Year Three - Spotlight on Learning

Dear Families,

Welcome back to another great week of learning. Students have settled extremely well into all areas of their learning, We have finally been able to view and complete all student performances from last term. Students should be congratulated on having had a go at learning their lines and performing in front of their peers - showing great enthusiasm and courage. Several students videoed their performances onto Seesaw, so some families will have been able to view their children’s presentations.

The KIDS ROAR student sessions will be held at St Thomas the Apostle School in classrooms next week. There have already been parent and teacher sessions this week. If you missed the sessions, KIDS ROAR is a programme to empower children about their personal safety, focussing on two key areas: ‘We all have the right to feel safe at all times’ and ‘We can talk to someone we trust about anything, no matter what it is.’ The KIDS ROAR programme provides tools and strategies that empower children to help reduce their vulnerability to abuse, neglect and unsafe situations. The sessions for Year 3 will all be on Thursday 31st October throughout the day.

Ephesus Community is beginning a music programme in Week 4 called Amplify Music Education. This programme provides classroom teachers with the skills to deliver quality music lessons to their class in a fun and contemporary way. Students will be exposed to elements and features of this music programme twice a week for the rest of the year, as part of the Integrated Studies unit, focussing on the music aspect of the Arts curriculum.

Below is a photograph of Ephesus Community participating as a group in the Religious Education topic of the Bible where students listened to, discussed and were presented some information about one of the stories from the Old Testament - David and Goliath - and how this was then recontextualised into our current lives, by applying the message to the programme - U Have the Power - empowering students to speak up in the face of bullying or seeing others being bullied.

Our Learning Focus for Week 4 . . .

Mathematics:  In Maths, students have been learning about location, firstly identifying words such as symbols, perspectives, bird’s eye view, street view, legends and maps. Students then interpreted maps, locating symbols and describing how to find them, using positional language. Students completed a Rich Task creating a treasure map with a legend, grid references and showing the route on how to find the treasure.

English: For English students have continued with the reading and analysis of ‘The One and Only Ivan’ - learning more about the characters of Stella the ageing elephant, who acts as a mentor and friend of Ivan, as well as being a mother to a young elephant, Ruby, a new arrival to the mall circus group. At the end of the week, students then worked on their persuasive letter, planning and writing their introduction.

Religious Education:  Our Religion topic for  Term 4 is ‘The Bible’. This week students looked at how many books are in the Bible, identifying some parts such as the Pentateuch, historical books and Paul’s letters to various groups of people. Students were able to find examples of particular stories or letters and explain the author and who the text was written for.

Integrated Studies: This has been the final week students have been rehearsing the plays given out to groups at the end of Term 3. They were able to present their plays and performances in front of their classes and record these onto Seesaw. Next week we are going to start a music program that will focus on rhythm, beat and melody. Students will also get some insight into the notations used in music script.    

Auslan:  In Unit 7C,  students have learnt that in English we have words that sound like a noise such as woosh, zoom, squeak and boom. But when signing sound words in Auslan, particularly the sounds animals make, these are linked to a feature of that animal. For example, signing the sound for ‘moo’ the feature shown are the horns of the cow. When a sign looks like an object, that sign is called ICONIC. 

Reminders

Monday 4th November - School Closure Day

Tuesday 5th November - PUBLIC HOLIDAY - School Closure Day

Wednesday 20th November - Ephesus and Bethany Community Mass