Classroom News

Foundation: Mrs Mclay

100 Days of Foundation 

We’ve hit a major milestone – 100 Days of Foundation! To mark this exciting moment, our little learners celebrated with a week full of fun, laughter, and creativity. From scavenger hunts to crafty creations, the joy was contagious as students explored, built, and played their way through the festivities. The excitement reached new heights with parades, dance parties, and even a few surprise guests! These 100 days have been filled with growth, discovery, and friendship — and this celebration was the perfect way to reflect on just how far we’ve come. Here’s to the next 100 days of learning and laughter! 

Literacy 

This week in Literacy, we’ve been diving into digraphs – two letters that come together to make one sound, like sh and ch. Students have been busy identifying these sounds in words and using them in their reading and writing. To consolidate our learning, we’ve been building sentences using the digraphs, along with the letter sounds we've already learnt. It's been amazing to see the students growing in confidence and beginning to write more independently! 

Maths 

In Maths, we’ve been exploring addition and subtraction using numbers to 10. Our Foundation learners have been using number tracks, hands-on materials, and fun number stories to help them understand these important concepts. Through play-based activities and real-life scenarios, students are building a strong sense of number and learning how to solve simple problems with confidence. 

Fenaughty Street Kinder Visit 

Our Foundation students had a wonderful time visiting Fenaughty Street Kinder in Kyabram! It was a fun-filled day of connection and play as we joined in with story time, shared giggles during a teddy bear picnic, and got creative with biscuit making. The highlight? Seeing the joy on everyone's faces as they explored the kinder environment, made new friends, and shared in the magic of early learning. A big thank you to the kinder team for welcoming us so warmly! 

Foundation- Grade 1: Miss Emmett

Our Foundation and Year 1 students have had a busy and exciting few weeks of learning. In InitiaLit, we have been continuing our focus on digraphs, learning sh, qu, ee, z, and zz. Students have enjoyed practising these sounds through reading, writing, and hands-on activities that help them recognise and use digraphs in words. 

In Mathematics, we have recently completed our unit on place value to 120, where students developed a strong understanding of tens and ones, and how numbers can be built and broken apart. We are now beginning our learning on patterns, starting with repeating patterns with objects and colours before progressing to skip counting. This new focus will help students recognise number sequences and make connections between counting and multiplication. 

As part of our inquiry focus on keeping safe, the class went on a school-wide hunt to locate all of the School Wide Expectations posters. Students explored different areas of the school, spotting the posters in classrooms, hallways, and shared spaces. Along the way, we discussed what each expectation means and how following them helps everyone feel safe, respected, and ready to learn. 

Grade 2: Miss Wooden

In Grade 2, students focus on developing their inferring skills, which helps them make logical guesses based on information and context clues. They also dive into division, learning to share and group numbers in a way that builds a strong foundation for future math concepts. Additionally, we emphasised the importance of community helpers, exploring the various roles individuals play in society and how they contribute to the community's well-being. This combination of skills engages students and encourages them to think critically about the world around them.

Here is what the students think of their term so far:

Tom: I liked reading 'Under the Southern Cross'. 

Buddy: I am enjoying science week. 

Matilda: I enjoyed winning the balloon rocket activity.

Linc: I liked reading 'The Story of Rosy Dock'.

Heidi: I like spending time with Miss Wooden and the Grade 2 class.

Kynan: I liked making balloon rockets.

Will: Is excited for the Grade 2 sleepover. 

Harlow: Is excited to sleep at school with all her friends. 

Indy: I have enjoyed learning about safety, and I liked the 100 Days Magnify Day!

Lottie: I enjoy spending time with my friends in Grade 2 and learning multiplication with Miss Wooden.

Samuel: I love playing Gaga Ball.

Alex: I love being at school.

Noah: I like participating in science week activities and using a balloon to make a rocket.

Madi: I like being at school with Miss Wooden.

Miss Wooden: I have loved having so many visitors to your class. 

Grade 3: Mrs Stock

Over the past two weeks, our Grade 3 students have been working hard and having lots of fun in the classroom!

In preparation for our upcoming school production in Week 9 (the last week of term), the students have been busy practising their dance moves. It’s been so impressive to watch their progress. I can’t believe how much they already know!

