Monarch Community Report

Reading 

Monarch students have been learning how authors structure a narrative. Students are beginning to identify key areas of narrative stories such as the problem, feeling/mood, character, setting, plan, attempt, consequence and ending. They are investigating these elements in guided mini lessons and then exploring the key areas on their own with a variety of picture story books. 

Writing 

Students in the Monarch Community have also been exploring how authors structure narratives in writing. They have been using their knowledge about narrative features to create their own narrative texts.

Monarch students planned their narratives using graphic organisers that listed the following features: problem, feeling/mood, character and setting, plan, attempt, consequence, ending and end feeling. After planning, students went on to draft, edit, revise and publish their own narrative texts.

Numeracy

In Numeracy, Monarch students have been focusing on building students' deeper understandings around the concepts of Place Value. They have looked at how to read numbers as words. They have explored the way that numbers are groupings of various place values, including units, tens, hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands and millions. Some students have extended their learning beyond millions into tens of millions and hundreds of millions, and others have even looked at place values that are decimal numbers, such as tenths, hundredths and thousandths.

Students have compared numbers to find the one with the greatest or lowest value and ordered them accordingly. They have identified patterns and practiced counting by those patterns, such as creating a hundred board around a given number, not just 1 - 100 as is seen in junior primary learning. For example, if their number was 3624, they would create a hundred board depicting the subsequent hundred numbers, from 3624 - 3724. 

Students used honeycomb frames to explore how addition and subtraction can manipulate a given number. For example, if their pitching number was 8705, they would add 1 to make it 8706, or subtract 1 to make it 8704; or add 10 to make it 8715, or subtract 10 to make it 8695; or add 100 to make it 8805, or subtract 100 to make it 8605. This process helps students build a greater understanding of the patterns that can be found in bridging to 10 and how that knowledge can help them solve larger number addition and subtraction problems. For example, if students can grasp 5 + 5 = 10, then that knowledge can help them solve 50 + 50 = 100, or 500 + 500 = 1000, etc.

 Friendly Reminders

Please remember:

• Students need to wear a hat this term.
• It is important to have a water bottle each day and that it is labelled. 
• Please ensure your children are attending school as  ‘It is not ok to be away’.
• Students are to record their home reading in their school diaries with a signature. This needs to be returned to school each day. 
• Brain Food is fruit or vegetable snacks that children may eat in class. It is important to include this as an additional snack in their lunch box. 

We look forward to a wonderful year working together with students and their families. 

The Monarch Community Teachers