The Learning Zone

"Coming together is the beginning, staying together is progress,

and working together is success." - Henry Ford

Writing Challenge

An important aspect of the Writing program at St Joseph's relates to the four VCOP elements (vocabulary, connectives, openers, punctuation). Students learn to improve their written work by 'uplevelling' the VCOP elements. The focus of this Writing Challenge is on OPENERS which are words (or short phrases) that are used to start a sentence... and there are many of them. 

📝Writing Challenge - Opener Scavenger Hunt

There are so many outstanding openers in the books all around us. Hunt through them and find as many as you can. Choose the best ten and write them on an A4 piece of paper (with your name) and hand it to Mrs Holland by Friday 27th October. 

HINT: Verbs, adverbs and similes make great openers. Happy hunting!

Armidale Diocesan Mathematics Initiative (MaST)

What is happening in the world of mathematics at St Joseph's? Let's take a look! 

Please see the information below to assist your child at home or to see what they have been doing so far this term.

Maths At Home:

Kindergarten - Multiplication

Putting objects together in equal groups helps children to understand early multiplication. Encourage your child to move objects to create equal groups. There are lots of opportunities to make and show equal groups in everyday life. Think about events when sharing is needed and ask your child to help you create equal groups.

• Sharing equal amounts of food

• Baking biscuits or cupcakes where the mixture is shared equally

• Building 2 Lego towers the same height

• Organising your toys into equal groups.

• Sharing out cards for a card game

One of the best ways to explore equal groups is to make unequal groups and problem solve together how to make them equal.

Stage 1 - Fractions

Last week Stage 1 completed some wonderful and challenging fraction work. 

When making sandwiches or cutting other foods, talk about how you cut them into halves and/or quarters. Use words such as half, even, equal, parts, quarters, four equal pieces.

Fair Feast: Here is a picnic that Mrs Ryan and Mrs Kellow are going to share equally. Can you tell us what each of them will have?

Stage 2 - Time

Stage 2 are working on aspects of Time this week. 

Start making a habit of pointing out the time on a clock when events happen in your day, to introduce what that time looks like. Move on to asking your child to tell you what a certain time looks like: “What will the clock look like at 1 o’clock” (or more tricky “in 15 minutes”).

Once these basics are established, let your children remind you when it is time to do something. You may well find that they will pick this up especially easily if it’s something they’re really looking forward to doing.

Problems of the Week:

Stage 3 - Data

Stage 3 have been having a lot of fun during their data unit of work. 

Helping your child with representing and interpreting graphs and tables

The next time you come across a graph in a newspaper on a topic that would be interesting to your child, sit down together to try to interpret it. Work together to answer questions such as: What is this graph telling us? How do we know whether the information is true? Is there a different way of representing this information? Is there anything that you don't understand?

Have a great week of learning and fun!

Maree Holland & Greg O'Toole