Middle Learning News 

Another wonderful fortnight in our year 2/3 learning space!

During literacy sessions, students have been learning the digraph /oa/ like in boat. They identified this spelling combination of the long o sound is commonly used at the beginning of a word (oak) or in the middle (foam), very rarely at the end. Students also revised the digraph /ay/ like in tray and learnt this spelling combination is more regularly used at the end of a word containing this vowel sound. Students also began to learn about plurals by adding the suffixes s and es. Students enjoyed trying to trick one another when having to decide which suffix to use. They identified words that end in ch, sh, x, z, and s require the addition of es at the end. I.e. buses, coaches. 

We also learned the suffix ed to indicate past tense. Students had a go at adding this to the end of words that did not require any spelling changes. 

During writing sessions, students have been learning about persuasive texts. Students had to have three reasons for their opinion. Some practised presenting their ideas through the use of paragraphs. Students identified who, what and what doing words from picture prompts to construct some simple sentences. This will help our development of complex sentences in the future. 

Last week, we recognised 29/2/24 and students gained some knowledge regarding leap years. They were very surprised that some of our learners were only 3 and 4 years of age when the last one rolled around. Students wrote a personal piece of writing to identify a few of their favourite things, including an accomplishment they were proud of. They recognised that by the next leap year, their responses may be different and they look forward to reflecting on what they wrote.

Students are trying to enhance their personal capabilities through our inquiry topic. This fortnight, we learnt about the importance of having a positive mindset. A positive perspective can shift our attitudes and as a result, maybe even our abilities to succeed in something. Students read The Magical Yet as well as Growth Mindset Ninja to help reiterate this message. We created a class display to showcase our road to learning, which involves making mistakes along with lots of practising and trying. 

Students tapped into their questioning and problem-solving skills as they played ‘guess my number.’ They used strategic questions to eliminate more than one option such as, does my number have more than 5 hundreds or is my number odd or even? Students continued to represent numbers in various ways which included number lines, written words, place value charts, concrete materials and stretching numbers out into their expanded form. 

Through our religious education unit of work, we continue to explore and discuss different 

forms of prayer. Through a task, three versions of Our Father were compared based on their similarities and differences.  This included the formal Our Father prayer, a version in scripture, and an aboriginal adaptation. As parts of the traditional prayer were unpacked, 

students were able to deepen their understanding. 

We also read Ceremony: Welcome to our Country. In reflection, students made connections between corroboree ceremonies  and gathering ceremonies that had attended.

Students worked collaboratively to design and make our class prayer cloth. This is used during our mediation and prayer sessions. 

Have a safe and fun long weekend, see you all on Wednesday! 

Miss Gab