Prep

What’s Happening in Prep: Weeks 3 and 4

What’s been happening

F, L, S, Z... DO THE FLOSS! Last week, the Prep’s learnt the phonics rule of doubling the final letter after a 1 syllable word that has a short vowel sound. We have been Floss Word Detectives ever since! In Maths, we have learnt about the concept of how to share fairly. We have used strategies like one-to-one correspondence and skip counting to help us solve sharing problems.

What will be happening over the next fortnight

Wellbeing

Learning to problem solve

Phonics

Using the ‘floss’ spelling rule to write words that end in ff, ll, ss, zz
Identifying the sounds -or and -ar

Reading

Decoding words and blending to read smoothly

Writing

Writing persuasive sentences correctly

Maths

Solving sharing problems
Comparing objects based on capacity
Using counting strategies to quantify collections

Inquiry

Big Question: How do we keep our bodies healthy and safe? Over the next fortnight, students will be exploring the following lines of inquiry:

How can we keep our mind healthy?
Who are the experts in our community that can help us stay healthy and safe?
Elaborate on mindfulness – social and emotional health

Homework

Continue looking through Decoding Detective and Word Wizard book as well as take home readers. Students are encouraged to participate in daily reading. If students record 100 nights of reading in their journal, they will enjoy a pizza party hosted by Mr. Tapp. Please encourage students to read the same book multiple times per week as this is valuable to their learning and assists with their fluency. Please note that reading pages from the Decoding Detective/ Word Wizard exercise book counts as a reading entry in the student journal.

Optional: Mathletics and exploring the Prep-2 homework rubric located inside the students reading pouch.

Reminders

Curriculum Day (no students) – Monday 4th November
Melbourne Cup Public Holiday – Tuesday 5th November
Please pay and consent for Circus Incursion to be held on Wednesday 13th November
Please pay and consent for the Swimming Program to commence from Monday 18th November

Year 1

What’s Happening in Year 1: Weeks 3 & 4

What’s been happening

What a wonderful start to the term. The students have shown they are embracing their last few months in Year 1 by committing to their learning and showing they are up for new challenges. The students had a very eventful week last week. Every day brought something new! On Tuesday Year 1 went to see our Year 6 students shine on stage for their final dress rehearsal. On Thursday students had the entire MoPA venue to roam and play in with their peers. Everybody was able to move their body, play with Year 1 friends and practice their collaboration skills. This was all part of our Health Unit, ensuring students became aware of emotions and their personal strengths. Well done Year 1, you had a jam-packed week, you all participated in everything well and with a big smile on your face.

What will be happening over the next week in Year 1

Wellbeing

Students will consider their emotions through the Respectful Relationships program.

Students will begin to explore their identity and what makes them unique during our Health inquiry.

Literacy

Literacy encompasses spelling, reading and writing. The following few weeks students will be focusing on:

Spelling: Students will learn the different spelling patterns for /oo/. For example, good, pull, bamboo. And, students will learn different spelling patterns for the long u sound: ew, ui and ue.

Writing: Students will look at the different parts and characteristics of a story.

Reading: Students will continue to practice their reading, by reading texts that are based on our spelling focus for the week.

Maths

Year 1 students will begin learning about money. They will begin exploring the different types of coins and notes we use in Australia and their value before learning different strategies to help us count coins. This will involve practicing our skip counting and adding multiples of 10 to help make it easier to find the total.

Inquiry

During Health, we will continue to look at what makes us unique. By identifying our personal strengths, we will be able to celebrate our individuality. We will explore what triggers different emotions and understand how people can react in different ways to certain experiences.

Homework

Keep practicing spelling and reading the memory words that were sent home.

The students have been looking at time in the classroom, it would be great if students could practice this more at home!

Read every day to add to your 100 days of reading challenge and the Premier’s Reading Challenge

Mathletics passwords are in the front of reading journals. Students can practice what we have been learning in class

Additionally, students can choose a homework activity from the Prep - Year 2 homework rubric.

