Foundation

Congratulations to our wonderful Foundation students on another successful Term of schooling. Our ‘Healthy Me’ topic has been lots of fun with learning about keeping ourselves healthy. Students have particularly enjoyed the dancing sessions with Miss G and shown great resilience when building their peg person houses.

We have finished learning all of the letters and are so excited for our ‘Alphabet Day’ tomorrow. We look forward to seeing the students dressed up as their favourite letter!

We concluded our Maths topic of 'Statistics and Probability’ which was great fun and very interesting, as we asked lots of questions of each other to see what was the ‘most popular’ etc. After collecting the ‘data’ we worked together to make bar and picture graphs. We will begin Term 2 revising ‘Place Value’. Look out for our newsletter with more information which will go home in the first week back.

This week we have sent home some ‘holiday homework’ suggestions for those who are looking for ideas. You will find the sheet in your child’s reading satchel.

What a super fast term! Thank you for all your support and we hope you enjoy a relaxing and safe break!

Grade 1

It’s hard to believe we have almost reached the end of our first semester in Grade 1! We are very proud of how the children have adapted to the changes and challenges that Grade 1 has thrown at them so far, and we loved being able to share and celebrate their progress with families during our Parent Teacher conferences.

The students have been working hard over the past couple of weeks to create wonderfully detailed procedural texts titled ‘How to Sneak your Monster into School’ and ‘How to give your Llama a haircut’. The level of creativity has gotten all of the teachers very excited for next term’s venture into Narrative writing!

Today the Grade 1 students enjoyed participating in a range of Weather related experiments, during our Mad about Science incursion. We are sure that they will be coming home with lots of fun facts and experiments to share and possibly perfect over the holidays!

We hope all of our Grade 1 families have a lovely, safe break and we look forward to seeing you all in Term 3!

Grade 2

As we wind up Term 2, we’d like to congratulate our Grade 2 students on their terrific effort and progress this semester - they should be very proud of themselves!

This week, students have been learning how to write Haiku poems, which are short Japanese poems often about nature or the seasons and how we feel about them, and follow a specific structure and syllable pattern.

As part of our ‘Word Study’, students have been learning more about the jobs of ‘final silent -e’, syllable division with vowel-consonant-e (v-c-e) syllables, determining when ‘s’ says /z/ (between two vowels), and ‘y’ as a vowel.

In Maths, we completed our ‘Patterns and Algebra’ topic with a big focus on finding and describing rules for number patterns and continuing them using addition and subtraction. This week we have been revising number and place value with some fun games to consolidate and build students’ knowledge and skills.

Students have completed their inquiry into the states of matter and mixtures, with a quiz on Seesaw to test their knowledge. They were very engaged throughout the term, investigating different concepts through a range of experiments, and built up some great vocab along the way.

We continue with our ‘Rotations’, which currently focus on coding, shape, mindfulness, and a team-based design and construction challenge.

Thank you for your support with homework this semester. We’ve asked students to return all ‘take home’ books this week so we can perform a stocktake. We hope that all students will continue reading over the holidays, enjoying books from home, library, etc.

Grade 3

We are halfway through the year already! The Grade Three students have worked extremely hard this semester.

Reading: To finish the term, the students have been exploring the reading comprehension strategy of making predictions. The students read a variety of texts and learnt to make accurate and informed predictions using details and clues along with our own background knowledge. Our mentor text was called ‘Finding our Heart’.

Writing: Over the last two weeks, we have created a range of poems. Students have looked at the structure and language features of cinquain and rhyming couplets before having a go at writing one themselves. In our grammar lessons, the students continued working on their sentence structure by writing complex sentences.

Maths: We finished our measurement concept and have commenced a concept on angles. The students have identified acute, right, and obtuse angles in their everyday lives and in shapes. The have also compared and ordered different angles.

Inquiry: The students learnt about First Nation art and symbols. They looked at a piece of First Nations Art, made a list of the symbols they could see in the artwork and discussed with a partner what they think the art is telling them.

Grade 4

And that’s a wrap for Term 2! We are extremely proud of our Grade 4 students and what they have achieved this term. Our Star Time incursion was a huge success and the students thoroughly enjoyed watching their news reports this week. Thank you to all of our families for your ongoing support of your child’s learning. We hope the students have a restful two week break and we look forward to seeing everyone back in Term 3.

