Teaching and Learning Areas

Foundation

Foundation students have an exciting term ahead exploring jobs as our inquiry. We will be looking at a range of important community jobs including health, emergency services, trade, school and more. As part of our inquiry students will have the opportunity to participate in incursions including firefighters and police and listen to parent guest speakers including a doctor, a pilot and an optometrist. 

 

In Developmental Play, stations and activities will be set up that encourage pretend play and exploration of the theme of jobs for that week. For example, opening the tools work bench, providing high-viz vests, hard hats and lots of construction blocks and building materials for the ‘Trade’ jobs week. We will also be attending an excursion to the Essendon Traffic School to explore the sorts of work that goes on in our streets.

 

In literacy we are continuing to learn the remaining single letter sounds, strengthening their phonological awareness and blending skills and building their stamina to independently read simple decodable texts. We also continue to foster a deep engagement with books sharing rich children’s literature and encouraging personal connections with texts and the expansion of vocabulary. In writing, we will practise forming new and old letters and putting the sounds together to form simple sentences in response to a prompt. 

 

Students have enjoyed conducting surveys and recording their results in tallies and graphs for our data unit and are now learning about 2D shapes. Next, we will start a long unit where students will use stories, materials and numbers to explore the concepts of addition and subtraction.

 

We are so proud of all the fantastic work the students are creating. Well done on a great start to Term 2! 

Grade 1/2

Terrific Toys Incursion – Year 1/2

 

On Tuesday, the Year 1/2 students took part in the Terrific Toys incursion, an engaging, hands-on experience designed to support their learning about movement and forces. The session focused on exploring the physical principles of push, pull, and rotational movement (rotational inertia) through a range of interactive activities. Students rotated through different stations, where they had the opportunity to experiment with a variety of toys. Some they were already familiar with, and many that were brand new to them, making the experience even more exciting.

 

At each station, students explored how different toys moved and functioned, discussing the forces involved, such as how pushing or pulling could make a toy move, or how rotation created movement in spinning toys. One of the most exciting parts of the session was the opportunity for students to construct their own working toys and being able to identify the forces and movements involved.

 

The best part? Students were thrilled to take home a spinning toy showing the different movements and forces included. The experience has set the stage for further inquiry in class, where students will dive deeper into these concepts in the coming weeks. Later in the term, students will design and create their own toys!

Grade 3/4

Grade 3/4 Author Study

 

Over the past two weeks, the 3/4s have been reading picture story books by Alison Lester. We began with the narrative non-fiction story called ‘My Farm’. This text tells the story of the year that Alison Lester got a new pony on her farm. Students responded to the story during writing time by choosing a memorable season in their life and writing their favorite memories in the style of the book. 

 

This week we also read ‘No Way Yirrikapai’. We watched a short documentary explaining how students from Milikapiti Primary School worked with Alison Lester to create illustrations. This prompted us to create our own illustrations using oil crayon and water pastel. Students enjoyed this activity and were able to showcase their creativity!

 PE

A big thank you to our wonderful Merri-bek Primary School community for your incredible support in helping us raise funds for our brand new school sports tops!

 

We’d like to acknowledge everyone who contributed—whether by guessing how many lollies or easter eggs were in the jar or purchasing Zooper Doopers throughout Term 1, every gold coin and guess helped us reach our goal.

 

Thanks to your generosity and enthusiasm, our students now have a fresh new look for sporting events—and the new tops look absolutely amazing!

 

We can’t wait to see our students wearing them with pride at future sports days and inter school competitions.

 

Thank you again for your ongoing support!

Victorian Premier's Reading Challenge

The Victorian Premiers’ Reading Challenge is now open and Merri-bek Primary School is excited to be taking part! 

 

The Challenge is open to all Victorian children from birth to Year 10 and aims to help young readers develop a lifelong love of reading.

 

 It is not a competition; it is a personal challenge for children to read a set number of books by 5 September 2025.

 Children from Prep to Year 2 are encouraged to read or ‘experience’ 30 books with their parents and teachers. Children from Year 3 to Year 10 are challenged to read 15 books.

 

 All children who meet the Challenge will receive a certificate of achievement signed by the Victorian Premier and former Premiers.

 

 This year, the Challenge is celebrating its 20th anniversary with the theme ‘20 years of words and wonder’ and a year of special activities. For details, follow the Victorian Premiers' Reading Challenge Facebook Since it began in 2005, more than 4.5 million young readers have taken part and together read more than 63 million books! 

 

To read the Premier’s letter to parents, view the booklist and for more information about the Victorian Premiers’ Reading Challenge, visit www.vic.gov.au/premiers-reading-challenge.

 

 You can also contact our school’s Challenge coordinators, Jennah Smith and Gabriella Furst, with any questions.

 

 Happy reading!