Welcome

It’s hard to believe that we are half way through the school year! Lots of learning has happened throughout the term and we are looking forward to celebrating the student’s achievements with a section BBQ on Thursday. We hope everyone enjoys a safe and happy holiday and we look forward to hearing about the student’s adventures on their return.

English

SPEECH PATHOLOGY – ESSRAA

We would like to welcome Essraa Yassine to the team. Essraa is the newly appointed Speech Pathologist working with the Upper Primary students and staff. Her previous experience includes working in Early Intervention at Kalparrin where she ran group and individual therapy sessions. Essraa is passionate about working with school aged children with a range of disabilities and is enjoying getting to know the students in Upper Primary.

Over the past couple of weeks Essra has been busy setting up programs for individual classes as well as targeted therapy groups. Essraa’s program will cover the following areas:

Following directions
Understand concepts
Social Skills
Grammar
Phonological Awareness
Adapted Literacy
Sequencing
Problem Solving

OCCUPATIONAL THERAPY - EMMA

Emma Smale is the Occupational Therapist working in Upper Primary. Emma has worked at Concord for the past 6 months. Her previous experience includes working as a Therapy Aide in private practice and as an Education Support worker at Diamond Valley SDS. Emma particularly enjoys teaching students to regulate their emotions to optimise learning.

This term the Occupation Therapy program has focussed on the following skills:

Fine Motor – handwriting, scissor skills
Posture and Positioning
Sensory Regulation and Attention
Perceptual Motor Program (PMP)

Emma and Essraa will be introducing the ‘Play is the way’ program in term three. The program focusses on teaching social and emotional skills through guided play, classroom activities and empowering language.

Mathematics

In mathematics the students are currently learning about Patterns & Algebra. Students have explored their environment to identify repeating patterns. They took photos of patterns they found around the school and shared this information with their peers back in the classroom. The students thoroughly enjoyed investigating patterns, in particular those that occur naturally in nature (zebra stripes, honeycomb, flowers, butterflies, etc). The students have been exposed to a variety of focus texts to explore simple repeating patterns – colour, shape and number. They have used number lines to skip count by 2s, 5s, 10s and are learning to apply this knowledge to efficiently count collections of objects.

Additional activities have included continuing and making simple patterns (AB, ABC, AABB, ABB). Attribute blocks, body percussion, paint, stamps and paper chains have been used by various classes to create different types of patterns. A highlight of the Patterns & Algebra unit was an interactive activity that allowed students to create repeating musical patterns using digital technology.

Social Competencies

Upper Primary are finishing off the public and private unit by focusing on what they can do in public and what is just for in private. Classes decided that getting changed, washing their hair, going to the toilet, romantic kissing and picking their nose were all private behaviours. Due to curriculum day, some classes are ahead! These groups got to finish off the unit by imagining they met an alien! They had to write a letter to the alien to tell them all about public and private body parts, places and behaviours so that the alien can learn all about humans on earth.

We also had a number of girls in Upper Primary attend two focus sessions targeting menstruation (periods). The girls had the opportunity to learn and discuss physical and emotional changes that occur during this time.

The aim of these sessions were to help teach the girls about the changes they experience and to better prepare them to manage their physical, emotional and social development. Components of the teaching resource Puberty and Special Girls By: Faye Angelo, Rose Stewart, Heather Anderson were used. Each girl received a booklet titled Growing Up and Understanding Periods to take home to promote further conversation.

In the second session the girls were each provided with a period purse featuring products and they participated in an educational experience which taught students about correctly using sanitary pads.

There were some girls who missed these sessions due to absence, altered programs or the camp program because of this sessions will run again in term 3.

Parents may wish to consider that it can sometimes be beneficial for girls to occasionally wear a pad prior to starting their period. This helps to start the conversation, is good preparation and can help to assist in teaching correct use. Students were encouraged to talk with their family or trusted adults about puberty and these changes. Parents are encouraged to access support information on the Family Planning Website https://www.fpv.org.au/communities

Integrated Unit

As the term draws to a close we conclude our integrated unit on the First Fleet.

PDJ have been investigating the difference between the 'passenger' ships i.e. convict transport and the 'store' ships of the First Fleet. The biggest store ship was the 'Fishburn'. They have discussed the live animals that were aboard e.g. poultry, cows, goats and what these animals provided for those on the ship e.g. milk, eggs. Questions such as, were these animals helpful in setting up a new colony? Why were the animals brought aboard at Cape Town instead of all the way from England? etc. Students researched one ship each from the fleet.

PSP, students went to the Discovery Centre to create 'message tokens' for loved ones. They have also looked at Dreamtime stories and completed dot paintings.

PCS, PKO and PJF also listened to listened to Dreamtime stories, including the Rainbow Serpent. They then made a Rainbow serpent and painted a variety of colourful patterns on their serpent. PKO have also incorporated this work into their Maths as they have been exploring patterns.

PCS also followed a simple design brief to make models of the First Fleet Ships. They worked individually or in small groups, using classroom materials including MAB blocks, Lego, Duplo, unifix cubes, icy pole sticks and counters to make their models.

PMB has been looking back on what we have learnt about over the unit. ‘How many ships were in the fleet, what life was like for the convicts on and off the ship and reflected on their experience at the Polly Woodside. They also added more detail to our drawings of ships and have attempted to create their own ships using blocks.

PJT have looked at the culture of the Aboriginals and how this differed from that of the first settlers. They reflected on and wrote stories about what they thought it would be like to be someone growing up at that time.

Camp Reflection

PMB and PJF went to camp Blackwood on 12th to the 14th of June. We were very lucky to experience so many exciting activities like archery, rope course and a flying fox. We also got to spend the whole day at Sovereign Hill. There we got to try a lot of olden day things like a horse and carriage, bowling and even saw lollies being made. Some students were lucky to find tiny bits of gold too! We all really did have the best time at camp.

Focus on Fun

Patterns are everywhere. Over the holidays help your child tune into patterns around the home. A fun way to make a pattern is using food. Make some fruit kababs using a repeating pattern (eg. banana, strawberry, banana, strawberry). Yum!

Chris Norman - Upper Primary Team Leader

Kirsten Coulter - Teaching and Learning Coordinator

Upper Primary

Issue 9 · 27 Jun 2018

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