BBPS Life

Introduction

Autumn is here, and our students are settling in. We are enjoying seeing them all find new friends, establish routines and rise to challenges. As the cold weather arrives it is heartening to see the warmth that our children are showing to one another through leadership roles, buddy programs, and role-play activities focusing on respect and friendship. Here is a look at the last 2 weeks of learning at BBPS. 

Prep

Our youngest students have begun to feel more confident in their learning environments. Developmental Play (commonly known as “Investigations”) has been a highlight. This is a multi-station activity that enables our students to develop independence to move from station to station, exploring various options which will help them to:

• Develop social skills
• Work on fine motor skills
• Build/create/imagine
• Role-play
• And much more!

Our preps are also now in the “teen days of prep”, learning numbers in the teens and starting to unravel their knowledge of place value. 

We continue to roll out our words of the week, which have been “tin” and “tap”.

Preps have also been encouraged to express themselves musically, with the establishment of a Prep Choir. A favourite song has been “I can Sing a Rainbow”, which the children have also learned to sign in Auslan.

And our buddy program with the grade 5 students has been a hit at lunch time. Our prep students seek their buddies out as they confidently build friendships with our senior students, who equally enjoy the responsibility and relish being kind, supportive and important role models.

Grades 1 and 2

We visited 1A to find out more about what our grade 1 and 2 students have been learning:

Ben: “We played guess my number and we had what number Ms Anderson chose. We got ticks for where the number was right and in the right place value and a circle if the number was right but in the right place. We kept guessing until we worked out the number”

Gracie and Esme “We liked the bit where we learned how we can see our thinking – we did activities about how we can draw things (visualise), summarise, make connections, and we also learned about our brain pockets where we keep our memories and ideas.”

Jackson “We’ve been speaking about the aboriginal people and their connection to country.”

Our grade 2 students have particularly loved exploring their superpowers and completing Maths grid puzzles (see the pictures below).

Grades 3 and 4

Social and emotional learning has been a highlight for grades 3 and 4, with the respectful relationships lessons focusing on role-playing how to include others when playing outside and inside the classroom. 

Madi (3C) “My favourite thing was the role-play. I like acting and I really enjoyed being in it and also watching other people”

Bailey (3C) “It was fun, and it also helps us solve problems we have in the playground”

Other areas of focus for the last 2 weeks have included:

• Narrative writing (including using prompt cards)
• Sequencing texts and finding the main idea
• Angles and place value

Grades 5 and 6

Grades 5 and 6 have had a very busy two weeks. Here are some of the things they’ve been up to:

• Exploring Authors’ Craft , including looking at parts of speech and sentence structure
• Place value workshops
• Looking at the indigenous perspective of the colonisation of Australia, using the children’s version of the book “Dark Emu” as a lense.
• Kaboom Sports!

Grade 6 students have also completed their leadership assembly, and we are proud of the leadership qualities displayed by all students across the grade. 

Grade 5 students are also starting to develop a strong sense of leadership and community through the buddy program with the prep students. Prep/Grade5 lunches take place Mondays and Tuesdays and once a fortnight they have been enjoying combined activities with their little buddies both in the prep classrooms, and as hosts in the grade 5 classrooms.