Prep / 1 Mainstream 

Celebrating Learning

Swimming:

The F-2s have had a massive week of swimming lessons this week! We were very proud of how all students listened carefully to instructions, followed all the pool rules and had lots of fun learning new skills in the pool. We’ve had lots of positive feedback from lifeguards and members of the public about our great behaviour at the pool. Here were some of the highlights:

“I loved learning about water safety” -Rune

“I loved learning the safe entry” -Indi

“I loved swimming over the seaweed” -Jarvis

“I loved everything!” -Remy

“I’m so excited for swimming!” - Shivani

PBL (play-based learning):

Over the past few weeks in our PBL sessions, we've been exploring how to take a good idea and make it great through idea sharing and modifications. Last week, students took this process to the next level, by collaboratively planning and constructing buildings in small groups as part of a construction company. Students had to first communicate their ideas, choose a type of building (e.g. school, hotel, castle) and draw a design plan for their building. They then had to explain their plan to the teacher (construction company boss) for approval and begin to construct their building using shared resources of cardboard and Makedo sets. Our next steps will be to continue construction and reflect on the process.

Maths:

In our math lessons, we're making great progress with addition and subtraction! We've been exploring how numbers can be broken down into two smaller parts and applying these skills through fun math games. This week, we're using a board game to practice adding or subtracting one (or two) from the numbers we roll, aiming to get three counters in a row to win. It's a fun and engaging way to strengthen their number sense!

Writing:

Students have been learning about the features of a non-fiction text. We have continued looking at how facts can be categorised. The categories that we have been discussing are:

-classification

-what they eat

-what they look like

-where they live

-how they move

-interesting facts

We have read lots of non-fiction books and watched some non-fiction videos about different animals. Students have begun writing down their facts in their writing books.

Reading:

An integral part of building fluency is reading out loud to a partner and receiving feedback. This gives students the chance to notice how reading words accurately impacts their own and their partners' understanding of the text. A listening partner can assist their reading  partner to read a word accurately by saying:

• “That word is _____”
• “What’s that word?”
• “Good. Can you read that sentence again, please?”

We have gradually been introducing paragraph shrinking in our classrooms to assist with reading comprehension. Paragraph shrinking helps build student understanding of the text and therefore improves fluency. Students are asked to “shrink” either a very short page or paragraph of the text by identifying who the text is mostly about and what the most thing is that has happened. Students then say the main idea in a sentence that is 10 words or less.

In our reading groups over the past two weeks we have been focussing on the following sounds:

Rylee/ Anastasia and Jess:

• CCVCC words like drink, press and cramp
• Compound words like hatbox and sunset
• Words with the suffix -ed like limped and jumped

Matt was learning:

• /ir/ as in birthday
• /ur/ as in surf
• /er/ as in serve
• /air/ as in chair

Steph was learning:

• /i_e/ like 
• /i/ as in find 

What’s to come in the next two weeks:

• Thank you for continuing to support your children to take home readers and practise at home. 
• Thanks to families who have donated cardboard boxes! If you have some lying around at home that you would be willing to bring in, hand them in to Jess or Rylee/ Anastasia. We will be using these in PBL in the upcoming weeks.
• School holidays are coming up in a week. We have lots of tired children at school (and at home!). It was a big term with lots of changes and increased workload so everyone’s brain has been working very hard. We will all enjoy a very nice rest soon!

warmly

Rylee, Anastasia and Jess