Senior Learning News

Our 4/5/6 learners continue to practice our daily routine, which involves entering our learning space in a calm manner, with a book to read and a positive attitude ready to start the day! It has been so exciting to watch the children become more and more invested in their reading and excited to pull out their books in the morning. 

Inquiry

This term 4/5/6 learners are exploring identity and their inner self. Our Morning Meeting has been a great way for them to establish a meaningful routine to begin their day and set them up for success. We especially enjoy checking in with our feelings each morning, using our Ready to learn scale and reflecting on different strategies we can use to improve our mood. Some strategies children have discussed include spending time outside, drinking water, eating fresh fruit/veggies or having a moment to ourselves. 

This week we continued exploring our emotions, the different ways they can present themselves and how we can treat them as signals/warning signs for what we need. 

We explored our brain and the parts that are responsible for our emotions and our decision making. Learners investigated that when we experience uncomfortable emotions we can temporarily lose control of our actions, which is called 'flipping the lid'. 

Flipping the lid occurs when our downstairs brain takes over and becomes disconnected from our rational upstairs brain. 

Numeracy

Our numeracy learning this fortnight has revolved around place value. Learners have spent time representing numbers using a variety of materials including bundling sticks, place value blocks and unifix blocks to understand this concept. 

Learners have explored how the position of a digit within a number affects it value and have engaged in activities that explore writing, expanding and representing numbers. We have also been exploring the different ways numbers are present in our daily lives and how our place value knowledge will assist us in succeeding in so many other aspects of learning, not just maths. 

Faith

We have been exploring the idea of faith and what faith means to us. Learners used their knowledge of the different symbols and words we can connect with faith to create a hand print that encompasses their faith. 

These were then placed onto our class Prayer Mat. 

Throughout our Morning Meeting we have been exploring all the different ways we can pray, like informal prayer such meditation, journaling, drawing or formal prayers such as the Our Father and Hail Mary. These experiences have created a nice transition for the beginning of our new unit, where learners will reflect on why and how we can pray. Who we are praying too? When did Jesus pray? 

We then explored a provocation connected to prayer. Learners completed a See, Think, Wonder in response to the images, symbols and words they are encountering. 

Some thoughts that come up during this experience were: 

I see God's hands praying 

I think of peace 

I wonder why so many people gathered together to pray? 

Learner Assets

This fortnight we leaned into our learner assets of collaboration, communication and persistence. The 4/5/6 learners prepared and presented their first Assembly. 

They worked together to divide the jobs that needed doing, provided feedback to one another and supported each other to put together a successful Assembly. They should be extremely proud of their efforts! 

Our Assembly will run every fortnight, on a Friday afternoon in the library, starting at 2:50. We would love if you could join us for our next Assembly on Friday 1st March. 

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Have a wonderful weekend everyone! 

Shan ☼

Reminders

We have our Learning Conversations coming up on Tuesday the 26th of March. These conversations will be a great chance to get to know each other, chat about your children and they learning they have been doing in Term 1. 

You can book an interview using the Simon app. If you need some assistance with this, please reach out to us. 

We also have our Welcome Night coming up on Thursday the 29th of February. This will be held at the Splash Park. Bring your picnic rug and some dinner & drinks for a relaxed evening to kick off the new school year. See you there from 5-6:30pm!