Dear Families,

I hope everyone has had a great fortnight. It was nice to have the extra day over the long weekend. Hopefully it was a time when families had the opportunity to spend a night or two away, had visitors come and stay, or simply the chance to have a relaxing weekend at home, enjoying time together. It has been a busy two weeks since the last newsletter – and looking forward, it continues to be busy as we move closer to the holidays.

Some Ideas for Promoting Mathematics at Home:

In the last newsletters, I have shared some tips to help with supporting children with reading and writing at home. Following on from that, I thought it would be good to share some tips for supporting children with numeracy skills. When you think about it, throughout our day, we use many different mathematical skills and understandings. We use numeracy skills such as calculating, measuring, working with numbers, interpreting data and graphs, recognising patterns, recognising shapes, as well as using language to talk about and develop mathematical understanding. Activities like cooking, exercise, sport, budgeting and shopping all require mathematical understandings to complete. Playing games is a fun way to practice and experience maths.

Listed below are some helpful ideas that might help to support children if they wish to practise Mathematical skills at home.

General Tips to Support Mathematics:

*Look for objects inside or outside the house that are shaped like a circle, triangle, rectangle, square, or another shape. Look for different sized shapes, and shapes in different positions in the community, or when going on a road trip. Create a shape hunt or take photos of different shapes you find.

*Read books to your child and talk about the shapes you can see within the pictures, eg;

‘The roof on the house is a triangle'. ‘This is a 3D shape.’

* Make your own jigsaw puzzle by cutting a magazine picture into about four or five pieces and putting it back together again. Talk about how the edges of the pieces fit together. Create a challenge and cut the picture into more than ten or twenty pieces.

* Play ‘I spy' games and describe things by size and shape, eg: "I spy with my little eye something that is big and shaped like a square".

* Ask your child to help you put away the groceries and talk about which things will stack easily.

* Look for different kinds of clocks and watches in the house. Ask your child if they are analogue or digital.

* Talk about events in terms of time. For example, It is going to take about three minutes to cook this, so you might have time to pour a drink.

* Record special events on a calendar and talk about how many days or weeks before the event. Ask your child to locate the dates to record special events like family birthdays etc.

* Watch the weather report together and talk about the predicted temperatures. Ask your child what they might need to wear or have with them.

* Look at trees in your neighbourhood and talk about how the trees change with the seasons. This is great at the moment as we move in to Autumn.

* Count the number of steps from the front door to the letterbox, or when going for a walk, take notice of how far you’ve walked 100 steps. Estimate first then measure.

* Have your child count as far as they are able to go and then encourage them to join you while you continue counting. Can you count backwards from a given number?

* Compare the height of family members and talk about who is ‘taller' and ‘shorter'.

*Build a lego model then draw the model from different points of view – top, side, front view. Colour in according to the model.

*Find and read large numbers in the local environment. Explore how scores are calculated in sporting tables.

*Draw up a table of activities that your child completes during the week such as sports training, music or swimming lessons and household chores, or special times during the school week such as library, school sport or computers.

* Show your child how to use kitchen scales to weigh food items.

*Investigate the units of measurement for items in the pantry or refrigerator. Cut the sandwich in half: “Can you cut the sandwich in half creating a different shape?”Mix a drink for the family: e.g. measuring cordial, fruit and water. Find the time we start cooking the rice so that our food is ready to be served at the same time?

*Change a recipe that serves 6 for 4 people (or 6 for 3 people for lower levels). How much of each ingredient will we need?

* Play games such as Dominoes, Snakes and Ladders, card games or board games involving a die with dot patterns. This will help your child to recognise patterns and count. Change the die to one showing numbers to help your child read and recognise numbers.

* Ask your child to tell you the number before or after a number. How old will you be next year? How old were you last year? Ask your child to start counting from a number other than one. This will help them when they need to add two groups together and can start counting from the larger group.

These are just some tips you might like to use at home to encourage your child with numeracy. The most important thing is learning in Mathematics is more about understanding the reasoning and using a variety of different strategies to do maths. Children use many strategies to solve problems and develop thinking.

Easter Raffle:

Recently raffle books have been sent home for our annual Easter Raffle. Please support this fundraiser for our school. The money raised will go to purchasing new resources and equipment. Thank you to everyone who has been able to donate a prize for our raffle. Thanks also to the parents who are helping to organise this.

NAPLAN:

It has been a bust fortnight for the Year Three and Five students who have been completing NAPLAN activities. Congratulations to the children for the way they have managed the routines associated with NAPLAN and completed the tasks independently. Thank you to the class teachers for their help in managing the sessions and a special thank you to Mr Harrison for his help with technical support. NAPLAN results will be made available later in the year.

Zooper Doopers:

Zooper Doopers will be available until the end of Term. We have recently introduced sugar-free ones as well.

Cross Country:

Our school cross country is taking place next Monday. Please see Mr Watts sports page for details regarding this.

This is a quote from Pope Francis about Lent in 2023.

“Lent is a time of grace………

to the extent that we listen to Him

as He speaks to us.”

Pope Francis.

I hope everyone has a great fortnight ahead.

Mr Mac.

LIBRARY NEWS

BOOK CLUB REMINDER - LAST CHANCE TO ORDER FROM EDITION 2 IS TODAY 24th MARCH. It's a great opportunity to purchase some wonderful Easter gifts. If you would like the office to hold your order, rather than be sent home (as it might be a gift) please let us know or click gift when ordering online. For every Book club order that you place, Scholastic gives back 15% of the total order to our school to purchase new resources for our Library and classrooms. Orders are to be placed online or through the LOOP App only.

Senior Learning Community

Senior Learning Community