Ulysses Community Report

Term 1 2023

We would like to say a big welcome to all of our families of the Ulysses community. We have four mentor groups in Ulysses and they are made up of the June Bugs, Iguanas, Ladybugs and Kingcrabs. The teachers of these mentor groups are Emma, Rania, Stacey and Gurmeet. 

Our students have settled in extremely well and we are very excited to watch them grow academically, socially and emotionally throughout our exciting learning programs.  

We also look forward to celebrating all of our successes, achievements and learnings with you throughout the year. 

Our Learning

Reading

This term in Reading, we have been exploring recount texts. Students have had the opportunity to read and listen to a variety of recounts and identify the features of this text type. We have learned about the structure of recounts by identifying the 5 w’s (who, what, when, where and why) and the events that have taken place in the recounts. 

We have been able to show our understanding of the recount structure by taking the events and putting them into chronological order.

Writing

In Term 1, we have been learning how to write recount texts. Students have been using their knowledge of recount texts that they learned through reading, to support them with creating their own written recounts using taught strategies.

First we wrote recounts about the events and experiences that we all enjoyed over the holidays. Then in our mentor groups, we explored different texts to write recounts about the events that happened in the story. This enabled us to begin writing a recount that included the correct structure of a text, including an orientation, sequencing of events and conclusion. In our recounts, we also made sure that we included when the event or experience happened, who was in the story, what the problem encountered was, where the story took place and how the problem was solved.

Maths:

In Term 1, students learned about how to become a“Good Mathematician”.They learned that anyone can become a good mathematician and the skills required are asking questions, making pictures, using maths resources and mathematical vocabulary etc. Students also developed their knowledge of numbers by ordering them from greatest to smallest, odd and even numbers, number lines, counting on and skip counting from a range of different starting points. Students  shared their ideas and used resources to solve open ended questions. The following are some quotes from the students during our number line task;

• “Number lines are when numbers are in a straight line” - Atilla
• “It has numbers” - Arzo
• “It can go up by 10” - Marilan
• “It is where there are numbers in a line and we can do skip counting” - Zaynab
• “You can pick out numbers and count on from it” - Kavish
• “It can help do addition and subtraction, If you don’t know 8 and 9 you can find 8 on the number line and move forward 9 numbers to find the answer” - Musa

SEL-

Students have been focusing on friendships and how to be a good friend. They have also spoken about their emotions and what strategies we can use to overcome these emotions and how these emotions make us feel. Teams across the school use a ready to learn chart to help students identify if they are ready to learn or if they need support to help them get ready to learn. 

Inquiry-

In Inquiry ,students have been learning about healthy eating .We explored some foods which are healthy and should be included in our daily meals and unhealthy or ‘sometimes foods’, which should be eaten in moderation. Students shared what healthy brain break food should be included in their daily lunch boxes, sorted foods into ‘healthy’ and ‘treats’, we then analysed the healthy eating chart and discussed what we noticed.

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Important Notes to Remember

• Please label all belongings.
• Students bring blue reading folders, diaries and homework books daily.
• Please ensure students bring their hats daily.
• Please ensure your children are attending school as  ‘It is not ok to be away’. If your child is away please notify the office or upload the absence into Compass.
• Pack brain break (healthy snack) in their lunch box for our early morning break between sessions.