and Regional Athletics were all in action in week 3.

What will be happening in Year 6

Things are starting to ramp up in Year 6. A reminder that there is an excursion coming up on the 15th of November and a Compass post has come out with further details around parent involvement and some other points to be aware of.

Wellbeing

Term 4 is always a really busy time. We ask that students use their diaries to be aware of specifics around events that are upcoming. This is also a great way to take on self-responsibility in preparation for Year 7.

Literacy

Spelling – Latin bases continued, targeted spelling interventions.

Students will be working on their persuasive writing, looking at techniques, structure and vocabulary. This is working towards writing advertising for their Market Place stall.

Knowledge building and vocabulary development through a variety of texts related to our Inquiry unit.

Maths

Students will be working on extending their knowledge of algebraic equations

Students will be finding unknown values in numerical equations involving brackets and combinations of arithmetic operations and using the properties of numbers and operations

Business & Economics

Students have begun their Economics unit, learning about different types of businesses and developing skills that they will use at the market stall later this term. Economics lessons will look at entrepreneurship, different types of businesses and consumer choice.

Homework

Students are expected to be reading every night and completing assigned Mathletics activities over the fortnight. Diaries with reading recorded will be checked weekly and Mathletics tasks should be completed by Friday 1 November.

Reminders

St John’s First Aid In-school – Thursday 14 November

South Melbourne Market/St Kilda Botanical Gardens – Friday 15 November

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