Professional Learning Community Foundation (Preps)

Take home readers – Just a reminder that take home readers must be completed every night. You may notice take home readers will be easier than what students work on with their teacher and that is because we want to encourage students reading fluently and enjoyment for reading, the texts students read at home should not be difficult. We hope to see less students going to reading club in the upcoming weeks.

Friday 27th of August - 100 Days At School Dress-Up. To celebrate being at school for more than 100 days we will be having a dress-up day where you can dress as a 100-year-old. We will also have a focus on the number 100 during the day in our Reading, Writing and Numeracy lessons. This special event is just for our Prep students.

In Literacy this week we have been looking at a great text called Macca the Alpaca, students have enjoyed writing a variety of sentences about this text including a similes, onomatopoeia and power of 3. Students have also enjoyed reading a variety of texts this week using our word solving strategies including stretching words out, recognising high frequency words and rereading.

In Numeracy, this week we have been working on sharing collections of different amounts. Students have enjoyed reading different numeracy based texts this week and using the stories to share different amounts using unfix and counters.

Please remember our uniform policy and attendance challenge we have on at the moment. If you’re unsure ask your child about them or there are details in the newsletter.

Stay warm and safe,

The Prep Team

Professional Learning Community 1 (Grade 1 )

Over the last 2 weeks, Grade 1s have been talking about the topic ‘We are all equal.’ We have been exploring the issues of consent, fairness, equality, and gender norms in sport. We have loved listening to class debates around topics such as ‘should boys do ballet, should girls play footy’ and are excited to complete our health unit over the last couple of weeks.

In Numeracy we have been exploring Fractions. Students have been identifying what is half and have loved exploring the different kinds of pizzas we can make to be equally shared.

We had some amazing Grade 1 stories entered in the schools Book Week writing competition. We loved seeing everyone’s creative costumes today. There might have even been some big crazy aliens running around in underpants...

There seems to be many Grade 1 students attending reading club every day. We encourage all our students to remember to read every day at home and get diaries signed.

Next week we are exploring 3D shapes, so we are looking for donations of recycled 3D shapes (such as cereal boxes, milo tins, tissue boxes ect) so please bring any empty shapes along.

Grade 1 Team.

Professional Learning Community 2 (Grade 2 )

We are over halfway through the term and what a relief it is to be back at school for (hopefully) another full week of face-to-face learning.

The Grade 2s have all been hard at work searching for and using information to help them to complete their practice NAPLAN tests last week and this week will be monitoring and self-correcting when something they’ve read doesn’t sound right, look right or make sense.

We are all wonderfully one-of-a-kind and will be writing a description this week ‘All About ME!’ after completing autobiographies last week.

We are using our measurement skills this week in Numeracy to measure the capacity of different containers and the volume of different shapes and objects.

The attendance of our Grade 2 students has been Zooper Dooper lately, keep it up!

Professional Learning Community 3 (Grades 3)

Well done Grade 3 students for getting straight into learning at school after the uncertainties and disruptions of remote learning earlier in the term. This has been a challenging time for many students, families, teachers and staff- so remember to be kind and to look after one another!

In Literacy, students have been making connections to fiction and non-fictions texts. They have been discovering the big picture, finding the lesson or message in the text and discovering how these can be linked to their own lives. They have been learning about influential people around the world (biographies), finding the spark that inspired their dreams and this week students will be writing their own biographies! How exciting- let's see where our dreams can take us!

In Numeracy, students have been consolidating their learning about fractions and extending into decimals (linking to the Olympics (races are won or lost by .001 of a second!).

Today was dress up in your favourite Book Character – how fun to see so many students embrace their love of books! Keep up the great work and have a great rest of the week.

Grade 3 teachers!

Professional Learning Community 4 (Grades 4)

Grade 4 students are delving into the literary works of Anthony Brown this week. Anthony Brown is a British author who encourages the modern children’s picture book to expand its reach and touch upon uncomfortable social issues such as, restrictive gender roles and narrow minded class limitations. His books are filled with an array of hidden messages which students enjoy deciphering. It has created much conversation within the classroom and generates great enthusiasm. We are thoroughly enjoying his work!

Numeracy – what can I say, we’re a fraction above the rest, if not more! Identifying, counting and in some cases even adding and simplifying fractions, we really are kicking some goals! Fractions are a very difficult concept to master, so at any given opportunity try to incorporate it into daily conversation... Whether tthis be during cooking or dividing up a pizza or lollies, real world experiences are incredibly valuable!

In Writing, we are learning to become ultimate persuaders. The art of winning a debate requires some mastery, and we are certainly doing our best to achieve this! Recently we have argued whether children should be allowed to watch horror movies as well as if they should be granted the pet of their dreams. There has been a few interesting debates brought to the floor, but there is still so much more to explore.

Our Project Based Learning has taken us on a journey around the world. We have studied the origins of the Olympics and how they have developed through the ages. It has been an eye opening experience learning the significance and inspiration it brings to people of all ages and backgrounds. It has been very exciting to watch the events unfold.

Have a great week!

Professional Learning Community 5 (Grades 5)

We are just over half way through the term and taking each day as it comes, grateful to be able to be at school and learning face to face!

This week in Reading we are learning about critiquing the author and identifying themes that are presented in texts. To do this we are working through our class text – Tomorrow When the War Began and using valuable connections to the characters and storyline to identify different moods, emotions and themes the writer showcases.

In Writing we are analysing music and writing a description titled “I can feel the music” - about our favourite song. Students are thinking about the writer’s craft in lyrics, and how vocabulary and figurative language plays a large part in the ‘tone’ of the song.

In Numeracy students are working on designing a ‘resort’. They are required to follow a set of strict guidelines to plan out the resort and the number of guests, rooms, beds, towels etc that can fit and will be needed based on the size of their resort. They are applying their knowledge of multiplication to complete the steps throughout this week. This task will be a portfolio task that continues into next week where students will design a financial plan for funding their resort.

Professional Learning Community 6 (Grades 6)

How have we arrived at Week 6 already- this term is flying by!! We are very proud of how well our students have come back after a very unsettled end to Week 4 and start of Week 5. Keep reminding your students and yourselves throughout these times, that positive thinking will get us through anything!

In Reading, we have continued to analyse the strategies that authors use to engage us as we read. We have been looking for language features and working hard to identify the theme throughout chapters in a novel. Ask your students if they can find some figurative language and the theme of their text as they complete home reading. In Writing, we recently finalised a persuasive text around whether or not the Olympic Games should have gone ahead. It was wonderful to hear the variety of opinions on this very contentious issue- some examples of these texts can be found in this newsletter. Following on from this, we have been writing autobiographies, focussing on what makes us unique.

In Numeracy, we have continued to operate with fractions, decimals and percentages- focussing specifically on finding fractions of a quantity and learning how to use the four operations to add, subtract, multiply and divide fractions by whole numbers and other fractions.

It was so wonderful to see so many incredible costumes for our Book Week Dress Up today. We love enjoying these amazing events, as during these unsettled times they are very rare. We are definitely collecting some incredible photos for our Graduation at the end of the year. In relation to Graduation, please make sure that you get on board and support our School Disco on the last Thursday of term- as the money raised from this will go towards ensuring that our Grade 6s are sent off in style!!

Until next time, keep smiling and stay safe 😊

Book Week Photos