What's happening in our learning spaces?

STUDENTS OF THE WEEK

FLW	Alessia - For being a focused learner throughout the week during your independent learning. You have tried very hard to remain focused when completing your written tasks. Great effort, Alessia!
FAP	Lenny - For being a kind and caring member of Foundation AP. You are always the first to help others in need. Thank you for being you Lenny!
FAM	Isaiah - For setting yourself a goal and demonstrating persistence and determination to achieve it. Keep up the wonderful effort Isaiah! Maybelle - For being a kind, helpful member of Foundation AM who always cares for others. Marvellous Maybelle!
1/2VS	Damien - For showing empathy towards others in the learning space and always offering a helping hand. We are lucky to have you, Damien!
1/2VK	Henry - For showing excellence in your writing. Your dedication to writing a story that is engaging for readers is impressive! Keep it up, hardworking Henry!
1/2VB	Leo - For being a considerate collaborator when working with peers in the1/2 learning space. Well done Leo!
3/4BP	Carlo - For being a curious researcher when gathering information on Matthew Flinders for his biography text. Clever Carlo!
3/4SH	Eva - For her superb self-reflection of her learning this semester and her excellent effort in her work. Well done, Eva! Harrison - For his great progress this term and for making good choices in class. You're a star, Harrison!
5/6OS	Lennix - For being a positive contributor to our class who always works hard and completes all his learning with a smile. Legendary Lennix!
5/6BZ	Pierre - For being a determined learner and thinker when identifying patterns when counting in fractions and decimal numbers. Persistent Pierre!
5/6MC	Domenic - For being a focused learner and completing all work in the time permitted. You have been trying your hardest, especially when completing your information report on MTB. Well done Dom! Caleb - For being a great role model in class at all times and being a focused learner when completing your information report on snow leopards to a high standard. Well done Caleb!
Maths	Zara - for your amazing work with subtracting tens. You are a star! You have shown you can subtract tens easily. Well Done Zara.

FOUNDATION

This newsletter is the final one for Term 2. Time sure flies by when you’re having fun! What an amazing amount of learning has occurred this term! Thank you to all the parents and carers who have supported the Foundation students and to those who have been able to assist in the learning spaces. We really appreciate the time you spend with your children, reading each night, learning sight words, practising writing numbers and letters and most of all, encouraging them every day.

This week, we celebrated Giornata Italiana (Italian Day)! Our learning spaces were filled with smiles and laughter as we arrived in our wonderful costumes, dressed up as soccer players, Pinocchios, pizzas, gondoliers and much more. We paraded our costumes while dancing to Italian music before engaging in a dancing incursion. We had time and opportunity to listen to Italian music and learn the Tarantella, a traditional Italian dance. We made Italian placements before sharing a beautiful Italian meal together. What a wonderful day it was. Un grande grazie (a big thank you) to Signora Rosa for organising this day for us!

Last week, as Inquirers, we began exploring what a life cycle is. Some of us thought a life cycle is the changes living things make as they grow! As researchers, we used videos, non-fiction texts and the merge cubes to find out information about the life cycle of a frog. We found out that a frog starts off as an egg and then transforms into a tadpole that looks very similar to a fish. A tadpole then grows legs, which makes it a froglet, before dropping off its tail to form into an adult frog. As writers, we used our new writing skills to label the features of a frog and record newly learnt facts about its life cycle. Going further, we will be researching butterflies this week and integrating this Inquiry Big Question into other aspects of our learning. In reading, we will be focusing on reading non-fiction texts, and in numeracy, we will be reading “The Very Hungry Caterpillar '' to learn about the days of the week. We are enjoying this unit of Inquiry so much; we can’t wait to welcome Henny Penny Chickens and go on our excursion to the Melbourne Zoo in Term 3!

Over the holidays, we encourage you to continue with a small amount of learning and consolidation. Please practise counting forwards, and especially backwards! Please practise sight words daily, the formation of letters and numbers, naming and discussing the different times of the day and the days of the week, and reading when you can.

