What's happening?

Foundation

Last Wednesday, our Foundation students participated in the Healthy Mind incursion, where they explored mindfulness and self-awareness through a variety of fun and engaging activities. We’re so proud of how well they’ve been learning and growing—it truly calls for celebration! There are lots of exciting things happening in the coming weeks! Please see below for important updates and upcoming events.

Literacy

Over the next two weeks, we’ll continue focusing on words with four sounds (e.g. tent) and reviewing our Weird Words. In writing, students are developing their understanding of recount writing and learning how to structure their work effectively. We’re incredibly proud of the progress our Preps have made!

Don’t forget—Alphabet Day is coming up on Thursday 3rd of July! Students can dress as something starting with any letter of the alphabet. We warmly invite parents to join us for the Alphabet Parade at 9:05 AM on the quad.📸 Please note: parents may only take photos of their own child. Your classroom teacher will post a group photo to Seesaw.

Maths

We’ve begun learning about addition in Maths! Our focus includes:

Partitioning numbers (e.g. 3 and 2 make 5)
Subitising (recognising quantities without counting)
Number bonds (pairs of numbers that add to a specific total)

You can help at home by using household items like Legos, blocks, or pasta to practise these skills.

Inquiry

Health Habits Rotation Day – Wednesday 18th of June

Students can come dressed in comfortable clothes or activewear—no extra items needed. They’ll rotate through activities focused on hobbies, sleep, hygiene and personal safety.

Needs and Wants Project – Begins Monday 23rd of June

In line with our Healthy Habits unit, we’re learning about needs vs. wants. Students will create a model of a bedroom using recycled materials. Please bring:

1 shoebox
Clean recyclable items, such as:
- Small boxes (for furniture)
- Fabric or cloth (for curtains, bedding, etc.)
- Bottle caps, toilet paper rolls, and other safe crafting materials

Please send materials in from now until the start date.- This project will be done entirely at school—nothing needs to be constructed at home.- If you need help gathering materials, feel free to contact your class rep.

Social

Throughout the term, we have been discussing the ‘ Zones of Regulation.’ This is an approach used to support the development of self-regulation in children. In the past few weeks, students have practised many coping strategies to support them when in the green, yellow, blue, or red zone. Examples of this include: going for a walk, drawing a picture, taking 3 deep breaths, counting to 10, and talking to a grown-up.

Thank you for your continued support! We’re looking forward to all the fun and learning still to come this term.

Social

Thank you for your continued support! We’re looking forward to all the fun and learning still to come this term.

Grade 1

The end of Term two is fast approaching and students have been working extra hard through the assessments period.

They have continued reading and spelling with a focus on the “er” sound. The "er" sound can be spelled in several different ways. The common spellings of this sound include "ir" (as in bird), "ur" (as in turn), and "ear" (as in learn). Less common spellings include "wor" (as in word) and "or" (as in work). Even though these words are spelled differently, they all make a similar "er" sound. We encourage you to look for these words in their Readers and picture story books at home. Encouraging them to look for familiar sounds in unfamiliar words is a helpful strategy for building confidence and skill in literacy.

We are also writing procedural text and any practise at home on discussing steps to do something e.g. setting the table, brushing your teeth are helpful ways to get children to think of the sequencing involved in the step process. They will continue to write Procedural text around making things at school.

In Maths the students have moved into subtraction and the inverse operation between addition and subtraction. Students will begin learning about ‘Duration of Time’ in weeks 9 and 10.

Our Weather unit this week has a focus on Wind and the role this plays in the weather cycle, and its effects on the planet, followed by clouds in Week 9. Please continue to encourage your child to look at the weather outside and even on forecasts. They are really enjoying the topic.

Our Incursion “Wicked Weather” was a huge success with students participating in fun science activities, making a mini water cycle in a jar, making snow and looking at the effects of UV rays and what helps to protect us from them. Students were thoroughly engaged and excited throughout the incursion.

Wellbeing next week our focus is on our tone of voice and how we speak to each other.

This week (8) is Ms. Strong’s final week before heading off on maternity leave. We want to wish her all the best for her time ahead and thank her for her amazing contribution to Year 1 this year. We will all miss her.

With that we would also like to welcome Ms. Cory to the Year 1 team who will take over from Ms. Strong. Welcome aboard!

Grade 2

We hope everyone had a lovely long weekend!

Literacy: Our Grade 2 students have been really enjoying our poetry unit so far and have produced some wonderful acrostic poems! Over the next couple of weeks we will be exploring Diamante poetry. This type of poetry involves using interesting nouns, verbs and adjectives.

