Prep and Year 1

Prep 

As always, Prep is a bustling hive of rich learning activities and learning opportunities.

Last week our cohort was captivated and engaged at their Wildlife Xposure Incursion, facilitated by educator Brandon. As a part of our ' Living Things ' Inquiry unit, the Preps were given wonderful hands-on experiences touching, feeling, looking and listening to some intriguing and unusual animals such as the illusive Bettong (commonly known as the Rat Kangaroo), a humorous Kookaburra named Savvy who laughed at us all, a saltwater crocodile and a cheeky goanna. The showstopper of course, was a 10.5 kg long python called Olivia who took a whole grade to hold her!  The Preps asked some interesting questions such as "Where do they live?", "What do they eat?" and "How many animals do you have, Brandon?" just to name a few. 

This visit has sparked more interest and curiosity in the students, who have shown a keen interest in learning about a wider variety of animals. It has helped them make further connections to the Australian animals they see in their local community, not to mention in our school yard! (Spotted our resident brush tail possum recently?)

🌱✨ Prep Adventures in Term 3! ✨🌱

What a term it has been in Prep! Term 3 has been bursting with adventure, curiosity, and plenty of learning as we explored the wonders of nature and our incredible environment.

We kicked things off with a huge milestone – 100 days of school! 🎉 The children celebrated in style, reflecting on just how much they’ve grown and learned since the start of the year. Shortly after, we dived headfirst into Book Week, dressing up as our favourite characters and even attending a special illustrating session with the very talented Connah Brecon.

One of the highlights of the term was our Wildlife Xposure incursion. The children were captivated as they met some amazing local creatures up close – a hands-on way to learn more about the wildlife that shares our world. To keep the adventure going, we also ventured outside for Nature Play, where we explored our own environment and discovered the many connections we have with our community and the natural world around us. 🌿🐾

It’s safe to say Term 3 has been full of excitement, curiosity, and plenty of happy memories. We can’t wait to see what Term 4 brings!

Year 1

In Mathematics this term we have been investigating Patterns. Students have explored coloured patterns, picture patterns and number patterns using a variety of materials, such as unifix cubes, icy pole sticks, colouring in pictures and even using our bodies to make movements as we count by 10’s, 5’s and 2’s. 

In Literacy students have been reading non-fiction texts and becoming increasingly familiar with the features of this type of text, for example glossary, index page, subtitles and labelled picture. We have read many of these text types about both bees and elephants, learning many interesting facts. Students then wrote their own information report using sub-titles. 

Here are some Year One reports.

We have learnt many interesting facts about bees and elephants.

“I learnt that a baby elephant is called a calf" - Harrison 1R

“I learnt that elephants are herbivores- they only eat plants" - Fletcher 1R

We have also created an information report cube on ourselves. We used subheadings on each side of the cube to write and draw facts. Here are some of the wonderful cubes made by some of students.

In Inquiry, students have explored the key question of “How do we describe the sequence of time?” We have explored how we use terms such as then and now, long ago, yesterday and tomorrow to indicate and describe time in relation to past, present and future. Students have also sequenced days, months and seasons as well as being introduced to the Aboriginal seasonal calendar. 

We also discussed days of personal significance and ones that are significant to other cultures and communities such as Chinese New Year, Halloween, Christmas, Easter, New Years Eve. 

Here are some wonderful celebrations hats created by our Year 1’s.