From the classroom
News from 5/6 Unit
Hello Families,
Welcome back for Term 3. We hope you had a relaxing and enjoyable break. The 3-6 camp is Week 3, Monday 25th to Wednesday 27. More details will be provided in the Camp Information session tonight July 12, at 6pm through WebEx or in person.
In Reading, we begin a new mentor text, City Spies by James Ponti. Students will analyse the text by applying skills including predicting, questioning, summarising and clarifying. Students will answer comprehension questions on plot, setting and character traits.
In Writing, we continue to study Information Reports. This time our focus is on location and landmarks. Students will research, take notes and write reports using the correct text structure and language devices.
In Numeracy, we will focus on time. Students will work towards telling time to the minute, converting between 12- and 24-hour time systems, interpreting timetables and finally, calculating and comparing elapsed time. We will begin Master Classes, which encourages students to make their own learning choices and choose a class and focus that best suits their needs.
Additionally to this, an essential part of success in numeracy is being confident with times tables. Students should be practising these skills each night, with the goal for all sets (2-10) to be recalled with automaticity.
Please feel free to contact us if you have any further questions.
Kind Regards,
Pippa Davis and Sheena Cronin
What’s Happening in 3/4?
Wominjeka! Welcome to a new term! We have SO much coming up that we will be busy little bees!
Our inquiry unit this term is called ‘Wominjeka’ which means welcome in Woi-Wurrung, the language of the Wurundjeri People. The unit examines the importance Indigenous Australians in the history of Australia, with particular reference to the local area. The work involves studies on how Indigenous Australians are connected to Country and Place (land, sea, waterways and skies). It also examines aspects of Indigenous Australian Law, Identity and Family. Students will learn about the implications for the contact of Indigenous Australians with non-Indigenous Australians/people (Macassans, First Fleet, Europeans). Students will use research techniques to investigate an area of personal interest related to Indigenous Australia and present the information appropriately to an audience.
This week we have been revising our understanding of the four processes (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division) in readiness for a term of rich numeracy learning. In the coming weeks, we will be learning about using these operations on fractions and decimals – as well as diving into the ‘Order of Operations’ – you know… solving problems which include more than one operation!
In English, we have been continuing our learning of phonemic knowledge – unpacking and explaining why words are structured the way that they are. We are also developing our understanding of comprehension strategies – linking the words we read and making sense of them.
Camp is also a large point of focus – we are all looking forward to heading off on Monday in Week 3.
Have a fantastic week!
Alec, Anna, Lisa and Pete
The Adventures of the 1/2's
Hello Families,
Welcome back to Term 3, we hope your break was relaxing and happy.
It has been great to see our 1/2 students return to school ready to learn, and quickly settle into school routines. It has also been lovely to see all of our students reconnect with their peers during our Wellbeing lessons and continue to see them gain confidence in using their Friendology strategies to form new friendships, strengthen existing friendships and extinguish friendship fires.
This term has seen Lunchtime Clubs start up and our 1/2 students have shown great enthusiasm in joining in on the daily activities which are supported by our 5/6 students. The schedule for lunchtime clubs is on display in classrooms and was published in the last newsletter. These activities are free for students to attend and support students in forming friendships and participating in quiet play.
In Literacy, we have started our unit on information texts and students are learning the difference between non-fiction and fiction texts. Students in the coming weeks will explore the features and structure of information texts. During our reading sessions, we are continuing our focus on choosing just the right books and decoding and fluency; we ask that when reading with your child each day you encourage these skills. During Writing, we will continue our focus on sentence structure and the different types of words in a sentence, such as nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs. Student’s over the coming weeks will develop skills in writing facts on a topic of interest.
In Numeracy we have begun our unit on Australian money, where students are learning to recognise and order Australian coins. In the coming weeks we will focus on practising our addition skills in calculating the value of a small collection of Australian money.
Our Inquiry unit, this term is focussed on Design technology and will see our students exploring what living creatures visit the area surrounding Marlborough Primary and how we can design something to help them. This unit links closely to their science unit on living things.
We encourage you to support your child in bringing their reader packs each day as these are used for notices and reading practice. Students are to swap their readers on a Monday for the week ahead.
Kind Regards,
The 1/2 Teaching Team
Helen Edwards, Anies Davidson and Adam Jarvis
Fantastic Foundations
Welcome back to Term 3 and I’m so proud of how well everyone has resettled into our classroom and school routines. Term 3 is often a time of great growth in Foundation and the students are very excited and ready to learn. Our Inquiry unit this term is “Amazing Animals” which we will use to build engagement in our Literacy tasks, developmental play time and Math. Each week we will focus on a different animal using a picture story book, learn about where they live, what they eat and other interesting information. We also hope to expand the students awareness of our place in the world, and understand some animals live in Australia, but many animals live in other countries around the world.
This fortnight we are learning about quokkas and bears. We will take some time to consolidate our phonics learning in reading, and focus on using this knowledge to help the students when writing. In Math we are learning about ordinal numbers (first, second, third etc) and teen numbers (12, 13, 14 etc).
We also have 2 very exciting events next week! On Wednesday we will have our first visit from the Fire Education program and look forward to learning more about these community helpers which connects to our Term 2 Inquiry learning. We will learn about fire safety, what is an emergency, and who to call for help. We will send home some resources after the Fire-fighters visit to help families have a chat at home about planning a safe meeting place and safety at home. Then on Thursday we will celebrate our 100th day of school! This is a huge milestone and please keep an eye out on Compass for more information about how we plan to enjoy this day.