What's Happening in the Junior School

Prep

What’s Happening in Prep in Weeks 3 and 4

What a fantastic day we had celebrating the Prep’s 100th day at school! To celebrate this milestone we decorated photo frames, completed a ‘100 things’ scavenger hunt with our buddies, ate pizza for lunch and made a medal to mark the achievement. The teachers could not be prouder of all the Prep students. We can’t wait for the next 100 days!

Over the next fortnight, we will be learning about:

Wellbeing

Taking pride in our work
Understanding problems are a part of normal life and finding solutions

Literacy

Identifying the diagraph /ph/ phone
Identifying the diagraph /wh/ wheel
Identifying the diagraph /ng/ sing
Identifying the diagraph /nk/ sink, sank, sunk
Reviewing learnt diagraphs /ck/, /sh/, /th/, /ch/, /ph/, /wh/, /ng/ and /nk/
Writing a sentence to inform
Using the conjunctions ‘because’ and ‘but’

Maths

Counting to identify the difference within 10
Using a number track to find the difference within 10
Counting the total on a number track within 10
Subtracting numbers within 10 on a number track

Knowledge Unit

Big Question: How do living things grow and change?

Throughout Term 3, students will be exploring the following lines of inquiry:

What is a living thing?
What do living things need to survive?
What are some features of animals and plants?

Homework

Students take home three decodable readers in their reading pouch each week as well as their green Decoding Detective book and Sound Pack. Please continue to read these with your child, the Preps love showing you how they can recognise and recall all learnt letters and sounds. Reading pouches are returned on Mondays to be changed over and checked by their teacher.

Reminders

Please complete the Primary School Nursing Program form ASAP (details on Compass)
Friday 15th August – Open Afternoon 3pm
Wednesday 20th August – Moonlit Sanctuary Excursion
Friday 22nd August– Book Week dress up day

Year 1

What’s Happening in Year 1 in Weeks 3 and 4

Wellbeing

In wellbeing, students are working to reflect on their emotional responses, discuss ways in which they can take responsibility for their actions, describe ways to express our emotions which shows awareness of feelings and needs of others and practice techniques to deal with feelings of fear, anger and frustration. We will be learning strategies on who goes first in a game and how we might respond when we lose a game.

We will also be continuing our sessions with our Year 5 buddies by spending some time reading to each other.

Literacy

Students will be working on:

Phonics: Students will learn how to read and spell y /e/ /i/ and ending patterns
Reading Fluency: Reading with accuracy and at an appropriate rate
Handwriting: Correctly forming the letter A and C, both uppercase and lowercase
Students will be exploring the language used in the picture story book The Boy Who Tried to Shrink His Name by Sandhya Parappukkaran and Michelle Pereira
Explaining and describing the characters in the story
Expanding simple sentences using where and when

Maths

Students will be learning about Patterns. As part of this unit of work, students will:

Continue repeating patterns
Create repeating patterns
Identify repeating patterns with matching rules
Skip count in 2s, 5s and 10s
Identify and continue skip counting patterns in 2s, 5s and 10s
Create skip counting patterns in 2s, 5s and 10s
Organise collections into 2s, 5s and 10s

Knowledge Unit

Students will be looking at the properties of materials and what physical changes can be made to them (stretching, bending, twisting etc). Students will be investigating a range of objects and will need to decide what materials they are made from.

In Week 4 we will be having our “Hands on Science” incursion. During this, students will be engaging in an exploration of chemicals and materials that make up the world around them. The activities conducted within the incursion will link directly to our knowledge unit.

Library

Students will be attending the library on Thursday each week as a cohort. Please ensure that students have their blue library satchel in their bag to keep their borrowed book protected when transporting to and from school. This will help keep these books separate from their ‘Classroom Library’ picture story book that they take home on a Monday.

Take Home Readers

Each week, your child will take three decodables home. We strongly encourage students to reread these texts multiple times across the week as this is an important way novice readers develop automaticity and reading fluency. In addition, students are bringing home one quality text from their classroom library each week. As novice readers, they will not necessarily be able to read these books independently. However, they will benefit a great deal from hearing these texts read out loud by an expert (you!). As our phonics lessons teach new digraphs and diphthongs, sound pack cards will be added to the students’ reading pouches for practice. Keep practicing the sound pack cards the students already have.

Mathletics

Your child has their Mathletics code pasted into their Reading Diaries. Activities have been set by the classroom teachers and students can work through assigned task at their own pace. Completing these tasks is optional. We have been really excited to see students completing Mathletics tasks at home. These help to consolidate their understandings from the classroom.

Reminders

Fruit and veggie break snack: Please ensure that students are bringing their fruit and veggie snack in a container separate to their lunch box. This supports students in transitioning during fruit and veggie break time in the classroom.
Students are to bring in their reading pouch every Monday to swap their take home readers and classroom library book. It is really important students are completing their 20 minutes of nightly reading to support their reading progress. New readers are only sent home until the previous week’s books have been returned.
Students have multiple opportunities across the week to spend time with students in other classes, these include Wellbeing, FMS, Library and eating recess and lunch together.

Timetable Changes

There are some timetable changes to be aware of this term. Please see below:

1B Timetable.png

1C Timetable.png

1M Timetable.png

Year 2

What’s Happening in Year 2 in Weeks 3 and 4

The Year 2 students have made a great start to Term 3, showing enthusiasm, particularly during our recent science experiment exploring forces. It’s been wonderful to see their curiosity and teamwork in action! We're also very proud to share that the Year 2’s Acknowledgements of Country have been used at the beginning of our school assemblies and teacher meetings. The staff are all very impressed by their incredible work!

Over the next fortnight, the Year 2 students will be learning:

Wellbeing

We are learning to:

describe the cooperative behaviour that helped the team to succeed in the activity
identify how the cooperative behaviour can help with solving problems
use the problem-solving model to help them identify options for children experiencing problems
identify possible sources of help
describe and enact problem-solving and help-seeking strategies
use the problem-solving model to help them identify options for children experiencing problems
describe and enact problem-solving and help-seeking strategies

Phonics

We are learning to:

Identify and use the prefixes un-, pre-, re- and dis-
suffix and prefix review

Literacy

We are learning to:

form an opinion statement
identify the structure of a persuasive text
use modal verbs and conjunctions to justify and reason
write a persuasive text in response to a mento text

Maths

We are learning to:

Represent grouping as repeated subtraction
Solve problems using sharing
Solve division problems using equal grouping and partitioning
Identifying the unit in multiplicative problems

Knowledge Unit

This term, the Year 2 students will be learning about Design and Technologies. We will be exploring the big question:

How can we use push and pull forces to design and improve something that moves?

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

How has the design process been used to create solutions to issues in our environment?
How can we follow the design process to create a solution to an environment issue?
How are products, services and environments are designed and produced by people to meet personal or local community needs?

Homework

Please continue to read the take home reading books each week, aiming for 15 – 20 minutes each evening. Changing readers will continue occur on a Friday. Please enjoy sharing a new Classroom Library text each Friday. This book is for enjoyment and can be read by parents/carers.
Optional: Mathletics logins have been placed in the front cover of reading diaries. Students may work through these tasks at their own pace, if desired.

Reminders:

Recycled Materials Request: As a part of our Design and Technologies Unit, the Year 2 Students will be constructing their own arcade game, from recycled materials. We would welcome any donations of carboard boxes, over the coming weeks. Please feel free to drop these off in the classroom. Thank you in advance!
Monday 18th August - Twisted Science Excursion