What's happening?
Foundation
We have had an enjoyable and busy start to Term 3 and have already packed so much into the first few weeks of school. Firstly and most importantly, last Wednesday, the students celebrated their 100 days of school! All the costumes looked outstanding, and the children had a great day completing activities all around the number 100. A highlight was our prep parade and cohort disco.
Earlier this week, we recorded our concert songs and sang beautifully. Thank you to all the parents who have been practising with their children. Remember to keep practising your songs and the dance moves along with it.
Inquiry: We have a few more exciting upcoming events throughout the term for our inquiry unit on ‘Community Helpers.’ The first being our excursion to Parkdale Library on Monday 25th of August (updated date). We will be looking for a few volunteers to help us walk the children to and from the library. Please see compass for more information, and email your class teacher if you are interested in the coming weeks.
Maths: We will be finishing off our Place Value unit this week and will be moving on to the numeracy concept ‘Subtraction’.
Literacy: Over the past few weeks, within Phormes, we have been focusing on reading and writing both words with four codes and five codes. Each lesson, we review what we have previously learnt to ensure students are continually practising their adapted skills within literacy. This week we are reading and spelling words with three consonant sounds at the start of words, e.g., spl at (splat).
Social: This term focuses on behaviour around being a good friend, showing respect, and supporting students with skills to appreciate our differences and have a positive mindset. We are continuing to follow both the UR Strong program and the RRR program. Students are given opportunities to practise these problem-solving skills on how to manage themselves, their friendships, and stressful situations.
Grade 1
The students have just had their recording of their singing for the School Concert. There was much excitement and some nerves, but they sang their hearts out. We were so thrilled to watch them perform with such enthusiasm and attention to all they have learnt.
In Literacy this week we are still focused on writing descriptive text with students researching Australian animals to write about. They are learning about the characteristics and differences between Mammals, Marsupials and Monotremes. Our other focus is boundary punctuation when writing sentences. In handwriting we are focusing on the letter “Mm” and next week “Xx.”
Our word study code is the vowel diagraph “ow and ou” they both represent the same sound, /ou/, as in "out" and "cow" respectively. Students will learn where these sounds appear in a word as a general rule either beginning, middle or end and when “ow” appears before the letters “l” and “n” it is more likely to be spelt with the “ow” code.
In Maths for the next three weeks, students are looking at Patterns. So far this week they have been enjoying the challenges of making different types of Patterns. Some of the language we have been focusing on are repeating, core pattern, increase and decreasing patterns. Students will be exposed to number, shape and patterns of objects.
The focus for Wellbeing this week was Responsibility, students looked at ways they are and can be responsible people. Next week the students will re-engage with our UR Strong program and look at the friendship fire and how to approach hurt feelings, misunderstandings and disagreements through talking it out.
Grade 2
Literacy: In Writing, students have continued to build on their understanding of what a good written Explanation text looks like. They have been working on their own pieces, focusing on including a title, an opening statement, main paragraphs written in present tense, and a concluding sentence to wrap things up.
Students have continued to build their fluency and expression through fluency pairs (reading to a partner). Next week, we’ll begin exploring a whole class text titled The Garbage Barge. This book will be used to strengthen comprehension, build vocabulary, and practise making predictions during reading discussions.
During our PhOrMes/Word Study lessons, students have been learning to read and spell words containing an ‘or’ sound.
Students have also been learning to apply their knowledge from our ‘Grammar Project’ lessons by writing sentences with possessive pronouns. Next week we will be combining 2-3 sentences with conjunctions and pronouns.
Inquiry: We continue our inquiry into ‘Earth’s Precious Resources’, with a focus on understanding both the natural and urban water cycles. Students have loved conducting an experiment this week- building a natural water cycle in a zip lock bag!! It’s been a fun and engaging way to see the water cycle in action!
Maths: We are halfway through our Multiplication and Division topic. Students have been recognising and representing division as grouping into equal sets and solving problems using efficient mental and written strategies. Some of these strategies include drawing arrays, groups of and learning about repeated subtraction. Next week, we’ll look more closely at how multiplication and division are connected and begin working with fact families to build fluency and number sense.
