Xenica Community Report

Our Learning 

We would like to say a big welcome to our new families of Xenica. Our students have settled in well and we are excited for new learning. We have 5 mentor groups in Xenica and they are made up of Frogs-Deanna, Glow worms-Emma, Honey Bees-Holly, June bugs-Nicole and Iguanas-Dana. We look forward to further celebrating successes and achievements with you. 

We are XENICA!

Reading

In Term 1 Reading, students have been exposed to concepts about print and identifying the parts of the books. This includes the directionality in which we read and how we hold a book. Students have begun to explore different sounds that they may come across when reading.

We also have been learning about reading strategies we use while we are reading a book. These strategies are predicting, clarifying, fluency, questioning and summarising. 

Writing

In Term 1 Writing, students have explored recounts and are starting to write their own recounts of past events. We have explored all the activities we may do on the weekend and used this as a seed for our writing process. Students have explored the 5W questions, and within their orientation have started to identify who was there, what did they do, where was it, when did it happen and why did it happen. 

In Xenica, we love to write about things we love to do and places we have been. Students use their Writers notebook to write about these interests and places. Students learn to set personal writing goals such as writing with spaces, writing on the line, using fullstops and capitals letters. Our students demonstrate success and enjoyment during this time. 

Maths

In Maths Term 1, Xenica has been focusing on number and place value. Students are learning to order numbers correctly and matching them to the visual representation as well as exploring with bundling sticks up to 10. 

Students have explored the different vocabulary for sharing such as divide, share equally and division.  Students have put into practice sharing using one-to-one and also explored mental strategies such as skip counting to identify ‘how many into each group’. 

SEL

In Social and Emotional learning this term, students in Xenica have explored the Learning Pit and Growth Mindset. Our students are learning to adopt a growth mindset instead of a fixed mindset and practising positive self talk such as ‘I will keep on trying’ or ‘I'm not giving up’ when they do not know something. Xenica students understand that we are all in the Learning Pit now or have been once before. The Learning Pit is for everyone and students have associated different emotions to when they are challenged or learning something new. Our motto for the Learning Pit is ‘I don't know it YET!’.

We have also continued to explore the Zones of Regulation which help students to identify the feelings and emotions that they have and how they can learn to regulate themselves to get back into the ‘green zone’.

Inquiry

In Inquiry, students are exploring the topic ‘What do I need to be healthy?’ and identifying a variety of healthy foods and exercise to keep themselves healthy. The guiding questions students have explored are, What is Healthy Eating? , How can we decide what is healthy food? and  What things help us do well at school/work? 

Using these questions students have identified healthy and unhealthy foods by sorting these into the appropriate categories such as carbohydrates, protein, vegetable and fruit. We encourage students to bring a healthy fruit, veggie or dairy snack to school to fuel our brain and bodies. Students are identifying the benefits of healthy snacks on our health and wellbeing. 

Important Notes to Remember

• Doors open at 8:40am
• Dismissal at 3:10pm
• Please label all belongings.
• Students are encouraged to bring their iPads to school each day.
• Bring hats and water bottles to school clearly labelled.
• Please ensure your students are attending school ‘It’s not ok to be away, every day counts'.