Prep

What’s Happening in Prep: Weeks 1 and 2

What’s been happening

The prep teachers hope you and your family had a great break! We can’t believe it is now Term 4. We are looking forward to a busy and fun-filled term ahead. Please keep an eye out for communication around specific events and details. Just a friendly reminder, there are a few events on Compass that are taking place next week, such as the musical excursion and Junior school cross country. If you have not already, could you please pay and consent for your child.

What will be happening over the next fortnight

Wellbeing

Identifying our personal strengths
Reconnecting with our classmates

Phonics

Revising all learnt phonemes (ck, digraphs, Mr Y the Cheeky Guy, Super Hero E, suffix –ed, -ing)
Reviewing previously taught sounds with added suffixes

Reading

Decoding sentences and blending to read smoothly
Retelling a story in sequence

Writing

Writing a sentence correctly, expanding with an adjective

Maths

Solving addition and subtraction problems
Solving sharing problems

Inquiry

Big Question: How do we keep our bodies healthy and safe?

Over the next fortnight, students will be exploring the following lines of inquiry:

What does health mean?
What do our bodies need in order to be healthy?
What does safety mean?
What do you do to stay safe at home and at school?

Homework

Continue looking through Decoding Detective and Word Wizard book as well as take home readers. Students are encouraged to participate in daily reading. If students record 100 nights of reading in their journal, they will enjoy a pizza party hosted by Mr. Tapp. Please encourage students to read the same book multiple times per week as this is valuable to their learning and assists with their fluency. Please note that reading pages from the Decoding Detective/ Word Wizard exercise book counts as a reading entry in the student journal.

Optional: Mathletics and exploring the Prep-2 homework rubric located inside the students reading pouch.

Reminders

Junior School Carnival – Friday 18th October
Year 6 School Musical – Tuesday 15th October and Wednesday 16th October

Year 1

What’s Happening in Year 1: Weeks 1 & 2

What’s been happening

The Year 1 students have settled in beautifully to Term 4, quickly adapting to routines and showing us how much they’ve matured and are ready to learn. We enjoyed finding out all about their holidays and reconnecting with each other. So far this term, we have revised our number skills (e.g. addition and subtraction and place value) through a series of Maths games, recapped the structure of simple and compound sentences, focused on different spellings of the /i/ sound ie and igh and launched our new inquiry topic, Health.

We are very excited for a busy Week 2, filled with the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory dress rehearsal, our excursion to MoPA (Museum of Play and Art) as well as the Junior School Cross Country event.

What will be happening over the next week in Year 1

Wellbeing

Students will consider their emotions through the Respectful Relationships program.

Students will begin to explore their identity and what makes them unique.

Literacy

Literacy encompasses spelling, reading and writing. The following few weeks students will be focusing on:

Spelling: Students will learn when to use the different long vowel ‘i’ sounds <ie> <igh>. For example, bright, lie, tie, might. We will then revise our vowel teams to ensure students have retained this knowledge.

Writing:

Students will explore a mentor text and mimic the sentence structure to create their own writing. Students will then work to innovate their sentences before revising and editing them. Students will then begin unpacking the structure of a narrative by exploring characters and settings.

Reading: We will be looking at mentor texts to identify the parts of a story. Students practice their reading with a text based on our spelling pattern several times throughout the week in a variety of ways, including choral, echo and cloze reading.

Maths

Students will look at directional language and attempt to direct their partner to draw the exact same picture as they did without looking. Some of the directional language we will use is above, below, left, right and opposite. They will then attempt to direct a peer using the same language as well as some prepositions, for example, through and under. Students will also work on their problem-solving skills including understanding the question and determining the best strategies to solve it.

Inquiry

Students will be introduced to our new inquiry topic health and begin to understand the three main areas of physical, emotional and social health. Physical health is in reference to exercising and eating healthily. Emotional health is about understanding who we are and having a healthy mind. Social health is about the way we connect with others. We will celebrate the things that make us unique and how that adds to our class, family and friendships. Students will also begin to explore different emotions and how they can affect ourselves and each other.

Homework

Keep practicing spelling and reading the memory words that were sent home.
The students have been looking at time in the classroom, it would be great if students could practice this more at home!
Read every day to add to your 100 days of reading challenge and the Premier’s Reading Challenge.
Mathletics passwords are in the front of reading journals. Students can practice what we have been learning in class.
Additionally, students can choose a homework activity from the Prep - Year 2 homework rubric.

Here is a list of suggested books students may like to read at home besides their Take Home Readers:

Ella Diaries

Hey Jack!