Key Dates for Term 3:

Monday 15th July: Henny Penny Chickens arriving

Thursday 18th July: Melbourne Zoo Excursion

Friday 26th July: Grandparents Mass

Wednesday 31st July: 100th Day of School celebrations

Thursday 1st August: Dress up Day to celebrate Day 101 (Dress up as a 101 year old!)

We hope you have a restful and enjoyable holiday break. We look forward to seeing everyone ready to begin Term 3 on Monday, July 15th.

Kind regards,

Leanne Wenckowski, Alex Phillips and Alycia Marsico

Foundation Team

YEAR 1/2

Welcome to the last week of Term 2, and what a big week it has been. 1/2VK was busy practising for their learning conversations, with the help of 1/2VS and 1/2VB providing us with glow and grow feedback. We had our Italiana Festa and took our dressing up to the next level whilst we also excitedly anticipated a well-deserved break.

During TRP, we learned about helping behaviours, identifying ways to help others in our lives, why it is important to help others, and how we can encourage others to help, too. We also learnt about the relationship between helping others and kindness. We came up with different ways to help people on our encouraging hands and reflected on our Acts of Kindness bingo board to see how interconnected both concepts are.

MAMMA MIA! What a fantastic day we had at our Festa Italiana! Our students dressed up for the Italian Day Costume Parade and paraded through the hall to funky tunes. We had a blast engaging in all of our Italian day activities, especially the incursion listening to wonderful music performances. We are grateful to all the parents and family members who came and watched us at the parade and stayed to see what we learned in our Italian journals. Your presence and support mean a lot to us. We also had a wonderful time at our Italian lunch, where we all sat together and enjoyed a meal. Grazie to our wonderful Senora Rosa for all of the effort that went into organising such a culturally rich and fun day.

Throughout the term, as mathematicians, we have been learning about addition and subtraction and the interrelation between the two mathematical concepts. This week, we extended our thinking to show the inverse relationship and proved our subtraction sentences by adding them together. As communicators, we shared this with our peers on think boards to show our understanding of the concept. Next term, we will be looking at multiplication. You can continue to develop your child's mathematical skills incidentally over the holidays by counting with them, sorting money, asking them the time or documenting events on a calendar.

We wish our community a restful holiday break and cannot wait to hear about what everyone got up to. We'll see you back next term on Monday, July 15th.

Vania Sparano, Vicky Karalis and Vivian Boggis

1/2 Team

YEAR 3/4

As reflective learners, we were very excited to reflect and share our learning with you all at our Celebration of Learning on Monday. We showcased our 3D shape museum, showed off our empathy superheroes, and enthused about our inquiry presentations on explorers, innovators and travellers throughout Australian history. We were so proud of all we accomplished over this term, and it was very exciting to have our family and friends celebrate our learning with us, too!

As a school community, we dressed up and celebrated Italian Day on Thursday with a series of fun activities. We joined in the school parade in the morning, competed in a waiter's race with Miss Maddie, danced the tarantella with Rosa and Filippo, beaded beautiful Italian bracelets in the afternoon and had a pasta feast during ‘pranzo’. Thank you, Signora Rosa, for organising such a great day!

Please note, Mrs Panzarino will be away on holiday until Week 3 in Term 3, and Bernadette Thomas will be taking her class until she returns. We hope Mrs Panzarino, our students and their families all enjoy the school holidays and we can’t wait to see you in Term 3!

Year 3/4 Teachers,

Belinda Panzarino & Sarah Hogan

YEAR 5/6

Another jam-packed week of learning and fun!

Thank you to everyone who joined us for our Student-Led conversations. It was so exciting hearing the students talk about their progress and the goals they have set for themselves as learners. The children were so creative and determined to engage in their learning and were very focused and engaged throughout their information report writing.

We had a wonderful Italian day. It was great to see so many amazing costumes, fun activities, and pasta, of course! Thank you to Senora Rosa for all of your hard work and organisation for the day.