What's happening?
Foundation
Over the last 2 weeks we began introducing the jobs of ‘e’. This first of these jobs is Final Silent E. In this spelling rule, the ‘e’ comes at the end of a word, it jumps over a consonant and makes the vowel say its name (strong vowel sound) in words such as hope, kite and cane. We have now finished learning all of List A Red Flag Words, having introduced ‘has’ and ‘saw’ this term. The students have been busy revising all the learnt Red Flag Words and we are so proud to see the students reading and using them in their writing.
In Maths, students have been busy revisiting several different topics including: Money, Ordinal Numbers and Time. The students have enjoyed ordering the events in the day, drawing or writing time and understanding the features of a clock.
The students have enjoyed continuing our writing topic of ‘Information Reports’. With their buddy they began brainstorming facts about their favourite animal and soon will begin writing their report. It has been great to see them so passionate about their chosen animals. You may like to ask them what they chose and have a discussion about what kind of animal they are, what they eat, where they live, interesting facts etc.
Thank you to all the parents who volunteered to assist with the Zoo excursion so far. We are very lucky to have lots of help, if you would still like to volunteer please email your classroom teacher by Friday 24th November at 9am. If a class has more volunteers than they need the classroom teacher will draw names out of a hat. Your child’s teacher will notify you if you have been selected. We will be in touch in the following few weeks with more information.
Finally, our ‘Kinder to School Transition’ sessions for our 2024 Foundation students begin next Tuesday 21st November at 9:10am and will run over the next four weeks. Our current Foundation students will spend the first half of the morning with their buddies. Please be prompt with school drop-off on these days so we can organise our students and get them to where they need to be. We appreciate your help with this!
Grade 1
Week 7 and we are heading to the end of term at rocket speed. The Grade 1’s, have completed their multiplication topic last week, finishing with worded problems. The new topic introduced this week is Fractions, where our focus is identifying equal parts of a shape.
We are continuing to learn about our vowel teams (diphthongs), last week looking at ai/ay and this week ou/ow and where we use them in a word. It’s great to see the students make connections when reading, to the diphthongs they are learning. The students have also been learning the difference between a fact and an opinion.
We are continuing to learn amazing facts about Insects and have been writing some factual information reports about various types. We participated in a Zoom incursion last week, run by an Entomologist, where she discussed the features of insects and how to identify them. We even learnt a song to help us remember the features of an insect. Next, we will have the opportunity to hold some live minibeast’s and see how they look and feel, on Friday16th November.
Grade 2
Our Grade 2 students had a terrific excursion to Moonlit Sanctuary last week, learning a lot about many Australian animals, their adaptations and habitats. Thanks again to parents for volunteering to help.
Students are completing their habitat research and planning for their diorama, which they will begin constructing next week. Named shoeboxes (or similar size) and any additional materials need to be brought in by Monday 20th November.
This fortnight, students have continued to develop their narrative writing skills with a focus on storyline/plot and building depth with ideas and descriptive language. When reading at home, having discussions around what the story is mostly about (main idea), problem/s and attempts to solve, and how the story ends not only helps with reading comprehension, but also helps towards them being able to plan these elements when writing their own texts.
During our ‘Word Study’ sessions, students are learning about how the suffixes -er and -est can be added to the end of an adjective to show that something is being compared to one, or more than one other thing, e.g. ‘longer’, ‘longest’. As part of our ‘Grammar/Syntax Project’ lessons, students are learning to use the conjunctions ‘since’ and ‘whenever’ effectively in their sentence writing.
In Maths this week, we are revisiting ‘statistics and probability’. Students are building their skills with posing questions, gathering, recording and analysing data, and creating graphs. They are also identifying the likelihood of different events using appropriate ‘chance’ language. As always, opportunities to explore these concepts in everyday situations at home will be a great way to consolidate and build on your child’s knowledge.
Our wellbeing focus this fortnight is on emotional literacy along with resilience, rights and respectful relationships.
Thank you for your ongoing support with homework: Regular reading aloud and ‘Red Flag Word’ spelling.
Optional extras: ‘Nessy Reading and Spelling’ and ‘Sunset/Jetpack Maths’ (Essential Assessment).