Pizza & Taco

Little Lunch

Billie B Brown

Spooky House

Captain Underpants

Dog Man

Ninja Kids

Paddy Mills – The big book

The Runaway Kitten

Bad Guys

Hot Dog

The Treehouse Stories

The Faraway Tree

Ella & Olivia

The Beach House

Big Dream

Olivia’s Secret Scribbles

The Tiara Club

Geronimo Stilton

How to Train Your Dragon

Dragon Girls

Rainbow Magic

Curry Career

School of Monsters

The Boy who never gave up

Harry Potter

Ninjago

Weirdo (Ahn Do)

Year 2

What’s Happening in Year 2: Week 1 & 2

What will be happening over the next two weeks in Year 2

The Year 2 teachers are delighted to have all the students back. Our classrooms are buzzing, and we are incredibly excited for a term jam packed with learning and fun. Over the next two weeks, the students will be settling back into the routines of school, both inside and outside the classroom. Week 2 is a busy week for our students with the students having the opportunity to travel via bus to watch the Year 6 Wonka production and also to participate in our very first Junior House Cross Country.

Wellbeing

During the next two weeks of the term, the students will be setting their learnings goals for the term. Students will also be delving into the concept of Growth Mindset and the power of yet.

Reading

Students will be focusing on rereading to build on fluency and are also building on their ability to locate the main idea of a text. Students will build on these skills during echo, choral and cloze reading opportunities. We are also looking forward to welcoming back reading parent helpers into the classroom during Week 2.

Writing

The Year 2 students will begin a unit of work on narratives. During the first two weeks of the term, students will be focusing on word choice and the power that words can have in a narrative. Students will also be delving into the concept of how ideas and imagination are an important part of narrative writing.

Maths

Over the next two weeks, students will develop their knowledge and language around measurement. Students will specifically be looking at informal units of measurement and familiar metric units when estimating the attributes of objects and events.

Inquiry

As we begin a new term, a new Inquiry unit begins. The Year 2 students will be focusing on Health for Term 4. The big question for the term is “How can we promote better health and wellbeing in our environment?”

Reminders

Parent Reading Helpers-

The Year 2 teachers and students LOVE having our parent reading helpers visit on Mondays and Thursday.

Please find sign up links below:

2R- volunteersignup.org/8DB94

2AW- volunteersignup.org/WARQR

2H- volunteersignup.org/JAQML

2W- volunteersignup.org/CBHJT

Reading Rockets-

With 7 weeks to go before the Reading Rockets party, the Year 2 teachers are SO proud of all the students. We have had a number of students who have reached 100 nights of reading. We would like to congratulate these students for completing their 100 nights of reading. These students can be found on our reading rockets wall in the hallway across from the art room. Students at BPS still have 7 weeks to complete reading, the teachers will count 7 nights of reading each week if this is completed.

Year 3

What’s Happening in Year 3: Term 4 Week 1 & 2

Welcome back to the final term of Year 3! We launched straight into learning and have loved being back with our friends. With a packed calendar full of amazing events, this term is going to be a big one!

What will be happening over the next two weeks in Year 3

Wellbeing

Our wellbeing focus is friendship and how we can continue to be good friends. We have discussed the characteristics of good friends and identified some of these characteristics within ourselves.
We are looking to strengthen the friendships we already have along with building new friendships.

Reading

We are beginning to read our class novel ‘The One and Only Ivan’. While reading we will be stopping to discuss key events, characters, themes and vocabulary.
We will continue to build upon our skills as great readers including asking questions and exploring unfamiliar vocabulary along with focusing on accuracy, expression and rate (speed) so that we can read texts fluently.

Writing

We are creating detailed recounts about our holiday break enabling us to revisit and practice our descriptive five senses and show don’t tell.
Contractions are a focus, recognising they are a feature of informal language and that apostrophes signal a missing letter/s and understanding where the apostrophe should be.
Understanding that a clause is a unit of grammar usually containing a subject and verb.
Identifying the difference between a sentence, clause and phrase.
Exploring different sentence types such as simple and complex.
We have dedicated handwriting time where the students are explicitly taught correct letter formation. It is particularly exciting learning how the different letters join together when writing in cursive.

Maths

Money has been our focus. We have been utilising the different operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division) when working with Australian currency.
We continue to learn our multiplication facts by heart through fun games, activities and challenges.

Inquiry – Science

Big Question:

How does heat help us understand and explore the changes in materials?

Discussions began with what we knew about science and how it features in the world. This will extend to what a scientist is and what they do before becoming scientists ourselves. We will discover how to write a scientific report as experiments are conducted.

Homework

Students are asked to continue to read every night and to complete Mathletics tasks set by classroom teachers. Students have some optional activities to complete from the Homework Grid in their homework books.

Reminders

Diaries are expected to come to school every day with their reading recorded and ready to be checked by the teacher. We are keeping a tally of individual reading and as a class to hopefully win the prize of a class pizza lunch!

Camp is rapidly approaching. Please make sure you have returned your medical forms to your child’s class teacher.

Year 4

What’s Happening in Year 4: Term 4 Week 1 and 2

Welcome back to Term 4! We hope you all had a lovely break and are feeling well rested. We are looking forward to another amazing term with the Year 4 students.

What’s happening in the first two weeks:

Wellbeing

Reconnecting with classmates after the break
Listening to the ‘Grow your Mind’ podcast and completing the activities

Reading

Whole class reading and building vocabulary
Focus on fluency through a range of whole, paired and independent activities
Analyse the features of a Book Review
Use context clues to infer meaning and respond to questions about different text types
Book Club launch. Students were given the opportunity to preference books they were interested in reading. They have been placed in groups across Year 4 and will be reading their assigned book for their nightly reading. Groups will meet weekly to discuss characters and events from the story.

