What's happening in our learning spaces?
FOUNDATION
Last Friday, many of the Foundation families joined in with ‘The Walk Safely to School’ event from Shore Reserve. We were also lucky enough to join in eating breakfast at school. What a fun way to begin a school day!
This week, as Inquirers, we will engage in an incursion with ‘Reptile Encounters’ to find out about different reptiles and living things. Next week we will share our learning from the incursion with you. The incursion is the perfect springboard into our new Inquiry Question, “How do Living Things survive and thrive?” The understandings we will cover during this upcoming Inquiry are:
- Living things have different features that help them survive in their habitats
- All living things have basic needs (e.g. food, water, shelter, air)
- Living things grow in different ways
As thinkers, we tuned in to Living Things by activating our prior knowledge about them. We recorded our first thinking by drawing and labelling something that we thought was a Living Thing, and drawing the things they need to survive. We drew humans, birds, cats and all sorts of other creatures. Check out our thinking below! We can’t wait to find out more about the different types of living things and their features over the next few weeks.
We are coming to the end of our addition sequence and we have learnt so much about using different strategies to solve addition problems. As mathematicians, we have been exploring addition strategies such as counting all and counting on. We know that we can count all the items in two groups to see how many are all together. We can also count on from the largest number, because that makes it so much easier for us! As thinkers, we can also show a number in many different ways, we know that 5 can be broken down into 1 and 4, 2 and 3 or 5 and 0, plus the reverses of course! To go further, you can continue practising a=Addition at home by playing fun and easy games. One we have been playing at school is “One More, Two More”. Using a deck of cards, divide the pile between two players. Take turns flipping cards and if you flip a card that is one more than the last card, you can snap! For example, if Miss Marsico flips a 4 and Miss Alex flips a 5, Miss Alex can SNAP! and take all the cards on the pile. The person with all the cards wins the game!
On Tuesday 21st May, Foundation LW will be attending the 9:15am Parish Mass with 5/6OS. Parents are most welcome to join us.
Please remember to encourage your child to return their library books and bags by Thursday each week, so that new books can be borrowed each Friday.
Another friendly reminder to bring in an artefact from the past if you have something, or send through a photo of something that represents an aspect of life in the past that was different to now. Thanks to those who have already done so.
We can’t wait for the week ahead!
Kind regards,
Leanne Wenckowski, Alex Phillips and Alycia Marsico
Foundation Team
YEAR 1/2
We are halfway through the term and are so excited about what we are learning! It has also been nice to welcome parents into our spaces as parent-helpers.
CRASH! Oh no, I think my cat jumped up and knocked down the vase again!
- Sophie and Alessia (Sizzling Start - Onomatopoeia)
The monster truck's lights turned on… but no one was driving it.
- Henry and Anthony (Sizzling Start - Curiosity)
BANG, BANG, BANG was all that Alessia heard. Oh no! It looked like her mum was experimenting in the kitchen again. All she could see was a massive mess!
- Lily (Sizzling Start - Onomatopoeia)
Arnold’s heart sank and broke into tiny little pieces. - Axil (Sizzling Start -
Figurative language)
Thud! A bear had just tried to blast off into space but had fallen from the sky and landed in an old castle wreck that had lots of smoke.
- Amelia, Daniel & Sofia (Sizzling Start - Onomatopoeia)
Kapow! The meteor was going to hit the town, the concert, the people. Misty had to do something about it. - Vivienne (Onomatopoeia, Suspense)
What the?! The squirrel is staring at me and eating my food. “Bad squirrel!” - Isabel (Sizzling Start - Humour)
As writers, we have been learning about narratives and how to engage readers using sizzling starts. We have identified and explored the different types of sizzling starts in books and videos. We have created our own independently and in groups. We engaged in a learning triad where everyone assumed a role: scribe, timekeeper, and spy. We are now writing sizzling starts to represent them using different devices, such as technology.