In Maths, we have been learning about angles. The students have been identifying right angles, recognising angles as measures of turn, and using right angles as a reference to compare angles in everyday situations. They have enjoyed hands-on activities such as drawing right angles on grid paper and creating pictures containing a set number of right angles.

For Literacy, we have started our new class novel, 'The Iron Man'. This classic children’s story tells of a mysterious, giant metal robot who appears in a coastal farming village, causing fear at first but eventually becoming a gentle and helpful friend. We have finished Chapter 1 : The Coming of the Iron Man, where the Iron Man appears on a cliff, crashes to the beach below, and reassembles himself with the help of some curious seagulls. We have now begun Chapter 2, and the excitement is building!

As part of The Resilience Project, we have explored the topic of Gratitude. Students learned the difference between being grateful for the past and being grateful in the present moment. They discussed how gratitude can have a positive impact on our wellbeing and completed a gratitude journal entry to help build a more positive mindset.

It has been a wonderful fortnight of learning, and I am proud of the enthusiasm and effort the students are showing in all areas.

Grade 4: Miss Dove & Mrs McKiernan

It’s been a busy fortnight at St Pat’s! We’ve celebrated 100 Days of Magnify, Science Week, Bullying No Way Week, a curriculum day, our class liturgy, and the Waranga Athletics. Next week, we’re looking forward to Grandparents’ Mass and Book Week — we can’t wait to see all the creative dress-ups! 

In Mathematics, we are revisiting fractions, which we first explored earlier this year. Students loved the unit then and are just as enthusiastic this time around. We began by identifying equivalent fractions on number lines, then moved on to ordering them using greater than and less than symbols. 

In Literacy, we finished our novel study of The Arrival by Shaun Tan and have now begun our poetry unit. Students are planning to write their own animal poems. We started by examining Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s poem The Eagle, which paints a vivid picture of an eagle for the reader. Students then selected their own animals and created lists of descriptive adjectives to capture their appearance and behaviour. They used these adjectives to write similes — for example, as heavy as a boulder. Next, they brainstormed rhyming words and learned about poetic structure, including stanzas, lines, rhyme, and rhythm, and how these were used in The Eagle. 

In Inquiry, we have been exploring rules and laws — their differences and their importance. Students even designed their own set of rules and laws as if they were in charge of their own towns! 

Our school production is coming up next month.  An email was sent home this week with details about your child’s costume. 

They will need: Blue or dark denim — jeans, pants, shorts, or a skirt. 

The top will be supplied by the school. Please send in your child’s denim item by Thursday, 5th September. 

Grade 5-6: Miss Rasmussen

In English, we have loved starting our new text Tom Appleby: Convict Boy by Jackie French. The story is set in the mid-to-late 1700s, a time when England was overcrowded, poverty was rife and punishments for even minor crimes were harsh. Many children, like Tom, were forced into dangerous and exhausting jobs just to survive. We have learnt how Tom’s life has spiralled—after his father dies (with his mother having passed away years earlier), he finds himself working as a chimney sweep, facing gruelling and unsafe conditions, and with little hope for his future. Alongside exploring the text, we have been focusing on sentence structure, using conjunctions to extend our ideas, and developing strategies to identify the main ideas in a piece of writing. We have also been working on summarising, learning how to select and use only the most important information.

In Maths, we wrapped up our fractions unit. Students learnt how to convert improper fractions into mixed numbers and vice versa, building both their confidence and fluency in this important skill. We are now beginning our new unit on angles, where we will explore different types of angles and how to measure and classify them.

This term’s Inform and Empower session focused on being an upstander, help-seeking strategies and consent when online. It was a powerful and practical learning experience where students explored how to recognise unsafe or uncomfortable situations online, how to remove themselves from those situations, and how to seek help for themselves and for friends. The session also highlighted the importance of consent, particularly around sharing videos, photos and information, and the real-life consequences that can occur when this is not respected.

We are also getting excited for camp! We’ve had our information session and learnt about our action-packed itinerary. Now, all that’s left is to pack our bags and get ready to explore the amazing city of Melbourne and all it has to offer.

This week in RE we looked at the letters of St Paul. We explored the structure of his letters and looked at the places where the people he wrote to lived, then wrote our own encouraging letters to people in our school community. Our letters followed the same structure of Paul's letters, and included positive messages to people in the school.