Community Report
December Update
The Achilles Community are smiling and striving for success!
In Reading, we have been learning about making inferences, such as, reading between the lines, and evaluating texts, such as forming opinions and critiquing the writer's craft.
Our community have continued to work on individual reading goals, and making sure that our book bags have a ‘just right’ book and a ‘book of interest’ at all times, to support maintaining our daily home reading.
Achilles have been especially successful at Independent Reading - demonstrating good reading habits and enthusiasm for reading!
In Writing, we have been developing our knowledge and use of the writing process, such as editing and revising our work. We are also working on structure, and writing persuasively - making appropriate language choices to enhance our writing.
We have been learning about Fractions and Decimals in Maths: progressing our understanding of equivalent fractions, and understanding the difference between a whole number and a decimal number. We are now going on to learn about Patterns, Algebra and Counting to conclude our mathematical thinking lessons for the year.
PREP TRANSITION
The Achilles Community have been enjoying helping out with Prep Transition. Every Tuesday morning, our Argus Community have been visiting Achilles and Ulysses to do reading, writing, maths and art activities. The Grade 3s and 4s have been fantastic role models to our Preps and the Preps have been great listeners, and above all, had lots of fun! Overall, it has been a huge success and we look forward to working more across communities.
HOW CAN I BE AN ACTIVE CITIZEN?
Our Inquiry excursion to the Melbourne Immigration Museum is on Wednesday 6th of November was a wonderful experience for staff and students. The students were presented with some informative, inspirational and heart-wrenching immigration stories through the use of story-telling using props and costumes. The students looked at exhibits of artefacts and information about immigration. It was a rich learning experience and a fun day out to the city for our community!
We have been very busy with our Achilles political campaigns, where the students have formed groups and are working towards a community election for Achilles Mayor. Students have been collaborating on writing speeches, creating campaign promotional media, devising work plans to fulfil their promises to the community and they are also creating videos using a green screen and iMovie cinematography, as well as editing skills learned in their STEAM lessons.
In SEL (Social and Emotional Awareness) we have been continuing to build our leadership skills through regular community meetings run by students, and students' management of community jobs and maintaining our learning spaces.
THINGS TO REMEMBER:
- We encourage students to read for at least 15 minutes each night, and to choose from a range of different texts, such as, the many genres of fiction (realistic, fantasy, Sci-Fi, mystery, comics, etc.) non-fiction, books, websites, and other media. This should continue over the summer holidays to, above all, maintain a love for reading.
- Your local library is a great place to visit on the weekend and over the holidays! Ask the library staff for a schedule, or see this link, as all libraries run free workshops for children and adults, and provide valuable resources to support your child's learning.
- We also encourage all students to bring an iPad to school. *This is important, as a tool to support their learning. If your child does not yet have their own iPad, please consider obtaining one as soon as possible and at minimum, please have one organised for their next school year.
Please do not hesitate to contact us should you have any queries.
Have a wonderful, safe and happy holiday, and we shall see you in the new school year!
Thank you for all of your support,
Kind Regards,
Ainsley, Amber, Jagruti and Michelle.