We ended our week with our annual Walk Safely to School Day. Many of us met at Shore Reserve and made our way to school, while others walked to school from our houses with our parents, carers, and siblings. Upon arrival at school, we gathered outside to enjoy a yummy breakfast! We then engaged in a Whole School Mass to come together and celebrate Family Week.
As mathematicians, we have explored addition and the many different strategies we could use to solve simple addition problems. We have also explored the ways in which we can represent these problems. As thinkers, we have focused on doubles and near doubles. We have engaged in different maths games to assist us in consolidating our learning and we are working towards naming the strategy each time. We used concrete materials, drew the various solutions and made connections to our knowledge of basic facts. In the coming weeks, as researchers, we will continue to find out about a variety of strategies, including counting on, building to the nearest ten, partitioning and the split strategy. We will further our understanding of addition by continuing to engage in activities that incorporate money and addition. You can do this at home, or whilst out shopping, adding two values together to find the sum or the total cost of a purchase.
Lastly, as researchers, we engaged in our first hands-on Discovery session, where we were curious learners as we explored, investigated and tested the objects in our stations. We documented our wonderings and observations in our Discovery Journals and wrote a reflection the following day. We made, sorted, played and had all sorts of fun through our learning. We are keen to continue to explore, investigate, and build on our thinking each session. Below you can read some of our first observations!
We are noticing how many different types of crystals there are. - Alessia
What do these things have in common? They are used for people to find out how to get places. -Axil
We’ve put all of the water animals in the water and all of the land animals on the land. -Abigail
I’m discovering negative numbers. -Patrick
Vania Sparano, Vicky Karalis and Vivian Boggis
1/2 Team
YEAR 3/4
As innovators, we welcomed back Adam from our AKORN incursion to check-in with us about our journey of making a difference within the community. Adam was amazed at our first designs and with his support and guidance we began drawing blueprints for our designs.
As a school community, we participated in National Walk Safely to School Day on Friday, 17th of May. We were very pleased to see so many faces join us at Shore Reserve or those who met up with us along the way. We enjoyed a delicious breakfast when we returned to school with a yummy piece of fruit.
As members of a Faith community, we gathered in church to celebrate CatholicCare Family Week. Thank you, Jeevan, Tess, Ella and Asha.
Family Week is celebrated yearly in May to show the important role families play in impacting the health and well-being of individuals. It is an opportunity to celebrate the people close to us, from our immediate family to our closest friends and loved ones, through to our teachers, neighbours and the community; everyone who helps shape our goals and values, and offers us the security and love that we need to thrive. We engaged in various learning opportunities throughout the week, take a look!
Have a lovely week!
Year 3/4 Teachers,
Belinda Panzarino & Sarah Hogan
YEAR 5/6
As a way of unpacking and finding out more about the features of information texts, we looked at different samples of texts and identified different features in the text. We found out about compound, simple and complex sentences. We also identified different words and their purpose in the text such as nouns, adjectives, verbs and more. Students in groups of three viewed and unpacked different texts and identified how simple or complex they were. They shared this information with the rest of the class.
As a way of tuning in to our next inquiry we engaged in Parliament Victoria incursion. This is where we engaged in a vote for legislation. The Year 5 students engaged in the topic investigation of Electric Scooter use, and the Year 6 students investigated the advertising of gambling. Students took on different roles, including the speaker, the minister, and the local parliament members.
As mathematical thinkers, we learnt a new strategy game using cards to solve addition problems. The game is Part-Whole Triangles.
Part-Whole Triangles
Jacks-11, Queens- 12, Kings-13
Deal out 6 cards to each player and start your triangle.
Start by one card facing up, you can choose card or flip new one. Swap with your card from triangle. You can re organise your triangle at any stage. We hope some of the children share this game with you at home!
This week in our SLA meeting, Jacob, Fernando and Xavier shared their Liturgy. Thank you to Jacob, Fernando and Jake for making such a wonderful presentation!
We hope you have a wonderful week!
The Year 5/6 Team,
Olivia Sargent, Maddie Comrie & Bianka Zorzut