From the Classroom
News from 5/6
We are so impressed with how our senior students have settled into the final term of the year! It’s a busy but exciting time, with lots of fun events and learning opportunities ahead.
This term, we’ve started our new class novel, The Last Bear, an engaging story about a young girl’s journey to the Arctic, where she forms a special bond with a polar bear. Although it took a few chapters to immerse ourselves in the book, excitement is building as the events unfold, and students are eagerly diving into the story’s deeper themes.
This fortnight, students will be revising fractions, decimals, and percentages. Our focus is on strengthening their understanding and application of these concepts. We are also continuing to work on worded problems, as these are key to developing strong problem-solving skills and mathematical reasoning.
We look forward to seeing how our students continue to grow and apply their skills throughout this term. As always, thank you for your ongoing support!
What's happening in 3/4
It has been so wonderful to see everyone returning to school with a smile on their face after the holidays! We loved hearing all about your travels and fun days out over the break. Students were excited to begin their Inquiry Unit last week called 'It's Showtime' where they will be engaging in scripts, puppetry and performance across the term.
In English, students have been studying fairytales to learn about a character's intention versus outcome. Students read a variety of stories retelling The Little Red Riding Hood and The Gingerbread Man from different perspectives. We also began learning features of scripts. Students engaged in a script read of The Little Red Riding Hood, using expression and acting to perform in small groups. Alongside our reading of dialogue, students used macaroni to build their understanding of quotation mark placement.
In Maths we have started our Place Value unit and Angles unit. Students have been working on extending their maths learning with a range of rich tasks, where they have been practicing problem solving skills to answer challenging problems. On Thursday, we created our own 'angle monsters' and went on a walk around the school to find out how many right angles we could find outside!
News in 1/2s
What a fantastic start to Term 4! It has been great to see all the 1/2 students settling back into the school routine and we look forward to watching them take on new learning opportunities this term.
In English, we have been investigating procedural texts in the form of recipes. We will begin to look at the language features and structure to create our own procedures. Students have also revised adjectives and verbs and started learning about adverbs which will help make our writing more exciting. In our phonics sessions we have revised the digraph 'ph' and with the help of 'Gentle Cindy', revised the soft sounds of g and c.
In Maths, we have revised strategies for multiplication. With the use of arrays, students have explored repeated addition, groups of and multiplication equations. Students have developed their understanding of graphs, by representing data as tally marks and bar graphs. Students have enhanced their knowledge by interpreting the results of this data and providing questions of their own relating to the results.
Our Inquiry unit for this term is eSafety. Students will become respectful and safe users of the internet. They will learn safe behaviours when using technology and helpful strategies to implement when dealing with online issues. This week students were introduced to the Mighty Heroes who represented responsibility, respect, trust your feelings and investigate. We had a great discussion about rules to follow when handling technology that included using two hands to carry equipment, following instructions and asking an adult for help.
Just a reminder for students to bring in their take home reading folders so that they can change over their books. We love to see what books they are reading at home!
Fantastic Foundations
Welcome back to Term Four.
It was so great to see everyone return with big smiling faces eager to learn.
What a great start we have had to term four.
Maths:
So far in Maths we have been exploring Friends of 10, and 2D shapes.
Foundation have done an amazing job using different strategies to assist them in suign numbers to add up to 10.
We have had many opportunities to explore shapes inside and outside the classroom. Identifying shapes such as squares, circles, and triangles with shape scavenger hunts.
English:
We have had a lot of fun with our English unit so far. We have been exploring different texts over the first two weeks, placing focus on narratives and formative. While comparing a variety of texts, the students have been able to distinguish between the differences of texts.
This week we have begun to explore the text "Possum Magic" - we have a unit of work which will allow the students to explore the characters and setting alongside some fun craft and cooking activities over the next week.
Other news:
Our Inquiry unit this term is leading us in exploring performing arts. We have had fun with the first few lessons, where we have explored, mime, movement and dance.
We also had a special visitor from healthy Harrold in week one. This incursion was based on friendship and we had a lot of fun getting to know Harrold.
Looking forward to the rest of the school term with you all.
Mrs Mills.