Education News

MINI BEASTS IN THE JUNIOR SCHOOL

In week 7, the year 1-2s had a special incursion with Christie (Harvey’s mum from 1A who is an Environmental Scientist). She spoke to the students about minibeasts and helped them understand the key features of insects, to match our current Inquiry focus on the needs of plants and animals.

Christie organised a range of exciting rotational activities that students moved between- from exploring worms and observing stick insects up close to exploring what plants need to grow. Each station sparked curiosity and wonder. The students were captivated throughout and came away with lots of new knowledge about the fascinating world of living things.

A HUGE thank you to Christie from all of the Year 1-2s and to Miss Whitaker for organising it all!

The year 1-2 students have thoroughly enjoyed beginning work on their dioramas as part of our Biological Science inquiry unit. Each student has selected an animal or plant of interest and is creating a diorama to show what their chosen living thing needs to survive. This hands-on activity has sparked great enthusiasm and creativity, while helping students deepen their understanding of the basic needs of plants and animals. On the last day of term, students will take part in a Gallery Walk with the other Year 1–2 classes, giving them the opportunity to share and celebrate their work. They will then take their dioramas home to share with their families!

Lunch Time Clubs

During Break times various classrooms are open for lunchtime clubs.  This term this has included board games, yoga and mindfulness coloring. An outdoor area is set up each day in Break 2 under the shade cloth in betweem Year 5 and 6 classrooms. This is manned by Mrs Cattenach. This is a very popular addition to our break time fun.

FOUNDATION

It’s hard to believe that our Foundation students are now halfway through their first year of school! They have made so much growth in their learning, social and emotional development. 

As the term has progressed, they have been consolidating andextending their skills in the core learning areas of English and Maths. In English students have been working hard to improve their writing through dictation activities, no longer requiring lines for individual letters in words but writing on a single continuous line. They have also been introduced to simple punctuation and arestarting to include finger spaces, capital letters and full stops in their work. 

In reading they have been applying their segmenting and blending skills during fluency pairs and have started learning new words through our structured vocabulary lessons. 

In Maths they have been increasing their knowledge and understanding of place value through differentiated toolbox activities where they have individual learning goals.They have also been exploring addition, length, positional language and ordinal numbers. 

Students have discovered more about the seasons during Core Knowledge (Inquiry) lessons, and this has been consolidated during Spanish and structured vocabulary activities. Autumn, Winter and Spring have been explored while our investigation into Summer is taking place during the final few weeks of term. Students’ cultural awareness and understanding has been increased during Spanish lessons looking at the Cinco de Mayo celebration and the Mexican Hat Dance. Additionally, they gained a greater understanding of our own Australian culture during Reconciliation Week activities. 

Next term, in Week Three, we will be celebrating the first 100 days of school with a dress up day and party food lunch. Our Core Knowledge program focuses onkeeping “Safe and Sound” and we hope to have several parents who work incommunity-based roles visit us and explain their jobs.