Grade 3
What a fantastic time had by all on camp. The students enjoyed themselves immensely and were excited to try all the different activities on offer. It was also a great way to get to know each other in a different environment, for both students and teachers. Thank you to our parent volunteers and Ms Willis for coming along and helping out.
Grade 4
It was a sad farewell to our chicken family who have now gone back to the farm to hopefully lead a full and happy life laying eggs. They brought much joy to our hub and community. Bike Ed begins this week, and we strongly encourage parents to ensure the bikes are in good working order and any issues resolved prior to beginning Bike Ed. A big thank you to all the parent volunteers who are helping make this program happen.
Literacy:
The students have completed the midterm assessment for our study of ‘Wonder’ and we have been extremely impressed by the depth of understanding they have made whilst reading the text. The powerful themes within the book are hopefully challenging the kids thinking about how they see difference in our world. The written components of our study have looked at how to successfully compose a written response that includes sound evidence from the book. All grade 4’s has now published their Life Cycle texts and their creativity and depth of knowledge has been brilliant.
Numeracy:
The students have completed many different data experiments and used this information to create dot plots, side by side graphs and line graphs. They have also learnt how to create graphs using excel. We are not moving into our ‘Mass’ unit where the students will look at different mass measurements and how to convert, compare and order different mass examples.
Inquiry:
We have now completed our ‘Friends or Foes’ unit and are beginning our ‘Melting Moments’ unit. The students will be looking at chemical sciences, more specifically the relationship between gases, liquids and solids.
Grade 5
Week 7 has been another jam-packed week for our students who have approached all tasks with enthusiasm and a fantastic work ethic. We’d like to remind all families to please ensure they are supporting their child in maintaining excellent homework and reading habits at home right until the end of term. Also, a big congratulations to all Grade 5 students who presented their 2024 leadership speeches this week. Roles will be announced towards the end of term.
English:
Now that we’ve concluded our work with our wonderful mentor text for the term, grades will begin a reading rotations style approach to comprehension. Each grade will have 3 groups, each focusing on a different activity. The three activities will be reciprocal reading, reading works comprehension articles and questions and a BTN or Seesaw summarising task. In writing, students have thoroughly enjoyed learning, planning and writing their own script within small groups. Students have learned about dialogue and stage direction and are writing the script for plays that have an interesting and engaging plot. We can’t wait to see these scripts come to life in the coming weeks!
Maths:
Patterns and Algebra remains our focus topic within maths groups. Students continue to explore a range of concepts including solving number sentences, finding rules for patterns and simplifying algebraic expressions. Students will be working towards post-testing next week before moving onto our next topic, Mass.
Inquiry:
Travel Expo remains a favourite of Grade 5 students during our week. Groups have just completed section of food where they surveyed their classmates and constructed a pie chart to show data relating to national or traditional dishes from their country. Groups are now looking into 12 and 24-hour time and are selecting the best flight for two passengers to travel to their capital city from Melbourne Airport. Students have thoroughly enjoyed working through their Travel Expo booklet and will continue to learn some real-world skills relating to time and money.
Grade 6
Literacy
We have continued reading our novel Treasure Island. As we have been reading, we have been focused on answering comprehension questions. Students have been working on using evidence from the text to support their answers.
In writing, we have continued planning for our adventure story that we will be writing. Student have considered how events can build and add tension to the story before finally being resolved. Students will soon begin drafting their stories using the planning documents to support them.
Students have also been hard at work creating their memory books to celebrate their time at Parkdale Primary School.
Mathematics
In Maths we have be revisiting and revising previously taught topics. This will assist students to develop a strong understanding of key concepts before they head off to secondary school next year. Some of our focuses have been on factors, multiples, fractions and decimals. We have also been exploring some problems solving challenges and encouraging students to use the ‘Bar Model’ when solving them.
Inquiry
Students have continued working on their Market Day stalls. Over the last two weeks groups have been working on creating signs for their stalls. They have also begun creating the products that they will sell to our Grade 3 students on Market Day in Week 11. It has been wonderful to see them work collaboratively and be so creative.