During our PhOrMes/Word Study lessons, students have been learning to read and spell words with c and g making their second sounds (c=s and g=j). C and g make their second sound when followed by the letters e, i or y.

Students have also been learning to apply their knowledge from our ‘Grammar Project’ lessons by writing who, what, when, where and how questions using picture stimulus.

Inquiry/Core Knowledge: As part of our core Knowledge/Inquiry unit ‘All Mixed Up’, students have been exploring some guiding questions ‘how does temperature affect matter?’ and ‘does heating and cooling change how things are stored in containers?’. Students were very excited to conduct an experiment involving ice cream last week!

Maths: This week we began a new Maths topic! Students have been building on their understanding of time focusing on telling the time on analogue and digital clocks, months and seasons, and using a calendar. As always, opportunities to explore these concepts in everyday situations at home will be a wonderful way to consolidate and build on your child’s knowledge.

Wellbeing: As part of the Resilience, Rights and Respectful Relationships program students have been playing games to learn some of the ways they are similar and different from their peers. Students have also had the opportunity to act out an emotion by using facial expressions/body language and describing the difference between emotions we can feel.

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).

Grade 3

Core Knowledge: As part of our unit, ‘We Are One’, this fortnight we have explored indigenous art, craft and symbols, as well as the journey of reconciliation with Australia's First Peoples, using a variety of texts including, ‘Sorry, Sorry’ and ‘Finding Our Heart’.

Writing: Students wrote an information report independently this week for assessment, successfully demonstrating their understanding of purpose, structure, and planning. Their main goals were to include a mix of simple, compound, and complex sentences using different conjunctions to combine their facts, and include an introduction and conclusion following the GST/TSG structure.

Word Study: This fortnight, we have been learning more about the Latin morpheme ‘port’ and the Greek morpheme ‘bi’ and using these with a variety of prefixes and suffixes. We have also been reviewing when ‘o’ says /u/, as well as reading and spelling a range of homophones and ‘weird words’.

Maths: This week, we started our ‘Length’ topic. Students are learning to read, measure and record measurements for length in millimetres, centimetres, metres and kilometres, and use a scale to inform measurements when measuring distances on a map. As always, opportunities to explore these concepts in everyday situations at home will be a great way to consolidate and build on your child’s knowledge.

Wellbeing: Our focus on social skills and friendships has continued this fortnight with lessons designed to help students learn the difference between a ‘Friendship Fire’ versus ‘Mean-on-Purpose’ behaviour, along with ‘Reporting’ versus ‘Tattling’. Students were able to review scenarios, practise, and put in place a ‘Mean-On-Purpose Proof Plan’, so that they can take action and confidently stand up for themselves when they encounter ‘Mean-on-Purpose’ moments.

Homework:

Thank you for your ongoing support with homework. We have reminded all students to ask a grown-up to check their homework with them and help fix any errors or make improvements before submitting it. We encourage you to support your child with completing tasks as needed. We will continue collecting diaries every Friday to monitor and reward home reading. Please remember to check and sign your child's diary each week.

Grade 4

As we near the end of our science topic, ‘Friends or Foes?’, our Grade 4 students are looking forward to the upcoming StarTime movie/documentary making incursion next week. Students will showcase their presenting skills as they work on recording and editing a documentary about a plant or animal life cycle of their choosing. We cannot wait to see the finished products to conclude our work on this topic.

Literacy: The students have researched, planned and composed some outstanding explanation texts on various life cycles of organisms. They have been very busy publishing and creating posters to display their finished explanation writing. Students have also completed an explanation post-assessment. This is another piece of writing that the students do to monitor growth in their understanding of the structure and language features of this text type.

The students are eagerly working in small groups preparing their scripts for our StarTime movie incursion which is next Monday 16th June (4B & 4P) and Tuesday 17th June (4D & 4RW). They are making a documentary about the life cycle of an organism and are collaborating to write their speaking parts which will be used to make this. There is plenty of speaking & listening practice, reading, writing as well as cooperative learning with this project. We look forward to creating some great documentaries next week and perhaps, inspiring some students to be future documentary makers!

Numeracy: Space is our current Maths concept in Grade 4. Students have been looking at the geometric properties of 2D shapes and 3D objects as well as identifying common shapes in composite shapes. Daily Reviews are embedded into our lessons every day with each Maths class. The tasks in these reviews cover previous concepts that the students have been taught such as multiplication (facts, 2-digit x 1-digit), fractions, decimals, time, addition and subtraction. The purpose of our Daily Reviews is to help students consolidate their understanding of previously taught skills and concepts and to build fluency and recall.