Wellbeing: As part of our RRRR (Resilience, Rights and Respectful Relationships) program, classes have been identifying some of the different activities that they enjoy doing and comparing ways their preferences may be similar or different from those of their peers.
Homework: Thank you for your support with homework: Regular reading aloud and a weekly Word Study/PhOrMeS worksheet. Optional online extras: ‘Nessy Reading and Spelling’ and ‘Sunset/Jetpack Maths’ (Essential Assessment).
Reminders: We will have a whole school dress up day on Monday 18th August to celebrate book week. Students are invited to dress up as a favourite book character. We’re looking forward to a fun and imaginative day!
Grade 3
Our Grade 3 students did an excellent job with recording their concert song this week! We will now shift our focus to perfecting the dance moves to go along with their beautiful singing.
Core Knowledge: As part of our ‘Forces and Motion’ topic this fortnight, students explored various forces acting on objects, such as friction, and investigated whether we could describe and predict patterns of motion.
Writing: This fortnight, students are learning to expand sentences in procedural texts using adverbs and adverbial phrases of time, place and manner.
In our word study lessons, we reviewed the morphemes ‘bi’, ‘port’ and ‘tract’ and combined them with a variety of prefixes and suffixes. We have also been learning more about using the ‘y to i rule when adding a suffix’, as well as reading and spelling a range of homophones and ‘weird words’.
Maths: During our ‘Angles’ topic this week, students were learning to recognise angles as a measurement of turn, identify the rays and vertex of an angle, use an angle ruler to check the size of an angle, and compare turns and angles to right angles. As always, opportunities to explore and identify angles further at home, will be a great way to consolidate and build on your child’s knowledge and skills.
Wellbeing/Values/Social Skills: This week, students have been investigating and identifying what respect can look like, feel like and sound like in a range of situations.
Homework: Thank for your ongoing support with checking weekly homework, home reading, and signing diaries.
Reminder: We still have many students who need more whiteboard markers for the remainder of the year, and ask parents to please check this with your child, if you haven’t already done so.
Grade 4
We have had a very busy couple of weeks in Grade 4, filled with lots of learning and discovery. Thank you for all the efforts and amazing attitudes towards your learning!
In Reading, we’ve continued exploring our class novel War Horse. We’ve been unpacking its themes, characters, and storyline in detail, and using quotes from the text to strengthen our reading responses. Along the way, we've discovered lots of new vocabulary, which students have been enthusiastically incorporating into both their responses and their own writing.
In Writing, we’ve been learning about persuasive techniques through the DAFOREST model, helping us make our arguments more convincing and effective. We've also focused on crafting engaging introductions using the GST structure. Students have done a fantastic job and are excited to begin developing their body paragraphs next week.
This week in Maths, we wrapped up our multiplication and division unit. Our focus was on dividing larger numbers, both with and without remainders. We even challenged ourselves to convert remainders into decimals and fractions! These skills were then put into practice through solving real-life word problems.
In Inquiry, we’ve continued our “May the Best Party Win” unit, where we’re learning all about the Australian government. This week, we discovered how a law is made by following its journey through the House of Representatives and the Senate, with plenty of debate and discussion along the way! We're very excited to welcome Tim Richardson next week, who will be visiting to speak with us about local government.
Reminders: We’re all looking forward to Grade 4 Camp in the final week of term! Medical forms have been sent home, please return these by the end of next week so we can ensure everything is ready for a fun and safe camp experience.
Grade 6
We can't believe it's nearly the end of Week 3! Our Grade 6 students continue to impress with their enthusiasm and effort, especially in preparing for the upcoming school concert. Their commitment has been fantastic, and we’re proud of the teamwork and creativity on display. Please keep an eye on Compass over the coming weeks for important updates and reminders.
In Literacy, students are fully submerged into the works of The Magician’s Nephew, showing excellent work ethic and thoughtful engagement with the text. This has been a very impressive start, and we appreciate their full effort each session.
The term is full of exciting extra-curricular events, including Athletics Day, Book Week, camp, and of course, the concert. We encourage students to stay on top of their responsibilities, including homework tasks, as things get busier.
As always, we remind our students: You only get out what you put in!