Currently in Discovery Learning, students have been exploring animals and what makes them special. Our Reptile Encounter school experience was a great success. Students thoroughly enjoyed seeing native Victorian animals up close. Here are some of the things they had to say:

What I know after the experience:

“Some lizards have a poo gun” Hector F/1A

“Shingle back lizards have a poo gun and stick insects have an egg gun” Tom F/1A

“Turtles can breathe through their bum” Junie F/1A and Charlotte F/1B

“Ring tailed possums use their tails to not fall off a branch.”

“I know what a turtle shell feels like now.” Malakai F/1B

Things I want to know more about:

“What is the most venomous snake in Australia?” Rune F/1A

“How much do turtles dive?” Juliet F/1B

“Do snakes have yellow bellies?” Colin F/1A

“Why do frogs eat flies?” Charlotte F/1B

“How long do snakes live?” Cora F/1B

Literacy

In Reading, we will continue to focus on phonics, including sounding out words, reading fluency and spelling words. In Foundation, we are beginning to Stage 4plus. This includes up the hill -ll, what a mess - ss and huff and puff - ff. Students have brought home their class workbooks for Stages 3 and 4.

Foundation students should continue to take home their reading folders to practise reading at home.

In Year 1, students have begun revision of Stage 7.1. The sounds covered so far have been teeny green tree - ee, seals at the beach - ea and unhappy Molly - - y (y makes a long ee sound at the end of a two-syllable word). Year one students should practise their reading at home.

In Writing, students have begun looking at statements and questions by writing about things they know or learned in the Reptile Encounter experience. They then recorded questions about things they would like to know next. This will lead into looking at nonfiction texts about animals and recording new information. Students continue to focus on the following secretarial skills:

Writing the sounds they hear in each word
Starting a sentence with a capital letter
Putting a finger space between each word
Ending a sentence with a full stop, question mark or exclamation mark.
Forming letters correctly

Maths

In Mathematics, students continue to sing songs and recite verses that help them build a sense of time. This includes the months of the year, the times of the day and the days of the week.

Our daily practise skip counting and representing numbers as tens and ones has assisted students to consolidate their number sense and the value of digits in two-digit numbers.”

Last week, we practised continuing, creating and finding the missing elements in repeating patterns and growing number sequences (skip counting), including with shapes, colours and using Australian Coins.

This week, students have started exploring the world of shapes! They have been learning about the features of 2D shapes and using the language of ‘edges/sides, vertices/corners and curved/straight’ to describe them. We have played games such as; ‘Guess my shape!’ This has helped students practise devising questions that result in a ‘yes’ or ‘no' answer.

We also used a variety of 2D shapes to create our own paper shape monsters!

Here are some photos of our students and their work:

Prep/1 B

As part as discovery this week we made catapults! We tested different materials like tiny paper balls and plastic counters. We hypothesized which would go further and higher then tested them out.

Kirsty

TeamKids