Magnify
Term 1 Week 6
Magnify Around the Classrooms
#magnifysandhurst
Foundation
The Preps have been revising syllables and learning how to blend, clap and count syllables. They have also been learning how to blend sounds using onset and rime, with pictures. The children are using the storybook, “The Very Hungry Bear” to make predictions about a text. Each day the teacher writes a daily sentence on the board with the children. This week, the sentence has been used to help children differentiate between words and pictures and to know that a sentence carries a message. Children have been drawing pictures and writing the word to match it. Eg. “Draw a sun. Now write the word sun. Draw a ball. Now write the word ball.” Grade Preps have also been learning about the beginning sound /m/. They are naming things that start with /m/ and have been practising writing the lower-case letter ‘m.’
Gr 1
Some of the activities the grade one teachers use with their classes to teach spelling and reading are:
Word Building
Children use letter tiles and sound boxes to create words. The teacher will say a word eg. ‘sing.’ The teacher asks the children what sounds they can hear in ‘sing’
(/s/ /i/ /ng/). The teacher asks, “What is the first sound in sing?” Children respond with /s/ and the teacher says, “Now put the letter that matches the /s/ sound in the first box” and the children put the letter tile ‘s’ into the first sound box. This continues until all the sounds in the word ‘sing’ have been put into their sound boxes. The teacher then asks, “What word have we made?” and the class respond. The teacher then uses the word in a sentence. This process is repeated with a new word.
Word Transformations/Word Chains
The children use sound boxes and letter tiles to make and change words.
For example, children might complete the following chain of words by switching one sound per word to make a new word:
Shop - ship - shin - pin - win - wish - dish - dip - ship - shop.
To begin the chain, children make the word ‘shop’ using letter tiles and sound boxes. They break the word shop into its sounds and place a letter/s for each sound in the sound boxes (/sh/ /o/ /p/). The children read the word and then write it in their workbook. The teacher says, “Change the /o/ to /i/ (children should replace their letter ‘o’ with the letter ‘i’). Read your word. What is your new word? (ship). Write ship in your workbook.” This pattern continues until the whole word chain has been completed.
Gr 2
Grade Twos are reading the story of “Pete the Sheep” by Jackie French. Children are enjoying the study of this text and have been able to identify messages the author might want us to learn, such as, “It’s okay to be different. You can still be successful.” The children have loved the different hairstyles given to the sheep and other animals in this story.
Grade Two children are learning about pronouns and how to use them in place of a noun. They are continuing to learn more about our vowel sounds and the different spelling choices for these. They’ve also been learning about information texts and have begun writing their own reports on emus.
Foundation
In Mathematics, Grade Prep children have been counting to ten, counting collections to five and adding one more in order.
Gr 1
In Mathematics, Grade Ones have been partitioning 2-digit numbers with and without base-10 blocks and have been writing 2-ditigit numbers. They have also been comparing and ordering 2-digit numbers from highest to lowest and lowest to highest.
Gr 2
In Mathematics, the Grade Two children have been learning how to partition 3-digit numbers and write these in a non-standard form. Their unit on Place Value will finish up at the end of this week before beginning the new topic of Measurement – time (calendars, analogue time and turns) in week 7.
Gr 3 and 4
In Literacy, students are learning to write a narrative, which is a story. A narrative has five main parts: plot, setting, characters, conflict, and resolution. The plot is what happens in the story and the order it happens. The setting is where and when the story takes place. The characters are the people or animals in the story. The conflict is the main problem or exciting moment the characters face. The resolution is how the problem is solved and how the story ends, often showing the main message, such as love or hope.
In Mathematics, students are learning about time. They are practising how to tell the time and work out how long events last or how much time is between two events. They are also learning about fractions and decimals, understanding that both can show parts of a whole. Students are practising recognising and comparing fractions and decimals in different examples.
In Science, Students have been learning about the basic concept of what heat is and how we measure it. Students also have learnt that heat can be transferred between objects. That is, when something hot ‘cools down’ some of its heat is transferred to its surroundings. When something cold ‘warms up’ it absorbs some heat from its surroundings. During the next few weeks students will look at conduction, convection and radiation and what they mean.
In Humanities: students will learn about how their local community has changed over time by comparing the past and present. They will identify features of the community that have evolved and explore the causes and effects of these changes. Students will also study the key factors that drive change in Australian communities and learn how community members can contribute to these changes. They will examine the important roles some Australians have played in shaping communities and consider the advantages and disadvantages of different changes.
Gr 5 and 6
In Mathematics, the Grade 5’s and Grade 6’s have started a new maths unit this week focusing on the Four Operations. Students will be learning strategies to assist them with addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.
In Literacy, the Grade 5 students are continuing to work on their OCHRE unit that centres around the novel ‘War Horse’ by Michael Morpurgo. This story is told from the perspective of Joey, a farm horse sold to the British Army during World War 1.
During this unit, students will also be focusing on narrative writing.
Our Grade 6 students are finishing their OCHRE unit this week that centres around the novel ‘Ghost in my Suitcase’ by Gabrielle Wang. This story is about a 12 year old girl, Celeste, who travels to China to spread her late Mother’s ashes, and discovers that her grandmother is a traditional ghost hunter.
During this unit, students have been focusing on persuasive writing about whether or not they believe that understanding family history is important., and will finish this writing piece this week.
Next week, the Grade 6’s will move into the next OCHRE unit that centres around the novel ‘The Silver Donkey’.
In Science, our first topics for the year are ‘Animal Survival’ (Grade 5) and ‘Reversible & Irreversible Changes’ (Grade 6).
During the Animal Survival unit the Grade 5’s are focusing on animal habitats and animal adaptations.
During the Reversible and Irreversible Changes unit, the Grade 6’s are focusing on the three states of matter (solids, liquids and gases) and what makes a change reversible and irreversible.
In Humanities, the Grade 5 students are learning about ‘Australia in the 1800’s that explores the significant period of Australian colonisation in the 1800s, examining the causes of British settlement and its far-reaching impacts. Students investigate different perspectives of colonial life, including examination of First Nations experiences, while learning about key events and individuals who shaped colonial Australia.
The Grade 6 students are learning about ‘The Globe’, focusing on global features of the Earth, including hemispheres, latitude and longitude, the equator, Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, and the Arctic and Antarctic Circles.