CLASSROOM NEWS!
Prep/1 News
Prep/1 Classroom Learning Highlights
The Prep and Grade 1 students have had a fantastic start to the term, settling back into routines and approaching their learning with enthusiasm and confidence. It has been great to see students supporting one another and showing our school values throughout the first two weeks.
In Literacy, our Prep/1's have hit the ground running! It has been amazing to see the Preps start their home reading journey with so much enthusiasm. Thank you to families for supporting & encouraging your children to develop their love of reading and books. A picture story book will also be sent home in the students' reader folders for you to read with them throughout the week - perhaps a bedtime story! The purpose of this is to expose students to rich language and to build their vocabulary, imagination, and love of literature. I hope you get as much joy out of reading to them as we do!
The first half of the term, Grade 1 students will be learning how to write an information report, by researching facts about their topic and learning the different types of sentence structures used when writing information texts. We look forward to sharing these with you later in the term.
In Mathematics, students have been developing their understanding of numbers through hands-on and engaging activities. They have explored different ways to make numbers, shared collections equally into groups, and begun building an understanding of what “fair” and “equal” means. Students worked both inside and outside, using materials such as counters, hoops and cones to physically represent their thinking. Grade 1 students have also begun connecting this learning to skip counting and grouping, while Prep students have focused on counting and sharing smaller collections.
In Digital Technologies, students have been learning about safe and unsafe information when using digital devices. They explored what personal information is and discussed what is okay and not okay to share with others. Through class discussions and activities, students developed an understanding of how to stay safe online and make responsible choices when using technology. It has been great to see students engaging thoughtfully with these important concepts and building their awareness of digital safety.
Junior Fun Day & Cross Country: Students also enjoyed participating in our Junior Fun Day and watching the Cross Country event. They represented our school with pride, showing excellent behaviour and encouragement towards others. It was wonderful to see students getting involved, having fun, and supporting their peers throughout the day.
It has been a positive and productive start to the term, and we are proud of the way students have shown resilience, cooperation, and a willingness to try new things in their learning.
Team 2/3 News
Welcome back to a new term of fun and learning. Our lucky students are participating in a program called Story Players. Each week, Simon comes to IPS to work with the students to develop their acting skills, with the intention of creating a performance for all to see towards the end of the year.
Something else that is new will be our Mindfulness session. This 10-minute session will be straight after lunch each day. The student will come in quietly to the classroom, find their seats and complete a mindfulness activity in (almost) silence. These activities might include colouring in, drawing and reading. Over time, the students will be introduced to other activities that they can choose to do during this time.
A special welcome to Luci Tanashevich (Mrs. T) who is joining us for the term. She is finishing up her teacher training with us. The students have already been working with Mrs. T and getting to her and vice versa. Mrs. T usually works in a Bendigo school and has a lot of experience working in schools!
In Maths, we have begun developing our multiplication skills further. Some students are using arrays and skip counting to find the answers, while others are finding information in written problems and using their multiplication knowledge to answer the questions. Mrs. T has been working on Data with the students. They have been looking at which categories will give the best or most information for a posed question, for example: What is grade 23's favourite fruit? Possible answers could be apple, orange and banana rather than lyche or star fruit.
In Literacy, we are placing a big emphasis on our writing! Using the 6 plus 1 traits, we are currently focusing on Ideas in narratives. The students have been selecting a moment from their past experience and using that to develop ideas to write a narrative piece of writing.
We are reading "Yirra and her Deadly Dog Demon' by Anita Heiss. It is a story of a young girl who has a 'naughty' dog. Her family is ready to get rid of the dog because he keeps chewing shoes and making a nuisance of himself. Will Yirra be able to train her dog?
4/5/6 News
Our students in Grades 4, 5 and 6 have had an excellent start to Term 2! We have been making sure that we’re getting back into all of the routines and habits that support our wellbeing and learning, like engaging respectfully in Morning Circle and participating in classroom discussions. We have also started to add in some new routines, like doing mindfulness activities after we lunch that help us to become settled and ready to learn.
In Literacy we have been working really hard on a special speech-writing project, which has involved the students brainstorming, writing and editing multiple drafts of a persuasive speech. This has also been a great opportunity to focus on how to give constructive feedback, as the students have been helping each other by suggesting ‘Tiny Tweaks’ to improve their work.
Our students in Grade 6 will be presenting their speeches to the entire school later in the week as part of our Junior School Council elections, but they aren’t the only ones who get to share! On Friday the others will be given the opportunity to share all of their hard work by presenting their speech in front of our class, so you may get a preview as they practice their speeches in the mirror over the next few nights. Everybody has put their all into this process, and they should be very proud of themselves!
In Maths we have been wrapping up our unit on fractions, and the students’ understanding of these concepts has grown significantly in the past few weeks of learning. Currently we are encountering questions that challenge us to combine everything we’ve been learning about throughout this topic, from addition and subtraction to equivalent fractions. We have even been exploring the relationship between fractions, decimals and percentages!
Mr Weppner’s maths group has been practising their addition and subtraction skills, and improving their maths fluency skills by completing speed sheets on addition and subtraction number facts. Today they started looking at multiplication and all approached it very confidently, which was lovely to see!
Our class have had a strong start to Term 2, and I can't wait to see where they go from here.