Homework:

Reading 5 x week. Students should be recording their reading in their diary and we ask if you could please sign these at the end of the week.
NO MORPHOLOGY OR LITERACY HOMEWORK THIS WEEK…student’s will be practising their scripts for their StarTime incursion.
My Numeracy task - Multiplication - Solve Multiplication & Division problems involving multiples and powers of 10.
Multiplication fact practice.

Reminders:

StarTime incursion - This is an ALL DAY incursion at school

Monday 16th June - 4B & 4P

Tuesday 17th June - 4D & 4RW

Grade 5

What a huge week it’s been! Camp has been a major highlight of the term, filled with fun, challenges, and unforgettable memories.

We are proud to share a camp summary and reflection from 5B’s SRC leaders, Zara Pask and Harvey Jones:

“Grade 5 camp was a blast! It was one of the best experiences of our schooling years. We had such a fun time at Camp Manyung, located in Mount Eliza, just a 40 minute drive from school. Everyone was super pumped to go. We all had amazing cabin groups that were really fun, all thanks to the awesome teachers.

The food was so yummy, especially afternoon tea and morning tea, dinner the first night, as well as a really big dinner on the last night. We had a great time at activities, even if some were tough. Our favourite ones were the ones with harnesses, like the giant swing, the Treetop Challenge, and the flying fox.

We also enjoyed the leadership challenge, which helped us improve our skills for school captain and leadership roles next year.

Grade 5 camp was awesome and we can’t believe that it’s already over. We can’t wait for Grade 6 camp!”

A massive thank you goes to our amazing parent helpers - Helen, Beth, Darrien, Peter, Oliver, and Damien - for giving their time so generously. Your support, energy, and willingness to get involved made a big difference, and we’re so grateful to have had you as part of the experience.

For students who attended school on Thursday, we spent the day catching up on BTN’s Kid News, completing our camp reflections, and sharing them on Seesaw for families to enjoy.

Thank you again to all students, staff, and parents for making camp such a success! We hope everyone was feeling well-rested after the long weekend.

In Reading, we explored Chapter 6 of Rabbit Proof Fence, following the girls on their difficult journey to the Moore River Settlement. Students showed great empathy and understanding as we discussed the challenges they faced.

During Inquiry, we began learning about Cathy Freeman, focusing on her achievements and legacy. Students practised using strong research skills to gather and summarise information.

In Writing, we took a creative turn with palindrome poetry, and students enjoyed the challenge of crafting poems that read the same forwards and backwards.

Our Word Study continued with the morphemes cede/ceed/cess, helping students deepen their vocabulary and word knowledge.

In Maths, we launched our new topic on probability, with students working in their new maths groups to explore the language of chance and likelihood.

In Wellbeing, our RRRR (Resilience, Rights and Respectful Relationships) focus was on personal and cultural strengths, particularly how we can use these in our everyday lives.

Reminders:

STOMP dance sessions officially begin this Friday and will continue each week for the rest of the term. STOMP has choreographed our school concert dance and will be teaching students each Friday morning.
Concert payment is now open on Compass. The cost covers the bus to rehearsal, a concert t-shirt, and a $5 class-specific costume addition.
Homework resumes as normal this week, including reading, literacy, and maths activities.

We’re so proud of the students’ continued enthusiasm and effort - keep up the great work, only 3 weeks to go!

Grade 6

Literacy

Students have continued their study of the film ‘Hidden Figures’ this week, completing a series of questions in relation to the characters, events and storyline of the film. Students will complete their study of the movie by the end of the term.

In Reading, we have continued working on our ‘Astronomy: Space Systems’ unit. This week, students have considered the question ‘How have people learned about space systems?’. Students have learnt about the important role female astronauts, engineers, and scientists have played in the exploration of space.

Mathematics

In Mathematics, we will be working on Chance until the end of week 9. Students will be completing a pre-test on Patterns & Algebra this Friday in preparation for the start of this concept in week 10.

Interschool Sport

Teams will be training during our Friday sport session this week. Our next round will be at home against Mentone Primary School on Friday 20th June.

Camp

Information will be sent home in the coming weeks about the Grade 6 Log Cabin Camp in Term 3 from Wednesday 27th August to Friday 29th August. If your child/children will not be attending camp, please contact your child’s teacher as soon as possible.

Term 2 Dates

Please check Compass and Focus for further information regarding Term 2 dates relating to Grade 6 students.