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Foundation

What a fun and busy week we have had in Foundation! We have been loving exploring the books brought to school during the ‘Book I Treasure’ task and celebrating a love for reading.  We had a wonderful time on our first excursion visiting Parkdale Library for story time, practising our road safety skills, having a play and eating our snack at Gerry Green. We also can’t wait to see the Foundation students dressed up as their favourite book characters on Friday 25th for Book Week.

This week in Literacy we have been continuing to learn about ‘y as a vowel,’ focusing on when ‘y’ says the long /e/ sound e.g. yummy, baby, silly. Next week we will begin learning about digraphs starting with the /ng/ sound. A digraph is when two consonants come together to make one sound. /ng/ is a final sound that comes at the end of a base word. The digraph is the third nasal sound alongside /m/ and /n/. These sounds cannot be made if we block our nose! 

We have also been busy writing our own Narratives that we will get to share with our families at the end of term. We spent some time planning them and deciding on our characters, setting, problem and solution. The students then did an amazing job with beginning to write their story and look forward to publishing next week with their own illustrations to accompany their narrative.

In Maths Groups, we have started our unit on ‘Measurement’ (Length, Mass and Capacity). We have enjoyed completing many hands-on activities to measure. Our Friday sessions (in classes) are for assessment, My Numeracy tasks or Problem Solving.

We have many busy and exciting things coming up before the end of term including our -Father’s Day breakfast next Friday 1st September

-The School Concert on 5th September

-Sport’s Day on 8th September

-Prep Picnic on 12th September 

-Finally Footy Day (last day of term) on 15th September (WOW, what a mouthful!)

Grade 1

We have had a wonderful time celebrating our love of reading this week with Book Week and are looking forward to seeing all of the amazing costumes, at Friday’s dress up day.  In word study, we have continued learning about reading and spelling with ‘R controlled vowels’.  Please keep an eye out for these new cards in your child’s sound pack.

In Inquiry, we have completed our rotations around Australia. We hope the children have come home with lots of stories, facts and souvenirs from their pretend holidays to each of the states and territories.

In Maths, the students have been learning all about Australian coins and have enjoyed counting up collections of coins to use at their class shops. Next week we will be moving on to our new topic of Measurement. During this topic the children will compare the length, capacity and mass of everyday items and practise measuring these items using various informal units.  

We have well and truly begun our countdown to the concert. The Grade 1’s have been putting in an amazing effort at school, rehearsing their dances and we know they are going to do a fantastic job on the night. Just a reminder that all parent-supplied concert items (i.e. pants / leggings) will need to be sent into school, in a labelled bag, next Monday 28th August, so that we can have them all here and ready for our dress rehearsal in Week 9.  If you have any questions surrounding this, please contact your child’s teacher. 

Grade 2

This fortnight, students continued to explore the structure and features of Information Reports, with a focus on presenting information in poster format, which required them to consider layout and presentation, along with including interesting and relevant facts.

Students are learning to apply their knowledge from our ‘Syntax Project’ lessons by identifying the four sentence types and their purpose, and then writing quality statements, questions, commands, and exclamations based on images provided. As part of our ‘Word Study’, we have been focusing on hard and soft c and g.   In the photos below we are reading with our friends in Year 4.

In Maths this fortnight, students have been building their understanding of multiplication as repeated addition, groups and arrays, and developing strategies for solving multiplication stories and number sentences. Further experiences with these concepts at home will continue to consolidate students’ understanding of multiplication in ‘everyday life’. 

Students began a new round of ‘Rotations’, which provide opportunities to mix with other students and teachers to learn more about: the solar system; coding combined with health promotion messages; maths problem solving strategies and teamwork; landscape art. 

This fortnight our wellbeing and social skills focus is on cooperation and communication skills.

We continue our inquiry into ‘Earth’s Precious Resources’, investigating waste in our lives and the environment.

Homework: Thank you for your ongoing support with regular reading aloud and ‘Red Flag Word’ spelling. Optional extras: ‘Nessy Reading and Spelling’ and ‘Sunset/Jetpack Maths’ (Essential Assessment).

*Reminder: Book Week dress-up day this Friday 25th August as per Compass note.

Grade 3

The students have enjoyed Book Week this week. Each grade listened to a Grade 3 teacher read a picture story book during lunch eating time as well as completed some book week activities in class. The students and teachers are looking forward to dressing up as a book character this Friday. 

Reading: Last week, we started our novel study, The Wind in the Willows. The students listen to three chapters per week and participate in spoken discussion and written response. The students will learn about narration, dialogue, and personification as well as the themes of friendship/loyalty, responsibility, irresponsibility, and hospitality. Our vocabulary focus words also relate to our novel study. We are also continuing our fluency reading twice a week. 

Writing: Up until the end of Term, the students are focusing on writing narratives. Each week, they will plan and write a story using a picture prompt and a particular focus. Last week’s focus was on punctuation and this week’s focus is sentence structure. In our grammar lessons, they students are exploring how to write dialogue correctly and in our spelling lessons, we have looked at the suffixes -hood and -ness. 

Maths: The students finished up their division concept with a post-test last week and have commenced a unit on Fractions. The students are learning to be able to understand that a fraction is an equal part of a whole and exploring key language such as a numerator and denominator. Please continue to encourage your children to regularly practise their times tables facts and related division facts at home. 

