Classroom & Curriculum News

Prep

Every Wednesday we have a book focus and last week our book focus was "The Rainbow Fish"  We learnt about how important it is to share with our friends and it doesn't matter what we look like as long as we are happy. We created our own rainbow fish with a special foil scale and practiced our sentences. 

Year 1/2

This week the students in Year 1/2 have been finishing off our Math units on Counting and Place Value. We have enjoyed learning about different counting patterns and created our 'Counting beach' to demonstrate our knowledge of counting by 2s, 5s and 10s. In Literacy & Inquiry, we have planted a kidney bean as an introduction into learning about Procedural/Information & Report writing. We are excited to start watching them grow. In Religion, we have been learning about Prayer as a way to talk to God. We have created a prayer cloth for our classroom prayer tables and written a range of prayers that cover the 4 types of prayer: Sorrow, Petition, Thanksgiving & Praise. We thank all the Year 6s for the delicious pancakes that we ate on Shrove Tuesday.

Assembly of 2023!

Let's congratulate our hard working students for week 3 & 4. 

And wish a Happy Birthday to our February students!! 

 3/4WS and 3/4M 

This week all the 3/4 students participated in a new scripture activity called Lectio Divina meaning Divine Reading. This was the first time that the students had done this activity and they did very well. They were very reflective and thoughtful in their responses. This activity allows the students to listen and reflect on the scripture and gain more of an insight and understanding and how it relates to their lives.

There are 4 parts to this activity and they are as follows:

• Reading (lectio) the students listened to a scripture story that was read by the teacher. We read it a couple of times. The students recorded what literal meaning they got from the story. They paid special attention to a word, phrase, that caught their attention. We read the Gospel according to Matthew  Mt 6:1-6. 16-18. ( Gospel for Ash Wednesday)
• Meditation (meditatio) During this part,  the students thought about the word or words that came to their attention. They considered what the words meant to them and what understanding they gained from the scripture.
• Prayer (oratio) In the prayer step, the students responded to the sacred word by  writing a short prayer.
• Contemplation (contemplatio) In the contemplation step, the students rested in God’s presence, quieting themselves and thinking about what they learnt from the passage and how they can be more like Jesus. They thought about a positive action they could do during Lent. We discussed the text at great length and gained many valuable and interesting insights and knowledge.

Here are some of our responses and photos of our work.

Rosie: I liked writing about what the scripture story meant to me

Vivienne: I liked writing about what the scripture story meant to me and writing the prayer.

Ale: The activity reminded me to always pray to God.

Asha: I like the activity because it helped me learn more about the bible stories.

Hazel: I liked listening to the story first and thinking about it afterwards.

Aria: I liked writing about the story and what it meant for me. There were no right or wrong answers.

Gem: I got to learn that we can do good things without bragging about it.

Pearl: I liked how the teachers read the story and then we had time to think and write down our thoughts.

We have also been busy working on our narrative writing skills. We have loved writing different creative stories in small groups and sharing them with our peers. We also created some 'thank you' cards to Bunnings for all their amazing donations to the school veggie garden!

5/6-  Stephanie Alexander Garden Foundation

This week the 5/6 students began the Stephanie Alexander Garden Foundation Program which involves all children learning to love the garden. Throughout the term, the students will have a chance to look after the garden on the Senior Yard by maintaining, watering, planting, harvesting and eating some of the produce. 

This week the students had a chance to use their sense to touch and smell the plants and create some sketches of the different foliage. 

ART

During Term 1, the students will be studying the works of the Spanish artist 'Pablo Picasso'.  They have learnt about his techniques and have tried to emulate this technique using the photos on their artist walk and ideas of their own.

Ciao A tutti!

Language classes have started for 2023

What a lovely start we have had in Italian! The Prep children are starting to learn how to introduce themselves in Italian, Yr 1/2 children are working on their word bank, the Yr 3/4 children are starting to write a short piece about themselves and the Yr 5/6 children will be starting to write a letter to their Prep buddy. The children are very excited to get back into the Italian classroom.  Let the fun begin! 

TREEHOUSE

The Treehouse room is a calm space that has been created to provide multi-sensory activities, resources and support to enable our students to focus and engage in learning. 

Our learning support staff and teachers use this space to help our students calm, reflect and develop strategies enabling them to focus on their wellbeing first, in order to be in the best headspace for learning.

Students are actively supervised and engage in specific learning goals and strategies to assist them in re-engagement back to the classroom. Students are in the treehouse room for a scheduled amount of time which enables them to use the space in the most effective way.  

The space is also used to run our social groups. These are run by our school Counsellor and Wellbeing leader who works with small groups focusing on the specific needs of the students in consultation with the classroom teacher.