Round the Classes
Reception: Jaya
The new Reception students have made a wonderful start to their school journey and have been settling into school life exceptionally well! It has been fantastic to see their confidence grow each day as they learn new routines, explore their classroom environment, and make new friendships and connections with their peers.
Over the past few weeks, the children have been busy engaging in a wide range of hands-on learning experiences. We have spent lots of time learning through play, developing our fine motor skills through activities such as cutting with scissors, tracing, playdough, matching games and puzzles. The students have also enjoyed teamwork games and collaborative tasks that encourage sharing ideas, taking turns, and working together to solve problems.
Creativity has been shining through our art and craft activities, and we have been working together to establish our class expectations and rules so that everyone feels safe, happy, and ready to learn.
We are incredibly proud of the positive start our newest learners have made and look forward to watching them continue to grow and thrive throughout the term.
Reception: Katie
Since Term 3 has started the full-year Reception class has been busy and has become very musical, as Katie has been teaching us lots of new songs after her training at the end of last term.
In phonics, we have been learning about the ‘floss’ rule and have started learning how to write our own sentences.
In maths we have been learning about different addition and subtraction strategies and how to transfer this into problem-solving.
We have also been busy preparing for our excursion to Monarto Zoo in week 5 and have been spending some time at the Kindy where we are preparing a giant artwork that will be on display at the Uraidla Show.
Finally, as part of art, we have been experimenting with the app FlipaClip to make short videos as part of media arts.
A huge thank you to everyone who supported our Tuck shop and to our amazing parent volunteers for giving up their time to help our class.
Year 1: Alex
What a busy start to Term 3 we have had already! We can’t believe how quickly the term is flying by.
In Maths, we have been learning all about 2D and 3D shapes. We have been exploring shapes in our everyday lives, learning their names and discovering their different properties, including faces, corners and edges. We have had lots of fun finding, guessing and identifying shapes around our classroom. Take a look at our photos to see what we have been up to in class!
We have also started our Sharing with Pompom and Gumnut! Every Friday afternoon, two children get to take home either Gumnut or Pompom for the whole weekend. Mondays are always very exciting, as the children can’t wait to see the photos and hear all about what Pompom and Gumnut have been up to.
This is also a wonderful opportunity for the children to practice their recounting and oral language skills as they share their weekend adventures with the class. We love hearing about all the fun and exciting adventures Pompom and Gumnut have been on!
Have a great weekend! From the Year 1 class
Year 2: Suzie and Izzy
Students have been developing their knowledge of information reports. We’ve practised note-taking using a web template to activate prior knowledge and add newly acquired information on a topic. We have looked at features that make up an information report such as a title, an introduction, and breaking the text into easy-to-read titled sections.
In maths, we have moved to a routine of completing maths mentals every day, as well as continuing with Bond Blocks. We are exploring addition and subtraction in depth, practising doubles and developing knowledge of near doubles. Further strategies we will be working on over the next few weeks include split strategy and column addition and subtraction.
Our new class pet is a Short Neck Turtle named ‘Leonardo’. Students were able to observe him eat this week, and at times they became concerned that he likes to sleep underwater.
Emily from Variety and her guide dog Tanner came for a visit this week and provided an engaging presentation for the students on disability and inclusion. We have participated in Footsteps weekly, which is supporting us to develop our end-of-year concert performance.
Year 2/3: Emma
Welcome to Term 3!
We have had a wonderful time getting back into the rhythm and excitement of learning this term.
A focus of our inquiry unit this term is ecosystems. We have been exploring our school’s ecosystem and thinking about how we can create a healthy ecosystem within our butterfly garden. We have planted some native plants and positioned butterfly feeders within the area. Our discussions have focused on what makes a healthy ecosystem, what else we might need to add to our garden to help it thrive, and how this project can have a positive impact on our wider community.
In Mathematics, we have been delving into the world of time, with a particular focus on understanding the relationship between the minute hand and skip counting in 5s.
Our Literacy focus this term is all things birds! Our class will be taking part in the National Bird Count in Schools. In preparation, we have been identifying the birds we have noticed around our school and considering how we can provide the best environment for them to thrive. We have also created some wonderful haiku poetry inspired by birds and will soon move into writing information reports, where we will share our growing knowledge and research skills.
Lastly, we have introduced bread-making on Fridays. The students have thoroughly enjoyed preparing and eating our delicious bread. This has been a wonderful shared experience that not only develops practical skills but also helps to build our class community and strengthen our sense of belonging.
It has been a fantastic start to Term 3, and we are looking forward to all the learning, exploring and creating still to come!
Year 3/4: Stephen and Kelly
We have been learning about arrays in maths. Our focus has been on how arrays show repeated addition and how they also show the connection between multiplication and division. Our writing goal has been to ensure we "Plan for success". This has entailed mapping out our thoughts and ideas before we start to write. We have also been learning about Australian geography. Our challenge is to make a persuasive travel brochure for people living overseas to convince them to come and visit. We have also enjoyed our Footsteps dance lessons.
Year 4/5: Rachael and Troy
Our Year 4/5 class has been busy exploring patterns, factors, multiples and arrays in Mathematics. We are developing efficient mental strategies to support more challenging fluency tasks, such as multiplying by 5 by multiplying by 10 and halving, or multiplying by 4 by using “double, double.” We will now apply this thinking as we investigate other efficient methods for multiplication and division.
In English, we have explored the meanings of the morphemes mid, sub and out. We have also been strengthening our persuasive writing by experimenting with devices such as exaggeration, facts and statistics, and emotive language during engaging quick writes.
In HASS, we are delving into the Age of Exploration and investigating how exploration helped shape Australia. We are learning about the remarkable journeys of significant explorers, including Vasco da Gama and Ferdinand Magellan.
We are also enjoying our class theme of being community-minded. Through discussions and shared activities, we are getting to know one another better and developing thoughtful ways to build a welcoming, connected and supportive classroom community.
Year 5/6: Sallie
Students have been diligently working on their personal projects. They are at the stage where they are converting their notes into information reports and adding some flair in how they are going to present their findings. We will have an afternoon where we invite parents to check out the projects, but we will let you know when that will be.
In maths, students have been working on decimals and fractions and have a good understanding of this.
The students have been enjoying Footsteps dance, and I have been impressed with everyone’s level of engagement. It is way too fast for me to keep up with but fun anyway!
With Makers Empire, we have started working in our groups on the challenge: Design a physical structure or feature for your community that helps both people and the planet. To support this fabulous challenge, we have been working on information reports about building sustainably (I have been very impressed with the Brightpath assessment pieces students wrote on Building Green).
For something fun and different, we will visit Monarto Zoo, taking particular notice of the elephant enclosures and how they were built sustainably and with a specific audience in mind. Hopefully this will help students when they design something for our local community.
Students from the two Readers Cup teams performed their presentations on “ANZACS” at Bridgewater Primary last night and I was very proud to watch both groups work as a team and demonstrate their creative flair.
