Ulysses 

Welcome to The Ulysses Community Newsletter. We have arrived at the end of Term 1, and looking back, we are so proud of our community for putting together such a fantastic term. We have seen substantial progress in all curriculum areas of your child. Your child has now successfully adapted to a consistent school routine and has understood the structure by which our school will operate. 

Reading: In Reading, we are working on different mentor texts to help our students understand text features such as characters, Settings, Plots, and connections between themselves and another text. Throughout this term, we have seen extensive growth in our students' learning in these areas. We are also working on Long A and Long E phonemes, and our students have shown a great understanding of using these phonemes to create various words.

Writing: In writing, we started with Recounts. Students were encouraged to participate in experiences such as exploring our school library, visiting our new double-storey building, sandpit, etc, each Monday and creating their recounts for the rest of the week by following the writing process. We have seen most of our students come up with great recounts in the past few weeks. For the rest of the term, we have started working on letters. Students were introduced to the structure and the terminology of an informal letter, such as Greeting, Body, Closing and signature. We are working on writing informal letters as students are provided with different options to choose from whom they want to write a letter. We will be working on letters for the remainder of the term. 

Maths: We are now focusing on place value and length. Students are learning different strategies for addition using open-ended tasks. They are given different manipulatives to solve the addition problems and explain their reasoning. We have seen massive success in our students' ability to solve addition problems using other strategies. In Length, we compare the lengths of different objects using various manipulatives like unifix blocks, icy pole sticks, hand span, etc. Students have been successful in demonstrating and measuring length using other objects.

In SEL, we are learning about the Resilience Project, in which the students watch videos and learn strategies for being resilient and kind to others. We will continue the Resilience Project for the rest of the year.

In Inquiry, we are learning about the past and the present. Students explored and compared different items and pictures from the past and present, such as phones, and sorted those pictures in a timeline from the past to the present. Our students showed great interest in the topic and were fully immersed in the lessons.

Harmony day- 

In week eight, we celebrated Harmony Day, during which the students learnt about the aim to promote inclusivity, respect, and a sense of belonging for all Australians by celebrating the nation's diverse cultural heritage.

We teachers have thoroughly enjoyed this term and getting to know and teach all our students. We hope you enjoy your well-deserved holidays and come back well-rested and rejuvenated.  

Kind Regards, 

The Ulysses Tea