What's happening?
Foundation
We are very impressed with what superstar swimmers our Foundation students have been! They were very eager to begin the swimming program and have been wonderful in and out of the pool. All of us teachers are very proud of how independent the students have been with keeping their belongings together, getting changed and being responsible travelling to and from the pool. We have had some very tired Preps in our classroom, so I am sure they have been extra tired at home. Thank you to the parents who have come to assist each day, we really appreciate your help.
We have been busy focusing on narratives in our classrooms. We have learnt all about the different elements including the character, setting, problem and solution. We have spent lots of time planning and drafting our fictional stories using our newly adapted skills. Following this, the students will have a published story with their own illustrations, in the next few weeks. The students are making great progress and are looking forward to sharing their amazing stories with our families at the end of term.
In maths, we have begun to learn all about shape. So far, we have been exploring vertices and sides of 2D shapes and completing lots of activities to help us identify the difference between 2D and 3D shapes. Next, we will be learning about ‘Time’. We will be revising the days of the week, and how things in your day are sequenced i.e. first we get dressed, then we eat our breakfast, next we clean our teeth, last, we pack our bag for school.
We have had a very busy kick-start to the term and are very grateful for the ongoing support from all parents/carers. Thank you to the parents/carers who have volunteered to assist for the upcoming Zoo excursion, we really appreciate your help. We will be picking names out of a hat and will let the lucky parents/carers know who will be attending
Grade 1
We are well and truly into the term and the weeks are flying past. We were very impressed with the Year 1 students at swimming last week. They all showed what they are capable of, being prepared, looking after their belongings and being polite and respectful, both on the bus and at the pool. The students also put their best effort into being independent in the changerooms. Well done Grade 1’s and thank you to all the parents that were able to come along and lend a hand.
At school we have continued to focus on Narratives and this week our theme has been about a girl who grew butterfly wings! The children have done an excellent job of planning and writing detailed endings to the story. Next week, we will continue looking at how to plan a narrative and build on these skills. Our spelling focus is oa and oe and next week we will review and dive a little deeper into ‘r controlled vowels’ (er, ir, ur, or, ar, ear, air and wor). We will be placing an at home review page for these codes in reader folders next week.
For Maths the students have been building on their prior knowledge of data collecting and they have been creating graphs and next week will be learning about Location and Transformation.
Our Inquiry unit has been lots of fun and the students have been enjoying watching the life cycle of our silkworms (thank you to the Smart family for continuing to bring them to school). We have also been lucky enough to borrow two stick insects, Spiky and Gluestick, from the Mitchell family. We have been amazed by the amount of eggs Spiky has laid in her short time at school and are hoping to see some hatch over the next couple of weeks.
The students have also been extremely fortunate to participate in two wonderful incursions. At our Marvellous Minibeasts, back in Week 5, students got to hold a butterfly that was perched on a stick, touch a stick insect and look at live bugs under a magnifying glass. Today’s Virtual Reality bug incursion was also a lot of fun, we were all very excited to try out the virtual reality headsets and learn even more about Minibeasts.
Well done to the students who are being responsible with their hats.
Grade 2
Our ‘olden days’ dress up incursion day was such a fun and interesting day, aimed at giving students a picture of what school might have been like in the past, and how it has changed over time. Thank you for the super effort with costumes!
As part of our ‘Core Knowledge’ reading unit, we continue to engage in the text ‘The Wind in the Willows’, by exploring themes within the text, as well as interesting vocabulary and interpreting characters' responses to events that occur in the story.
Students have been very busy writing some fabulous narrative pieces. Over the next couple of weeks we will be editing and publishing our narratives with the inclusion of illustrations.
In Maths over the next fortnight our focus is on ‘Chance/ Probability’. Students are learning to use everyday language to describe the outcomes of familiar events. They will be describing outcomes as ‘likely’ or ‘unlikely’ and identifying some events as ‘certain’ or ‘impossible’. As always, opportunities to explore these concepts in everyday situations at home will be a great way to consolidate and build on your child’s knowledge.
As part of our Inquiry ‘Our Community Past and Present’ students have been exploring what a community is and how we fit into our local community.
Thank you for your support with homework: Regular reading aloud, sound pack practise and ‘Red Flag Word’ spelling. Optional extras: ‘Nessy Reading and Spelling’ and ‘Sunset/Jetpack Maths’ (Essential Assessment).