Literacy: Speaking and listening skills were put to the test during our Star Time movie-making incursion on Tuesday 13th June. The students did an excellent job with writing, reading, rehearsing and delivering their scripts when recording their speaking parts. We have read some very interesting stories of ‘fearless and foolish’ convict escapes from a new mentor text called, ‘Get Me Out of Here!’.

Numeracy: Our focus in Maths has been centred around a Geometric Reasoning topic of Angles. Students have learnt about the different names of angles and how the amount of turn is measured in degrees. We have practiced using a protractor for reading and measuring the degrees of an angle. Work with ordering different sized angles and understanding what complementary and supplementary angles are, has also been covered in Maths lessons.

Inquiry: Watching the Grade 4 news reports from our Star Time incursion, has been a highlight this week. The students learnt so much about the movie making process such as: how to use a green screen, filming techniques, editing processes such as transitions, sound effects etc. We have seen a huge amount of growth and understanding of our history based Inquiry, ‘Into the Unknown’ this term & we hope that their inquisitive minds continue to develop to find out even more about this topic in the future.

Reminders: Please let your child’s classroom teacher know if your child WILL NOT be attending our Grade 4 camp in Term 3. We are starting to plan for camp & further details will be ready early in Term 3.

Grade 5

As Term 2 comes to a close we just wanted to congratulate all our wonderful students for their focus and dedication in the classroom. It’s been an amazing term and we’re looking forward to seeing our Grade 5’s achieve in Semester 2. Also, please keep returning our camp medical and dietary forms back to classroom teacher and please find our camp consent/payment event on Compass.

Writing – Response Writing

Students have worked towards applying all their knowledge and skills in response writing in a piece that shares their physical and emotional reactions to the movie ‘Rabbit Proof Fence’. It’s been amazing to read about their honest thoughts and opinions on the movie and to see such fantastic use of descriptive and emotive vocabulary.

Comprehension – Finding the Main Idea

In class, students have revised the strategy of finding the main idea with the focus on identifying key and supporting details. We’ve practised this strategy when reading a range of different texts and look forward to seeing students applying this strategy when engaging with their own independent reading books.

Maths – Multiplication and Division

Students learned, practised and implemented a range of written and mental strategies to allow them to multiply and divide large numbers. We’ll be hitting the ground running next term with a return to fractions, decimals and percentages.

Inquiry – Project Presentations

We have thoroughly enjoyed watching our students present their fantastic projects about Indigenous Australian identities OR initiatives to their classmates. We’ve been impressed by their depth and detail but also with their eye-contact, volume and clarity when presenting. All groups worked brilliantly and efficiently researched, summarised their information and constructed their PowerPoints or posters.

Grade 6

Writing

The Grade 6 classes putting the finishing touches on their Space themed media study. They are making great progress with their individual response text covering topics such as characterisation, setting, plot and themes.

Mathematics

In Mathematics, we will be completing our work in Time this week. The students have enjoyed learning how to calculate elapsed time, interpret timetables and understanding time zones across the world. Next term, the students will begin their ‘Angles’ block of learning.

Inquiry

The Grade 6 classes finished their ‘We Dream of Space’ theme this week with a trip to Science Works. The students engaged in a variety of STEM activities with the highlight of the day being a visit to the planetarium. The Grade 6 teachers carefully selected the ‘Space Odyssey’ show for the students to enjoy. This brought their Space inquiry topic to a lovely conclusion.

Interschool Sport

Last week, the Grade 6 boys Soccer team faced St Bridget’s and St Marks. The boys came away victorious winning both games 3-0. They will progress to Division finals in Term 3. This week, the girls Netball, girls Soccer and the Tee Ball team will compete in their District finals. Good luck to all participating.

Term Dates and Events

As a reward for all their hard work and consistently completing all of their homework this term, the Grade 6 classes will be taking part in their end of term reward. The plans for the day were decided by four student representatives who had won a Values reward this term.

Please check Compass for further information regarding events relating to Grade 6 students.

Focus Newsletter

Together We Achieve

Issue 10 · 22 Jun 2023

In this issue