Here is a list of suggested books students may like to read at home besides their Take Home Readers:

Ella Diaries

Hey Jack!

Pizza & Taco

Little Lunch

Billie B Brown

Spooky House

Captain Underpants

Dog Man

Ninja Kids

Paddy Mills – The big book

The Runaway Kitten

Bad Guys

Hot Dog

The Treehouse Stories

The Faraway Tree

Ella & Olivia

The Beach House

Big Dream

Olivia’s Secret Scribbles

The Tiara Club

Geronimo Stilton

How to Train Your Dragon

Dragon Girls

Rainbow Magic

Curry Career

School of Monsters

The Boy who never gave up

Harry Potter

Ninjago

Weirdo (Ahn Do)

Year 2

What’s Happening in Year 2: Week 3 & 4

What will be happening over the next two weeks in Year 2

We have had a great start to the term. The Year 2 teachers have been so proud of how the students were so flexible with lots of changes happening to our timetable. Over the next two weeks, students will continue to welcome in parent helpers in for reading. Students will also look forward to welcoming parents in Week 4 for our open afternoon.

Wellbeing

As we begin to discuss swimming, upcoming end of year events and transitions, the students will be focusing on building their resilience toolkit/strategies. Our goal is to prepare our students as best we can for upcoming change.

Reading

Students will be focusing on inferring and supporting with evidence during reading. The cohort will also be focusing on comparing within and between texts. Students will build on these skills during echo, choral and cloze reading opportunities.

Writing

The Year 2 students will continue our unit of work on Narratives. During the next two weeks of the term, students will be focusing on showing tone and mood through using personal opinions and feelings in their writing.

Maths

Over the next two weeks, students will develop their knowledge and language around Data and Statistics as well as money.

Inquiry

The Year 2 students will be focusing on Health for Term 4. The big question for the term is “How can we promote better health and wellbeing in our environment?” Over the next couple of weeks students will be participating in workshops run by the Year 2 teachers all about social, emotional, physical and mental health and wellbeing. These workshops will provide students with the knowledge and resources that the students will need to complete their upcoming projects.

Reminders

Parent Reading Helpers-

The Year 2 teachers and students LOVE having our parent reading helpers visit on Mondays and Thursday.

Please find sign up links below:

2R- volunteersignup.org/8DB94

2AW- volunteersignup.org/WARQR

2H- volunteersignup.org/JAQML

2W- volunteersignup.org/CBHJT

Year 3

What’s Happening in Year 3: Term 4 Week 3 & 4

What’s been happening in Year 3

Hello from the Year 3 Team!

Whilst the students were disappointed that the cross-country event was postponed, they have all been enjoying the swimming program. Everyone has already adapted to the new daily routines.

What will be happening over the next two weeks in Year 3

Wellbeing

Our wellbeing focus is friendship and how we can continue to be good friends. We have discussed the characteristics of good friends and identified some of these characteristics within ourselves.
We are looking to strengthen the friendships we already have along with build new friendships.

Reading

We are beginning to read our class novel ‘The One and Only Ivan’. While reading we will be stopping to discuss key events, characters, themes and vocabulary.
We will continue to build upon our skills as great readers including asking questions and exploring unfamiliar vocabulary along with focusing on accuracy, expression and rate (speed) so that we can read texts fluently.
We will also be focusing on comprehension and recalling facts and themes throughout this unit.

Writing

We will be learning how to complete a scientific report.
We will be increasing our vocabulary by learning the definitions of specific scientific words such as predictions and hypothesis.
Understanding that a clause is a unit of grammar usually containing a subject and verb.
Identifying the difference between a sentence, clause and phrase.
Exploring different sentence types such as simple and complex.
We have dedicated handwriting time where the students are explicitly taught correct letter formation. It is particularly exciting learning how the different letters join together when writing in cursive.

Maths

We will be focusing on probability during maths sessions over the next few weeks.
Students will continue to be encouraged to learn and recite their times tables.