Inquiry: We have commenced our inquiry-based project. The students started the process of designing a balloon powered car that will roll the furthest. Initially, drawing and labelling a diagram individually before bringing their designs together with a peer to collaboratively decide on their final design. The students have organised a list of materials they will be collecting from home and bringing into school to build their balloon powered car. 

Wellbeing: For the remainder of term, the students are working in teams to construct a picture story book explaining how to solve a problem aimed for Foundation students. This task is designed for students to demonstrate their knowledge of emotions, use of positive coping and help-seeking strategies, the importance of persistence in help-seeking, and the use of appropriate sources of help. 

Grade 4

Literacy: During our writing sessions we have continued with our narrative genre. Our focus has been on creating detailed plans to ensure that we have interesting characters, settings and problems. We have also experimented with using talking marks and ellipses within our narratives. In our reading sessions we have been learning to interpret figurative language. We have explored the similarities and differences of similes, metaphors and idioms.  As part of our Book Week activities we have been reading with our buddies in Year 2 (see photos in the Year 2 section above)

Numeracy: We are nearing the end of our Fractions topic in Maths. Over the last week we have explored a variety of different concepts. We have looked at improper fractions and mixed numbers and how we can convert between the two. Also, we have been comparing and ordering fractions by using written and visual strategies.

Inquiry: This week we have begun our ‘May The Best Party Win’ group projects. Throughout these sessions we are creating our own political parties that will run in a Grade 4 election. Each party will have a vision, values and local issues they aim to address. 

Reminders: Thank you all for being so prompt in returning your camp forms. As we are only a few weeks away from camp we encourage you to have a look at the ‘What You Need’ sheet in preparation for September 11th.

Grade 5

Week 7 has been another jam-packed week in Grade 5 with lots of fun and learning. On Thursday, we also participated in the Aspire Higher Leadership Program to allow our students the opportunity to learn more about what it takes to be an effective leader. Students enjoyed this thoroughly and we look forward to putting some of the important lessons we’ve pinto practice in the classroom and school yard. 

Reading Comprehension:  After concluding our mentor text, ‘A Long Walk to Water’, Grade 5 students took time to reflect on the amazing true story of Salva and his harrowing journey from Sudan to Rochester, New York in the 1980’s. 

Before moving on to our next mentor text entitled, ‘The Lost Thing’, students have been building their background knowledge on pros and cons of the Industrial Revolution.

Writing: After concluding our units on explanation writing and limerick poems, our students have begun a fun and engaging unit on procedural writing. Teachers made chocolate rum balls in front of their class and students took down notes and drafted the recipe in their own words. Students will be experimenting with using adverbs and verbs, giving specific and detailed instructions, and writing in chronological order. 

Maths:  It's all about Area and Volume in Grade 5 maths. Students have been revising units of measurement, how to calculate the perimeter of 2D shapes, the formulas for finding the area of squares, rectangles and triangles and solving word problems. Next week we’ll be moving to Volume and look forward to working with 3D objects. 

Inquiry: Genius Hour has been a big hit amongst our students. After forming their own inquiry question and conducting their research at school (and any additional research at home as part of Week 7 homework), our students have begun building their projects. We’ve encouraged students to present their projects in a variety of different and creative ways and are excited for them to share their findings with their peers in the coming weeks. 

Grade 6

Grade 6 Log Cabin Camp 16th – 18th August. 

Last week, the Grade 6 students had an amazing time attending Sovereign Hill and our Grade 6 camp hosted by Log Cabin Camp in Creswick. 

On day one we stopped in at Sovereign Hill to get a hands-on experience of what daily life was like for the miners on the goldfields in the 1850s. Our students tried their luck at gold panning, watched a gold pouring show, participated in parlour games, enjoyed a stop in at the lolly store and participated in an education session exploring the immigration that occurred within Australia during the gold rush. After a busy day at Sovereign Hill, we continued our journey to Creswick to arrive at Log Cabin Camp and settle into our cabins.

Later on day one, after a delicious dinner, the students gathered around an enormous bonfire before cheering the Matildas on together!

Day two of camp saw the students up early and headed into a busy day of activities. The students rotated through a 4 of 6 activities including; orienteering, a dual zip line, a commando course, the leap of faith, archery and a giant swing. After more amazing food and a tiring day, the students settled in together to watch a movie before turning in for bed.

The last day saw the students up and about early again to pack their bags in preparation to head back home in the afternoon. Before leaving however, the students completed the last two of their six activities. 

Overall, the students had a brilliant time on camp and challenged themselves by participating in a range of thrilling activities, sharing a room with a large group of students, trying new foods, working cooperatively as part of a duty group and spending extended time away from their families. We were very proud of the maturity the students demonstrated throughout the entirety of camp.

A HUGE thank you to our parent helpers who volunteered their time to come along to camp with our students, you were a wonderful help and great support.

Book Week

This week is book week at Parkdale Primary School and Grade 6 have celebrated the week in the following ways.

• The Grade 6 students brought in their favourite picture book/short story read to their buddy on Wednesday afternoon. 
• We have made a Book Week themed Escape Room within class which asked students to work cooperatively in a small group to solve a range of book related problems.
• We will be participating in the Book Week dress up day on Friday.