What's happening in our learning spaces? 

STUDENTS OF THE WEEK

FOUNDATION 

We are edging closer to our 100 days of School celebrations as we reached 93 days of Foundation this week! As mathematicians, we are learning to solve how many days there are until 100 each morning when we do our countdown! 

As readers, we had so much fun reading the story “Where’s Spot” by Eric Hill, and lifted up the hiding places Spot the dog could be. We then found out that we now have our very own Foundation Spot too! They are just as cheeky as the real Spot and hid from us in our learning spaces. In FLW, Spot hid inside Mrs Wenckowski’s camera bag and in FAP, Spot hid inside our book basket, with just his little pointy tail poking out the side. During Literacy sessions each day we have time and opportunity to revise and practise the new skills we have learnt with a variety of games and activities. It is lots of fun learning with our friends and sharing our knowledge with each other as we read sight words, work out which letters are needed to make CVC words to match a picture, identify the beginning sounds and ending sounds for words and play bingo word games.

As writers we used positional language to describe where our class Spot was hiding. We even used our prior knowledge of adjectives to describe the parts of Spot that were showing when we found him! We were so excited when we had the opportunity to write and create our own “Where’s Spot” storybook for our class. We have become fantastic writers since we first started in Foundation 93 days ago!

We would also like to remind you of a few dates coming up this term: 

• Grandparents Mass & activity  Friday 28th July 2023
• 100 Days of School Tuesday 1st August 2023
• 101 Days of School Dress Up Wednesday 2nd August 2023 
• Excursion to the NGV  Wednesday 9th August
• Dance Performance Night Thursday 17th August 2023 
• Book Week Parade  Friday 25th August 2023 

Have a wonderful week!

Leanne Wenckowski & Alex Phillips

Foundation Team

YEAR 1/2

It has been a busy start to the term for 1/2 and lots of great learning has occurred!

As part of our school’s wellbeing program, The Resilience Project, we learnt about different strategies and qualities we can demonstrate when collaborating with others and engaging in a team. We had time and opportunity to share all of the groups and teams we were a part of and what made these successful. We then engaged in a few rounds of the game tunnel ball with a group of our peers. As thinkers, we identified what worked well and what we needed to do to improve as a team. We discovered that clear communication, respectful listening, sharing, helping others and working together helps everyone achieve more in a team and experience success! 

As readers, we have begun exploring the features of Narratives. We listened to different stories and identified the characters and settings. As thinkers, we brainstormed interesting adjectives to describe them. We discovered that you can describe a character's appearance, personality and feelings, and how a setting looks, sounds and smells. We then built on our understanding by using the Colourful Semantics cards, ‘Who’, ‘When’ and ‘Where’, to generate a bank of story settings and unique characters to use when writing. As writers, we made further connections to our learning in reading, by using adjectives to write short descriptions about characters within picture prompts, that we can include in our own written narratives. Some of us learnt how to use a thesaurus to come up with stronger adjectives, and some of us began exploring the use of similes to describe characters and compare them to something else. We had beautiful, calm horses with hair as white as snow, grumpy, black cats with fur as soft as a blanket and a massive giant that was as big as an elephant! Check out some more of our descriptions below!

We are looking forward to the week ahead, as we begin Discovery Time for Term Three, and welcome our Grandparents into our learning space to celebrate Grandparents' Day on Friday! 

Just a friendly reminder that PE is now on Thursdays for all 1/2 students for the remainder of the term. Please ensure students are in their sports uniforms for both PE and Footsteps. 

1/2 Team, 

Alycia Marsico, Vania Sparano and Vicky Karalis 

YEAR 3/4

Hello, what a wonderful week we have had! A big thank you to all of the Parents who made time out of their day to join us on Monday for our Student Led Conversations. It was wonderful to hear the children share and present their learning. 

As writers, we have finalised our Biographies that we have worked hard to complete. We engaged in being researchers when finding out about our person by reading books, asking peers who know lots of information and using websites that were provided to us. We wrote about so many amazing people including Cathy Freeman, Lionel Messi, Princess Diana, David Attenborough and Steve Jobs. As reflective learners, we reflected on how we went with the goals we gave ourselves for our learning.

Check out our amazing goal walls!

As mathematical thinkers, we explored different ways that we can solve multiplication problems, we explored using arrays in our learning. We used hands-on materials to help us in creating our arrays and identified the facts that relate to the different arrays.

A reminder that we have had some timetable changes for the rest of Term 3, thank you for your flexibility.

*Full sport uniform must be worn on Wednesday and Friday. 

We will continue to place a weekly timetable on the window upstairs. Please pop your name on the timetable located upstairs in the Year 3/4 learning space window (use internal stairs) to share your availability (days and times). A current WWC is required, as well as, participation in the Parent Help workshop. We look forward to welcoming you!

Year 3/4 Teachers

Belinda Panzarino & Bianka Zorzut

YEAR 5/6 

Another week down and much more fun was had in the SLA last week. We would like to sincerely thank all parents for attending the Parent/Teacher/Student Conversations on Monday. It is so wonderful to see you up in our learning space and for the students to have the opportunity to share with you some of their learning. We would like to congratulate all the students on working hard to prepare for the learning conversations and for proudly presenting their persuasive texts to their parents. 

In Reading last week, the students began exploring a new Whole Class Text that they will study over the next few weeks. This is a great opportunity for students to explore a different text type, delve deep into characters and settings and make inferences about the plot of the novel. The texts being read in this term are “Matilda” by Roald Dahl, “The Bridge to Terabithia” by Katherine Paterson and “The Book Thief” by Markus Zusak. We look forward to updating you on the students' insights into these books as we dive deeper into the world of literature!

In Numeracy, students are continuing to showcase their knowledge of all things Multiplication. They are currently exploring different strategies to solve 2x2 digit problems, multiplication of decimals and fractions! We continue to urge students to practise their times tables at home and test their skills to assist them throughout this unit. 

In Religion, the students have been exploring the Gifts and Fruits of the Holy Spirit. We took the time to write everything we currently know about the Holy Spirit and then partnered up to create some definitions of each of the Gifts. We then explored the concept of how the Holy Spirit and God’s message connect us with the values and beliefs that the Gifts and Fruits bring. We will continue to explore the Holy Spirit as well as begin learning about the influence of different Saints, in preparation and leading up to the Year 6 students' Confirmation on August 13th. 

A reminder to our Year 6 Parents that tomorrow, Tuesday 25th at 7 pm, is the online Confirmation Faith Workshop which will be led by Maria Forde. This is a lovely night to reflect and learn with your child about the Sacrament of Confirmation. We hope to see you all there. 

Finally we would like to say a huge congratulations to our Senior Girls’ Soccer Team who competed at the  School Sport Victoria (SSV) Coburg District Winter Sports Finals last Friday. The Girl's team put on a valiant effort to win one of their games! We congratulate all the students who competed in our Interschool Sports competitions, we are so proud of you! Look out for our Bat Tennis Teams who will also be competing in the finals later on this year!

Have a lovely week, 

5/6 Teachers

Olivia Sargent, Graham Troy and Aoife O’Flynn.