BBPS Life

Prep

Playing games may not sound like learning, but structured play can provide children with key social skills such as turn taking, participating, conflict resolution, problem solving, being a good sport, and asking for help. As the year winds down, our youngest students will be playing lots of games to help them get ready for future years, starting with grade 1 in 2022!

Other learning highlights this week include

• The interactive drama incursion called Fairytale Fiasco, with Drama Toolbox. This incursion was a fun way to further explore characters and narratives. 
• Working with Grade 5 buddies to complete their own stories
• Investigating number partition 
• Singing in the prep choir at assembly

And tomorrow preps will be going on their very first excursion to the Melbourne Zoo! We are sure they will be delighted by the animals and habitats they see as they explore the beautiful gardens and enclosures. 

Grades 1 and 2

Grades 1 and 2 have made their own game arcade, as the culmination of a unit exploring the history of games and toys. Our inventive students created whack-a-moles, bowling alleys, mazes and more as they participated in a global challenge inspired by "Caine's Arcade" which has inspired imagination and innovation. 

Vivi F: "Sonny and I built a basketball machine. There is an obstacle course the ball needs to go through before it goes in the hoops. I was a lot of fun to play with it after we had finished making it."

Harry S: "Amrita and I made a game involving rolling a ball past obstacles, kind of like bowling. There are different holes with different points. Making the obstacles was my favourite part of building."

Xander: "Will and Harry and I worked together. We built a game that is like mini-golf. My favourite part is the jump that we built"

Will W : "We originally wanted to build a haunted house but it was going to be too big. Our creation had to be less than 100cm high. My favourite thing was decorating it. We could have done a Christmas theme but we decided we really wanted it to be spooky instead."

Harry H: "Our second machine has ghosts on top and a skeleton mouth at the back that opens and shuts. You need to get the ball through the mouth. I loved making the balls and adding the decorations. 

Other highlights this fortnight have included:

• Time: understanding how to read calendars, tell the time, and exploring duration
• Elf on the Shelf - Elves have arrived in classrooms and have inspired a range of activities including keeping Elf Logs, creative writing and Christmas letters to their 2022 teachers. 

Grades 3 and 4

In the last newsletter we promised pictures of rollercoasters, but we got so excited we forgot to include them! Please take a moment to look at their amazing creations below.

The next step in this unit will involve working through a series of activities on rollercoasters using a Bloom's Taxonomy matrix. 

In other learning, 3/4 students have been:

• Building reading stamina and leaving tracks of their thinking
• Finishing off their Authors as Mentors Pig The Pug stories
• Delving into fact families and the relationship between multiplication and division

Grades 5 and 6

The focus for grade 5 students continues to be leadership, with their applications for leadership roles being finalised in readiness for interviews and selection. They have also participated in the house captain election process. 

Grade 6 students are focused on graduation, with their 90s hits dance videos, circus performances and graduation speeches being rehearsed and filmed.

Grade 5 and 6 students are also primed to take to the track as their Wacky Races Go Karts take shape (with modifications and decorations). Team uniforms, flags and websites have also been designed. We will bring you more images and news in our final newsletter of the year in 2 weeks' time!