Learning Areas

Foundation

We’ve had a great start to Term 3, launching our jobs integrated topic with a letter from Bluey’s dad who is looking for a new job and wants help. Preps will explore different jobs each week and have chances to dress up in clothes from a range of professions, play with our new doctors area in developmental play and hear from our parent guest speakers about the jobs they do. Our first speaker, Anna, gave an amazing presentation about her work as a beekeeper. Students learnt a lot about how to care for bees, tried on a beekeeper suit and tasted some honey.

In maths, students are focussing on subtraction - students had fun counting a total number of balloons, ‘taking them away’ (pop!) and working out how many were left. 

In literacy, students are learning about the features of fiction narratives and starting to craft their own imaginative stories - we can’t wait to read them!

Grade 1/2

The Toy Incursion

On Thursday, the 20th of July, the year 1 and 2 students, enjoyed a Toy incursion in our Visual Arts room. In this incursion, the students were presented with 4 tables of toys, organised into groups depending on how they worked and the movements they could make. 

Before the students began to play with the toys, the incursion teacher, Liz, discussed and demonstrated the different ways the toys can be made and the different movements the toys can make. For example, the students learnt about toys which could fly, balance, rotate, push, roll and pull, and examined how the toys could complete these tasks. The students were all very engaged and full of questions throughout this time. 

Next up they were put into groups and provided the opportunity to play with the toys for the rest of the lessons. Lots of laughter was heard and big smiles seen, throughout this time. 

Just as they were about to leave the students were even given a toy to take home. Thanks to Liz, the incursion teacher, the students had an amazing time!

Grade 3/4

In the grade 3/4 area we have done lots of fun lessons since the last newsletter.

We have learnt about symmetry and how shaped and patterns can repeat. 

We’ve been on lots of excursion down to the Merri Creek to learn about the history of the area and how the creek is becoming healthy again after years of being very polluted.

We made dioramas showing the history of the Merri Creek and presented to an audience of grade ½ students on a gallery walk incursion.

And recently we have been conducting lots of chance experiments, learning how to describe the likelihood or probability of something happening, like guessing if it will be heads or tails when we flip a coin.

In maths in term 3, we learned about symmetry. 

Hello my name is paris and i'm going to talk about the merri creek diorama projects 

We got all our things from the merri creek we got sticks leaves rocks and much more

We builded the dioramas at school our one looked great  the grade 1 / 2 came over to the grade ¾ are and we 

Presented our projects.

By Paris Parthimos 

I like Diary of a Rescued Wombat by Jackie French because it’s funny and it has good pictures and the pictures have details that make it look like the characters are moving. It’s just a good book and I like it a lot. 

From Alex Schmidt

I like Dippy and the Dinosaurs by Jackie French because it is funny and it’s about a prehistoric giant wombat. I went to Marysville and the was a zoo there and it had these big statues of a giant wombat and it had rocks with writing to read that told you about it. I like big animals.

From Yaseen Abdulmohti

I like Baby Wombat’s Week because it reminds me of the challenges you have to face when moving. This can help prepare you for if you ever need to move away from your old house and you have to mak new friends which can be tricky. Another reason why I like it is because it is funny and cute, and I really like the way the baby wombat moves into the baby’s room and I totally recommend this book. 

From Annaliese Gargett.

I like Fire Wombat by Jackie French because I like how they make a fundraiser at the end to help the wombat and the other animals. I like the pictures in the book because they look so detailed. From Abdul Rahman Saad I like Fire Wombat because it’s just perfect and good to read. The pictures of the smoke and details and the trees are helpful when we read. The story has sad parts, but then it is happy at the end. From Hussein Yehia.

Grade 5/6  

Welcome back to all our wonderful Grade 5/6 students and families! We are so excited about all of the exciting things we have planned for and coming up in Term 3. We also welcome Simon back from his adventures across Europe and are very happy to have him back.

In literacy, we have been learning about Alison Lester in an author study of her life and books. The students have really enjoyed reading a range of Alison’s books and seeing all the similarities and differences between them. At the beginning of the term, students created excellent information posters about Alison’s life and career. Then after studying the hybrid text, Sophie Scott Goes South, the students had a go at creating their own text with a blend of both fact and fiction. It has been fantastic to see everyone’s creativity and imagination and it has produced some very high quality pieces of work. At the moment, the students will be creating their own picture story books that are inspired by Alison Lester and her body of work. 

This semester in PBL we are beginning our history unit. Across the two terms, the students will cover Australian history from approximately 60,000 years ago, all the way up to federation in the early 1900s. At the moment, the students are studying life of Wurundjeri Peoples in Australia before Europeans came and are creating projects that represent their learning. They have picked a way to present their learning such as collage, podcast or play. Throughout this week, the students will be researching and then next week they will be doing the creating to present their project at the end of the week.

For maths, the students are learning about different multiplication and division techniques. They have learnt multiple different strategies such as the grid method, Italian lattice and the algorithm. It has been awesome to see the students push themselves using these strategies and solve problems that have sometimes 8 or more digits.

We have some other exciting things coming up this term. Next week, our Grade 6 leaders are heading to Coburg High to begin a partnership between the two schools to introduce our leaders into fundraising and organising. Some students will also be going to athletics in a few weeks to represent the school.

Hope you’re all staying warm and safe. 

Tori, Sandra, Kerry, Simon and Lina :) 

About the author

Miles McCabe did this in real life, but he drove to Tewantin instead of Brisbane. He has won trillion of prizes for this book and will win many more.