CLASSROOM NEWS!
News from the Prep/1 Room!
The Prep/1 classroom has been buzzing with excitement and learning this fortnight! Our students have settled beautifully into their routines and continue to amaze us with their curiosity, creativity, and growing independence. From exploring the forces that make objects move to expanding their writing with new and powerful words, there’s never a dull moment in our room.
In Writing, we’ve been focusing on making our sentences more interesting and detailed. We explored the Word Choice trait from the 6+1 Writing Traits program, swapping simple words like “big” and “happy” for exciting ones like “enormous” and “joyful.” We also learnt how to use joining words such as because, but, before, and after to connect ideas and show when or why things happen. Students have written wonderful recounts about their weekends, remembering to use capitals, finger spaces, and full stops, it’s been fantastic to see their confidence grow!
In Numeracy, we’ve been learning all about time. We created our own clocks, sequenced daily events, and compared how long familiar activities take. The “One-Minute Challenge” was a huge hit, the room was full of giggles and energy as we tested how many star jumps or smiley faces could be done in sixty seconds! We also explored how people used to tell the time long ago, discovering sundials and hourglasses.
In Science, we continue investigating push and pull forces through a sports themed experiment. Students tested how far different balls could travel when pushed or pulled using bats, skipping ropes, and hands. After collecting and recording results, we compared which forces made the biggest difference and discussed how strength and direction affect movement.
During Genius Hour, our young explorers turned into scientists and artists as they investigated the properties of materials. Using their “Let’s Search” worksheets, students went on a materials hunt around the school, finding and sketching objects that were heavy, light, rough, smooth, bendy, or stiff. Their detailed drawings and clever describing words; like shiny, stretchy, and bumpy showed amazing observation skills.
In InitiaLit, students have been strengthening their text reading and spelling skills, focusing on CVCC words, longer CVCC patterns, and suffixes. We’ve also been reviewing our tricky words and letter-sound knowledge as we begin our final round of testing for the program. The growth in reading fluency and spelling confidence has been wonderful to see!
It’s been a busy and joyful fortnight in Prep/1, full of discovery, teamwork, and laughter. We are so proud of how much our young learners have achieved already and we can’t wait to see what the next few weeks bring!
News from the 2/3 Room!
Wow, we are so shocked that we have already arrived at week 4. What a great and busy start to the term! We've had such fun learning about safe behaviour around pets, and the grade 3s had a blast at their spring sports day in Bridgewater. We've had a new teacher visit us this week; Mrs Baird. She will be taking the 2/3 room on Thursdays and we look forward to showing her how curious and kind we are.
We are also very excited to see that our larger spiny leaf insect has sprouted small, rounded wings (seen below situated between her second front pair of legs). From our prior research, we discovered that this means she is female!
In Literacy, we have been enjoying writing information texts about our individually chosen animals. We've been looking into everything from spiders and octopuses, to flamingos and wolves. We have learnt some interesting facts, such as their diverse life spans, weight, diet and even their Latin names!
In InitiaLit, our focus is on prefixes, base words and suffixes in spelling; learning about how these elements of words impact their meaning. Have a think - how many words do you use in everyday life that start with suffixes re- un- or pre-? Redo, preview, unwell. What do these prefixes do to those words? In Grammar, our focus is on speech/talking marks, and how important the "" punctuation marks are for the reader to fully understand the intended meaning of our writing. We've also loved hearing about Harry Potter's discovery of the Mirror of Erised, show him his heart's desire (his family). If you found a mirror that shows you your heart's desire, what would you see?
In Maths, we have been learning to connect fractions to time, to better understand why we say 'half past' 'quarter past' and 'quarter to' the hour. We have been using digital tools to help us quickly divide the clock in a multitude of fractions. We have worked hard at identifying, writing, saying and remaking fractions of different kinds for the past few weeks, and some students have even started working out for themselves that fractions can be equivalent/same but differe (ie. 1 half = 2 quarters or 3 sixths or even 50 hundredths!).
News from the 4/5/6 Room!
Miss Childs’/Mrs Wilson’s Class
In Literacy, this past fortnight, our class have been building our vocabulary wall, located on our back wall in our classroom. We have been working on our fluency reading, practicing our Readers’ Theatre and focusing on expressions and making it interesting for our audience.
We have recently started our new class novel, Tom Appleby – Convict boy. The students are thoroughly engaged in this book, learning how harsh life was growing up in 1788.
A young orphan, Tom Appleby is convicted of stealing, and sentenced to deportation to Botany Bay as a member of the First Fleet.
Math - Mrs Wilson
In math, we have been focusing on Patterns and Division. We have been making great use of different strategies and using concrete materials to help. We are practicing our skip counting and I have recently sent home a “Times Table” laminated sheet, that I have asked the students to practice at home. If you could please spare 5 minutes to test your child on their recall, it would be of great benefit to your child’s study…and greatly appreciated. A skill they will need for life.
Mrs. Clarke's Groups
Literacy- This week we have begun reading our newest novel -'The One and Only Ivan' by Katherine Applegate. So far we have been introduced to a gorilla named Ivan that alongside some friends is on display in a big top at the local shopping mall. Ivan can't remember his past, is a great artist, he is pretty lonely and thinks humans are a bit ridiculous. We have predicted that the book will be able Ivan escaping his life at the mall- time will tell if we are correct.
We are currently writing an information text about snakes after reading up on what to do if you or a friend are bitten by a snake!
Maths- We have done a little reviewing of decimal based math's concepts and are now learning to multiply them by numbers with 1, 2 or 3 decimal places. We have made a great start and some students are getting close to learning how to divided decimals!!
High Achievers!
We have two high achievers this fortnight from the 4/5/6 class! Izzy and Jaxon have been training hard at karate for just over 12 months and they have been making fantastic progress. On the weekend both Jaxon and Izzy competed in karate tournament where they were both awarded medals.
Jaxon- 2nd in Sumo Wrestling.
Izzy- 2nd in Patterns.
Well done, kids! You should be very proud of yourselves!
#Stay tuned next fortnight for a photo of Jax and Izzy with their medals.