Inquiry – Science

Big Question: How does heat help us understand and explore the changes in materials?

Discussions began with what we knew about science and how it features in the world. This will extend to what a scientist is and what they do before becoming scientists ourselves. We will discover how to write a scientific report as experiments are conducted.

Homework

Students are asked to continue to read every night and to complete Mathletics tasks set by classroom teachers. Students have some optional activities to complete from the Homework Grid in their homework books.

Reminders

Diaries are expected to come to school every day with their reading recorded and ready to be checked by the teacher. We are keeping a tally of individual reading and as a class to hopefully win the prize of a class pizza lunch!

Camp is rapidly approaching. Please make sure you have returned your medical forms to your child’s class teacher.

Year 4

What’s Happening in Year 4: Term 4 Week 2 and 3

What will be happening for Weeks 3 and 4

The swimming program for Year4 will run from Monday 21st October to Thursday 31st October. Students will participate in a daily lesson at Bayside Aquatics, Lucerne Street, Mentone. Each swimming lesson will run for 40 minutes. Your child’s snack time will be modified if they are in group 1 (see below for groups). Students are to wear their bathers to school under their school clothes and will need to bring an additional bag with their underwear, goggles and swimming cap.

Group 1. 4R and half of 4B -Bus departs 10:40am (Swimming lesson 10:55am) and return to school approx. 12:20pm

Group 2. 4L and half of 4B- Bus departs 11:20am (Swimming lesson 11:35am) and return to school approx. 12:55pm

Wellbeing

Listening to the ‘Grow your Mind’ podcast and completing the activities

Reading

Whole class reading and building vocabulary
Focus on fluency through a range of whole, paired and independent activities
Use context clues to infer meaning and respond to questions about different text types
Book Club launch. Students were given the opportunity to preference books they were interested in reading. They have been placed in groups across Year 4 and will be reading their assigned book for their nightly reading. Groups will meet weekly to discuss characters and events from the story.

Writing

Revise the terms noun, verb, adjective and adverb
Identify and use subordinating conjunctions to join clauses.
Explore different persuasive techniques used in writing (PEEL)
Create sentences using persuasive techniques
Learn about ‘reported speech’ as our grammar focus
After reading The Day the Crayons Quit, students are creating their own persuasive piece using an object from home or school.

Maths

Over the coming weeks in our maths sessions, we will be focusing on graphing.

Create grid references
Interpret grid references
Use grid coordinates to locate and move positions.
Locate an ordered pair in any one of the four quadrants on the Cartesian plane

Inquiry

Big Question: How does where we live affect how we live?

We will be exploring:

How are the continents of Australia, Africa and South America similar and different?
What are the geographical features and cultural practices that make these places unique?
How do people and animals in different climate zones adapt to their environments?
How can people use the natural resources available in a sustainable way?
What features might attract tourism to a certain place?

Homework

Homework consists of 20 minutes reading a night, 3- 4 Mathletics tasks to reinforce the concepts being taught at school, and an optional choice board of activities to be completed at your family’s discretion. Diaries will be collected every Friday.

Reminders

Swimming program -Monday 21st- Thursday 31st October

Library Days:

Monday – 4R
Thursday – 4B, 4L

Year 5

What’s Happening in Year 5: Term 4 Week 3 & 4

What will be happening in Weeks 3 and 4 in Year 5

The students begin the fortnight with Bike Ed. They will participate in sessions from Monday- Thursday where they will learn how to ride on the road safely. Thank you to all the parent volunteers who assisted us with the program.

Week 4 is one of the last quiet weeks for the year! The Upstanders will participate in an incursion to complete their art project. The students will work with local artist Troy Innocent.

Wellbeing

Students will work on resilience, respect, relationships and responsibility.

