Junior classroom news

We have been busy bees during the past couple of weeks in 1/2!

We would like to thank all the parent helpers who offered their time to help with pancake making on Shrove Tuesday! What a delicious morning we had!

In literacy we are continuing to look at recounts and identifying the 5 W’s (Who, what, when, where, why) within our writing and within the texts we read. It has also been great to see students continuing to actively participate and enjoy their take home readers! We are very impressed!

During this week, students had the opportunity to participate in rich discussions about this Lent period. As we enter into this period of Lent, students were able to discuss the importance of shrove Tuesday and the meaning of Ash Wednesday. Students were also about to begin thinking of special items or foods they could give up during Lent.

In maths, we have dived further into our place value unit. Students are familiar with vocabulary such as ones, tens and hundreds. One of our interactive games during this unit has been guess my number. Lets see if you can guess the number…

The mystery number has a 3 in the hundreds column, a 4 in the ones column and a 9 in the tens column? What’s my number?

We are so grateful for the many kind offers from parents to help in our classrooms. We are hoping to to get you in our classrooms within the coming weeks. If you attended the parent helper training morning and have a working with children’s check, please email your classroom teacher with your availabilities and they will be able to get back to you with a confirmation of day and time.

As apart of our inquiry unit about Family we are inviting all our 1/2 families to join us for a family morning tea on Wednesday the 13th of March, 9:30am-10:30am. Morning tea and refreshments will be provided. Families are asked to bring an item to share. This could include a dish from your culture or a special memento that has special relevance to your family.

This Friday we have 1/2JR and 1/2C hosting our assembly! We are looking forward to it and hope to see you all there!

Kindest regards,

Naomi, Tracy, Julia, Renee, Jason and Bethany

Middles

What a busy fortnight we have had in the 3-4 Level.

Students enjoyed the pancake making for Shrove Tuesday and have been learning about Lent. This year we have talked about “Digging deeper” and not only giving up something but making a change to ourselves, our Homeroom or our community. We have also begun our preparations for the Sacrament of Reconciliation which will happen on Thursday April 4th. It was pleasing to see so many families at Mass last Sunday when students were presented to Father Shabin. We keep these students in our prayers as they begin their Sacramental preparations.

After a very successful Immersion in Inquiry we have commenced our building phase by learning about our physical health. This week students have collaboratively researched physical fitness at different stages of life, they have learnt to read food labels and on Thursday morning participated in First Aid training with St John’s Ambulance.

In Maths we are working on our place value unit and number. We are using the symbols for greater than and less than and we are learning to read, write and make numbers. We have commenced a new non number unit on data collection and interpretation. Students have been devising questions and using tally marks to record their data. They will present these as graphs using both digital and non digital means.

In Literacy students have been examining the features of fiction and non fiction texts and discussing the differences between them. We have discussed facts and opinions and have begun writing persuasive letters.

Diaries are checked every Friday and we encourage students to write in their reading and maths homework daily. Diaries should be checked and signed weekly by parents.

Students can read any books they have at home, their library books or they may borrow from the Homeroom library. For maths they have the option of working on Sunset maths (through the Essential Assessment program), maths online tasks or practising concepts they are learning in class.

Enjoy the long weekend

Jarrod, Carla, Tania, Sophia and Vicki

Senior School

The senior students are well and truly into the building phase of our Inquiry unit, ‘Being a Tween’. Students have been learning about the development of their bodies from inside the womb to adulthood. There has been lots of curious questions and deep discussion around the topics of pregnancy, milestones, puberty and how how life choices affect our bodies.

In Religion, the students have looked into the meaning of Ash Wednesday and Shrove Tuesday. They all participated in making pancakes on Tuesday and enjoyed eating them covered in jam and butter. We will be looking more into who Jesus was and what his mission was during the season of Lent. Students have also made promises for the season of Lent that they can share with you.

In Maths, the students have completed their workshops on place value. Shortly we will begin our next topic of ‘Chance and Data’. During this topic students will get the opportunity to look at secondary data, collect their own data and interpret its meaning. They will also describe the probability of different events using everyday language and numbers.

In Literacy, the students have been writing persuasive texts and been focusing on building their arguments and using a range of different persuasive devices. They have also been involved in reading a class novel where they have responded to texts in a variety of ways. Students have been encouraged to think deeply about the characters and critically about the author’s techniques. Ask your child about what they are reading in class.

The Senior Team

Stephanie, Anne-Marie, Stephen and Sally

Preps

Hi families,

We have had a great fortnight in Prep. In Literacy, we have been focussing on the text ‘Cat on the Mat’ by Brian Wildsmith. The Preps were able to recall some of the sentences and describe how the cat was feeling during the story. They were even able to create a new page for the story and have a go at writing down the name of a new animal that could sit down on the mat.

In Maths, we have been continuing our learning about numbers from 0-10. We have been focussing on writing numbers with correct formation and using our knowledge of 1-1 correspondence to help us write, read and match numbers to 20.

In Inquiry, we have started our new unit ‘Healthy Bodies and Healthy Minds’. It has been great to see the Preps working with a range of their peers to learn about the many ways we can keep our bodies healthy.

In Religion, we have been learning about Lent. The Preps took part in making pancakes with their buddies for Shrove Tuesday. Thank you to all those parents who came in to help. The Preps had a wonderful time cooking with their buddies. As a class we discussed what Ash Wednesday means and attended a whole school mass.

Have a lovely week,

Emilie, Hayley and Amanda

St Mary's School

Issue 3 · 06 Mar 2019

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