Grade 3
What a fabulous fortnight we have had in Grade 3! All of our students should be very proud of the way they conducted themselves, both during the swimming program, and on camp to Phillip Island Adventure Resort. Students consistently showed our Super Six Values, enjoyed many new experiences, and a great time was had by all. We’d like to say another very big thank to you our parent helpers, and also to families for your support with preparing the children for both swimming and camp.
Homework reminders: Students need to have their natural landforms research completed (and brought into school) by the beginning of next week, as they will use it to begin their poster at school
Students should also continue their regular home reading, record in diary, get it signed by a grown up, and bring it to school every Friday. Thanks for your ongoing support with this.
Grade 4
Bike Ed began last week with great success! The students thoroughly enjoyed their first session and are looking forward to the next three sessions of Bike Ed. A big thank you to all the parent volunteers, and Mr A, who are helping make this program happen.
Literacy: The students have completed the mid term assessment for our study of ‘Wonder’ and we have been extremely impressed by the depth of understanding they have made whilst reading the text. The powerful themes within the book are hopefully challenging the kids thinking about how they see difference in our world. The written components of our study have looked at how to successfully compose a written response that includes sound evidence from the book, as well as apply learnt vocabulary from the book into their responses. All Grade 4’s have now almost finished independently creating exciting narratives for the story prompt “Stuck”. It has been great to see lots of strong descriptive and figurative language used.
Numeracy: The students have completed many different data experiments and used this information to create dot plots, side by side graphs and line graphs. We have now moved into our Measurement unit this week, where the students looked at different mass measurements and how to convert, compare and order different mass examples.
Inquiry: This week students will begin a group project for Inquiry, where they are tasked to work in teams to ‘Design a Country’, based on their understanding of South American or African climate, vegetation and land features. This will be an ongoing project to be completed in Week 10.
Grade 5
Reading: Grade 5 students have nearly finished reading the class novel ‘A Long Walk to Water’. With only a few chapters left to go, we learn about the true story of survival for Salva and how he turns his life around. The students have demonstrated excellent understanding and comprehension of key elements in the story and have shown keen interest to find out how the story ends.
Maths: We have started one of our final topics of the term ‘Time’. Focusing on 12/24-hour time, elapsed time, interpreting timetables and planning a journey. Next week, we will move into learning about ‘Money’, specifically how to budget.
Writing: This week we began our final writing genre of the year - Information reports. We revised the structure and language features of these and looked at good examples. Students will practise writing information reports independently and with partners over the next couple of weeks.
Inquiry: Students have continued adding to their ‘Travel Expo’ country booklets by researching flights to and from their country and will begin creating a travel budget. We have nearly finished this unit, and we look forward to our Travel Expo Day which will be in Week 10.
Leadership: This week students presented their Grade 6 leadership speeches to their house. They then voted for their 2025 leaders. Teachers will begin the process of tallying votes and leaders will be announced at the end of the term. Well done to all students for their amazing speeches.
Reminders: Next week, we have our final ‘Money Talks’ incursion on Monday 25th November. We also have Japanese Day on Friday 29th.
Please check Compass for the ‘Bounce End of Year Excursion’ to consent to.
Grade 6
Literacy : Our reading and study of the novel Rivet Boy continues. We are studying the themes and meaning behind the writing throughout the different chapters. We are reviewing literary devices used throughout the text, and we have also explored the use of high modality words to emphasise points of view.
Writing: The Grade 6 students have been continuing to learn about narrative structure. They are well on the way to writing their own narrative based on a chosen picture prompt. We have been impressed with the language choices and vocabulary in their writing, and their attempt to create a mind picture through their description.
Mathematics: In Mathematics, students have finished our Patterns and Algebra topic. We will now be focusing on revising a variety of topics across all mathematical areas for the last few weeks of school.
Inquiry: The students have started working with their groups for Market Day and have established business names, slogans and logos. Their choice of products has also been decided and some groups will be ready to start manufacturing.
African Drumming: The Grade 6’s participated in their first of three African Drumming sessions last week. The facilitators were impressive and did an such a wonderful job with such a big group, and with great success. The students sounded absolutely amazing and enjoyed every moment. We are looking forward to the next session.
Sport
With interschool sport over we are back to playing a variety of sports with the Grade 6 cohort. The students have been asked to choose the games they would like to play and we have rotated around those activities.