7/8 A

In Integrated studies this term 7/8A have been learning about Australian Colonisation. Students studied Captain Cook and his voyages which led to the discovery of Australia. They investigated the impact that Australian Colonisation had on our First Australians. Students enjoyed creating the First Fleet tall ships and building their own towns giving thought to the services and facilities that are needed in a community.

7/8 B

Despite an eventful start to the year we have achieved some excellent learning in Secondary 7/8 B. We kicked of the term revising our knowledge of homophones in literacy, working in pairs to match those words that sound the same but are spelled differently and have different meanings.

In Numeracy, we have covered place value, counting and addition as well as creating some beautiful bar graphs when collecting and analysing data. We shared our work by displaying it in our room to showcase our efforts. We have also celebrated three birthdays so far and are looking to a few more class parties before the end of the year.

7/8 C

In Term One our class has placed a strong emphasis on building personal resilience through empathy, kindness and mindfulness. Students have also worked hard on developing social skills and emotional self-regulation by identifying their own and others’ feelings, and the appropriate behaviours that should flow from this.

As part of their daily learning, the students’ personal interests have been incorporated into everyday classroom activities and discussion. Through this approach, students have learnt about the elements of good storytelling by playing Super Mario Odyssey on the Nintendo Switch. They were then able to identify classic good versus evil with interesting characters and a strong story arc.

Students also used Minecraft to demonstrate their knowledge of doubling as an addition strategy with many creative individual responses to the task. Our Integrated Unit focuses on Australian Colonies, the First Fleet and Indigenous history. Our trip to the Discovery Centre was a highlight for the class. Students were highly engaged and enjoyed utilising Aboriginal artefacts and dressing up in early settler clothing developing their understanding in a practical setting.

7/8 D

During Term 1 7/8D have been learning about different time periods of Colonial Australia through participation with the engagement cards in Discovery Centre. They have explored Indigenous, Colonial, Pioneering and Federation Australia through many different activities; Dreamtime stories, symbol drawing, artefact discovery, art and craft activities, letter and many more.

In Maths students have been learning about counting, place value and addition. Students have practised these skills through daily games, counting, challenges and activities.

During our Literacy sessions, writers in 7/8D discussed what it means to ‘Entertain’. We all enjoyed designing and publishing comics, writing narratives and sharing jokes. Speaking of which: Why didn’t the orange finish the race? Because it ran out of juice.

Students have been utilising ‘Epic’ on their laptops to support their reading and have shown great determination to improve their skills through daily independent reading and teacher/student conferences.

7/8 E

7/8E have had an amazing term getting to know each other and completing lots of fun learning. In Reading we have been investigating non-fiction texts and have just been accessing two new websites that have great reading material and tasks - www.studyladder.com.au/ and https://www.getepic.com/students.

In Writing we have written information reports on penguins and other chosen events and are planning to write narratives to entertain. Planning our stories makes it easier to write stories that are exciting.

In Maths we have been learning about place value, addition and data collection, graphing and interpreting. We found that the most popular AFL team in Secondary 7/8 is Collingwood. (Go Pies!) We have had some fun lessons in the Discovery Centre, investigating and exploring the Australian Colonies. We have dressed up and made convict love tokens to send to our loved ones. A fun lesson early in the year was building tall towers using spaghetti and marshmallows - this was a great team building project and enabled us to get to know our classmates and make new friends. Stay safe over the holidays and keep up good hygiene.

7/8 F

During Term 1 7/8F particularly enjoyed the discovery centre display of Colonial Australia. We dressed up as convicts, gold miners, Captains of the First Fleet and smart ladies. We have also been exploring Dreamtime stories and symbol drawing. In Maths students have been learning about counting, place value and addition. In Literacy we have particularly enjoyed our writers Notebook and exploring our Writing Seeds.

PreCAL

The students in 7/8 G and 7/8 H have had a very productive term. We started the year off by learning about what makes a great leader and voting for our SRC Class Reps. Congratulations to Deren and Danielle who were voted for by their peers. Each week students look forward to our class meetings where they can voice their concerns and offer ideas to be implemented at school. Our Integrated Unit focus for Semester one is ‘Safety’. We have participated in weekly Experience Days where students have learnt to be more confident and safe on public transport. It has been great to see the learning from these experiences be transferred into Maths and English lessons.

Dates to Remember

2020