Writing

Revise ending punctuation, including when to use a full stop, question mark, exclamation mark and ellipses
Edit paragraphs to include the correct ending punctuation
Explore different persuasive techniques used in writing
Create sentences using persuasive techniques
Look into how purpose & audience help create confident voice
Analyse how an author creates voice in their writing
Plan aspects in their writing that influence their writer's voice

Maths

Students will complete a pre-test on time
Revise how to read an analogue clock
Create clocks with the correct time
Connect analogue and digital times
Problem solve time problems (extension)
Convert between measures of time
Measure, calculate and compare elapsed time

Inquiry

Big Question: How does where we live affect how we live?

We will be exploring:

How are the continents of Australia, Africa and South America similar and different?
What are the geographical features and cultural practices that make these places unique?
How do people and animals in different climate zones adapt to their environments?
How can people use the natural resources available in a sustainable way?
What features might attract tourism to a certain place?

Homework

Homework consists of 20 minutes reading a night, 3- 4 Mathletics tasks to reinforce the concepts being taught at school, and an optional choice board of activities to be completed at your family’s discretion. Diaries will be collected every Friday.

Reminders

11/10 Division Athletics
16/10- Attending the Musical Dress Rehearsal

Library Days:

Monday – 4R
Thursday – 4B, 4L

Year 5

What will be Happening in Year 5: Week 1 and 2

What will be happening in Weeks 1 and 2 in Year 5

This week the Year 5 students began their novel study on the book, Can You See Me? by Libby Scott and Rebecca Westcott. Students have read and responded to the first 12 chapters, looked at the vocabulary used, upgraded nouns and verbs to use in their writing, and discussed the use of conjunctions when writing.

The Maths focus has been looking at division of whole and decimal numbers as well dividing fractions. They have discussed and used the order of operations (BIDMAS) when completing maths problems. In Health, the students were asked the question, what is health? They have looked at preventive health and its importance for the community.

Wellbeing

Students continue to work on resilience, respect, relationships and responsibility.

Literacy

Students will practice reading fluency (accuracy, rate, prosody) through repeated oral strategies related to the Can you See Me? novel study.
Students will read and respond to queries from our class novel ‘Can You See Me?’
Students will use and understand new words from the class novel.
Students will upgrade nouns and verbs within an argument.
Students will use conjunctions to expand their writing.

Maths

Students will use efficient mental and written calculation strategies to divide by one-digit numbers.
Students will use efficient mental and written calculation strategies to multiply by one and two-digit numbers.
Students will use the order of operations to solve problems.
Students will multiply and divide decimals.

Health

Explore what it means to be physically, socially and emotionally healthy.
What are some preventative health strategies that promote health, safety and wellbeing for individuals and their communities?
How do members of the community influence personal attitudes, beliefs, decisions and behaviours?

Homework

Please refer to the Year 5&6 Homework Rubric

Students are expected to be reading every night and completing assigned Mathletics activities over the fortnight.

Reminders

16th October Year 6 Musical Dress Rehearsal

Year 6

What’s Happening in Year 6: Week 1

What will be happening in Week 1 in Year 6

The students will hopefully be well rested after the holidays as they will be heading straight back into one of the busiest periods of Year 6. Upon returning to school, there will be just over a week until the long-awaited performances of ‘Willy Wonka’. The students will be engaged in final rehearsals and looking forward to their last term at Beaumaris Primary School. The school will also be welcoming Melbourne United on Wednesday afternoon to conduct basketball clinics with students.

Wellbeing

Students will work co-operatively in preparation for the musical. This includes supporting each other, listening attentively and managing their time effectively to be best prepared. We encourage students to get adequate rest in the lead up to the musical.

Literacy

Spelling – Latin bases continued, targeted spelling interventions.
Introduction to mentor text - The All New Must Have Orange 430.
Knowledge building and vocabulary development through a variety of texts related to our Inquiry unit.

Maths

Students will be classifying triangles, quadrilaterals and other polygons according to their side and angle properties.
Students will be exploring how three-dimensional objects can be represented in 2 dimensions.

Business & Economics

For our Term 4 unit with the big question ‘What does it take to create a successful business?’, we would love to tap into the expertise of our Year 6 parents. Anyone with experience in business, marketing, advertising, product development etc. who is willing and able to come in and speak with our students would be very much appreciated. Please see your child’s classroom teacher if you can help.

Homework

Students are expected to be reading every night and completing assigned Mathletics activities over the fortnight. Diaries with reading recorded will be checked weekly and Mathletics tasks should be completed by Friday 18th of October.

Reminders

Wednesday 9th October: Melbourne United Clinic

Tuesday 15th October: Year 6 Performance

Wednesday 16th October: Year 6 Performance

Parent Club

Upcoming BPS Parent Social Night