Literacy

Students will practise reading fluency (accuracy, rate, prosody) through repeated oral strategies and information texts related to the Can you See Me? novel study and Health inquiry unit.
Students will read and respond to queries from our class novel ‘Can You See Me?’
Students will use and understand new words from the class novel.
Students will generate sentence stems containing a semicolon and a conjunctive adverb (however, therefore).
Students will join sentences using connectives to link arguments, evidence and reasons.
Students will write simple, compound and complex sentences.
Students will write complex sentences beginning with subordinating conjunctions.
Students will plan and write the introduction for a persuasive letter.
Students will plan and write body paragraphs for each argument of a persuasive letter.

Maths

Students will use efficient mental and written calculation strategies to multiply large numbers by one-digit numbers.
Students will use efficient mental and written calculation strategies to multiply large numbers by two-digit numbers.
Students will use efficient mental and written calculation strategies to divide by one-digit numbers.
Students will use the order of operations to solve problems
Students will identify and explain patterns in the multiples of numbers.
Students will convert between 12-hour and 24-hour time.

Health

Identify changes associated with puberty
Explore what it means to be physically, socially and emotionally healthy
Investigate strategies to establish and manage relationships
Explore and celebrate how cultures differ in behaviours, beliefs and values
What are some preventative health strategies that promote health, safety and wellbeing for individuals and their communities?
How does the media influence personal attitudes, beliefs, decisions and behaviours?
How do members of the community influence personal attitudes, beliefs, decisions and behaviours?

Homework

Please refer to the Year 5&6 Homework Rubric.

Students are expected to be reading every night and completing assigned Mathletics activities over the fortnight.

Reminders

21st-24th October Bike Education Program

1st November Open Afternoon 3-3:25pm

4th November Curriculum Day (Pupil Free Day)

5th November Melbourne Cup Day (Public Holiday)

Year 6

What’s Happening in Year 6: Week 3&4

What’s been happening in Year 6

What an incredible two nights of performances!

We are all so proud of the immense amount of effort in both the lead up to and on the performance nights and we were blown away. Their confidence, teamwork both on and off the stage, and passion was evident and we are so proud of each and every one of them. Thank you for all of your support you provided not only your own child, but the whole cohort during the lead up, their rehearsals and the two performance evenings.

What will be happening in Year 6

The rollercoaster of events continues in the coming weeks with Talk Money Workshops, Elephant Ed and Division Softball all taking place (see dates below). In addition to these events, on Friday 1st of December, is the next Dolphin Research Celebration. Year 6 students will also officially be starting their Business and Economics Inquiry Unit.

Wellbeing

Term 4 is always a really busy time. We ask that students use their diaries to be aware of specifics around events that are upcoming. This is also a great way to take on self-responsibility in preparation for Year 7.

Literacy

Spelling – Latin bases continued, targeted spelling interventions.
Introduction to mentor text - The All New Must Have Orange 430.
Knowledge building and vocabulary development through a variety of texts related to our Inquiry unit.

Maths

Students will be classifying triangles, quadrilaterals and other polygons according to their side and angle properties.
Students will be exploring Cartesian Planes. Given coordinates they shall plot points on the Cartesian Plane and find coordinates for a given point.

Business & Economics

Students will begin their Economics unit, learning about different types of businesses and developing skills that they will use at the market stall later this term.
Talk Money Workshops (Week 2 and 3):

Students learn how to save, manage, and spend money, manage needs versus wants and discuss the digitisation of money and different payment options.

Homework

Students are expected to be reading every night and completing assigned Mathletics activities over the fortnight. Diaries with reading recorded will be checked weekly and Mathletics tasks should be completed by Friday 1 November.

Reminders

Division Softball – Friday 25 October

Elephant Ed – Tuesday 29 October

Dolphin Research Ambassador Celebration – Friday 1 November

Nathan	6CD
Joseph	50L
Nathan	50L
Amelia	30C
Thomas	10M
Isla	50L
Jack	20R
Ashton	10Z
Zoe	20H
Oliver	00J
Thomas	30C
Valentina	50R
Lucy	60S
Warwick	00F
Quincey	1LP
Pia	00H
Maximus	60P

Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday to all of the following students: