School News

Prep

The Prep end of the Boorai is always such a busy place to be! The last fortnight has been no exception.

Our weekly STOMP lessons are proving to be an absolute highlight of our week. We have seen a huge improvement in the students’ gross motor skills and their ability to move in time with the beat of the music. They are now confidently counting beats and bars of music and completing sequences of steps to match. We cannot thank our teacher Michaela enough for her supportive and enthusiastic teaching each week. As teachers we hope that you can all come along next Monday afternoon at 2:30pm to see our hard work pay off in the end of program performance.

Last week our word of the week was ‘JAM’ and the sentence of the week was “He will just have jam”. We thought it would be fun to get the students practising some real-world skills by making their own jam sandwiches as part of our weekly shared spelling experience. We first read a procedural text to make sure we all understood the steps we needed to complete in order to successfully make our sandwiches. We then gathered our equipment and ingredients safely before carefully spreading the jam across the bread so as not make any holes. It was clear that many of our students must make their own toast and sandwiches at home because they were experts.

We have been exploring ordinal numbers in Maths. To help our students understand ordinal numbers in context, we completed lots of car and paper plane races. All students had to ensure they started from the exact same starting position, before pushing their car or plane as far they could go. We then used ordinal number labels to identify the position of each car and plane. It was so nice to be able to do our maths lessons outside in the winter sunshine.

It is getting to the time of term when many students are feeling tired and possibly even unwell. We would like to let families know that we do understand that illness happens and when it does, the best place for our little people is at home where they can rest and recover until they are well again.

We hope you all have a safe and enjoyable weekend.

The Prep Team

Allie Harrison, Kayla Hartrick, Elyce Munnecke and Laina Brebner

Grade 1 & 2

What a week we have had, learning task completed, portfolios gone home and the fight to keep the germs away!

We appreciate the patience everyone has had this week with students, teachers and/or family becoming unwell. It is that time of year were the weather is colder and wetter, the germs are spreading, plus it's a long term. We have been discussing how to keep ourselves and others safe and healthy by coughing into our elbows, blowing our nose with a tissue and the importance of regular hand washing.

Our procedural writing looked amazing with some great verb and adverb choices. We practiced these in our small groups, using teamwork to create one strong procedure!

The Victorian Reading Challenge is ongoing and this week we have been reading up a storm! We continued to look at features of a procedural text through the beloved story of Wombat Stew.

The chance of it raining in Melbourne is likely as we come into the winter season. That’s right, we have been learning about chance and the likelihood of something happening.

This week in our classrooms, we have been delivered four new bins. General waste, compost, clean paper/cardboard, and one for all other recyclables. We discussed and created posters for the new bins to support others knowing what can go in each one.

Our gross motor skills are coming along nicely with our weekly STOMP sessions. Working hard, staying engaged and we are very excited to show you our performance at our next assembly. We hope to see you there.

Have a happy and safe weekend.

The Level 1/2 Team

Llinos Poole, Sally Newton, Tim Huntington, Emma Wright and Veronica Paps

Grade 3 & 4

Hi Level 3&4 Families,

What a great two weeks we have had in Year 3/4! Read below to see what we have been up to!

In Reading and Writing, we have explored the topic of ‘Authors as Mentors’ looking at the particular books of Claire Saxby, Nick Bland and Alison Lester. Students have also unpacked the series ‘Do Not Open This Book’ by Andy Lee and have begun to draft stories drawing on the humour, style and characters in his books.

In Maths, we have been working on our financial maths skills by identifying different coins, representing values, and calculating change. Students played the board game ‘Money Matters’ to practise adding and subtracting money from their bank accounts.

Through our Inquiry unit looking at The Blue Marble, students have been learning about different ecosystems and things that impact on sustainability including deforestation and loss of habitat. Through this, students are thinking about the impact of their actions on the environment and ways we can all help to protect our animals and plant life.

3/4 students had the opportunity to participate in a Basketball program run by students from Seda College. The students worked on key basketball skills such as dribbling and shooting and discussed the importance of teamwork! It was fantastic to see our students listening and giving the program their best efforts!

Students had a fantastic day at the Tarra Warra Art Gallery, looking at the incredible art. Thank you to Miss Chambers for organising this for us!

The Level 3/4 Team

Hayley Peirce, Sarah Jones, Damien Smith, Renée Barnden & Brent Smith