Community Report
July Update
The Achilles Community have had a great start to term 3, with even greater enthusiasm and a love for learning!
In Reading, we have been learning about non-fiction text features, such as indexes, glossaries and diagrams, and we have been extending this learning to digital texts and exploring digital text features, such as, hyperlinks, pop-ups and interactive images!
Our community has constructed a new CLASS LIBRARY area in our Amphitheatre, where students can enjoy choosing 'just right' books or 'books of interest' for their book bags, and fostering a love for reading in a lovely reading space!
Our library is also supporting our knowledge of genres, such as, fiction, non-fiction and the many sub-genres of each: fantasy, comedy, geography, and history to name a few!
In Writing, we are learning about non-fiction text structures, such as: introduction, body paragraphs/facts, and a conclusion.
We have been learning about space in Maths: reading coordinates, writing and reading directions, and understanding cardinal directions (north, south, east and west). We will be learning all about multiplication this term as well, and reinforcing our understanding of multiplication as repeated addition (3x4 is the same as 4+4+4,) creating and understanding arrays (rows and columns of objects/pictures to represent multiplication facts) and memorising our times tables!
Our Inquiry lessons are OUT OF THIS WORLD! The Achilles Community have been learning about the sun, the moon and beyond, with a focus on Earth Sciences, night and day and how planets move in our solar system.
Students are working towards forming 'wonderings' - big questions about what interests them about our topic and what they are curious about. We are brushing up on all of our research skills, with support of our Reading and Writing programs, such as, learning how to identify keywords, and paraphrase information (write information learned in our own words).
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.
- We will be adding students' reading goals to their school diaries over the next few weeks. Be sure to ask your child about their reading goal, and remind them to focus on that goal when reading at home.
- Your local library is a great place to visit on the weekend! 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 provide students with a new dictation every Monday, pasted in their school diaries. These dictations include their spelling focus of the week, and also encourage punctuation skills, grammar and sentence structure.
- We also encourage all students to bring an iPad to school. *This is important, as a tool to support their learning. We will be issuing a list of suggested Apps for your iPad. To connect to our internet, it is just a few easy steps. Please come to see us for assistance.
- We would like to continue giving students opportunities to use their creative thinking for innovation and design, so please continue to collect empty packaging, such as, cereal boxes, plastic bottles, paper towel rolls, etc. to support the students in their maker's projects!
Please do not hesitate to contact us should you have any queries. We recommend making a note in your child’s diary for us to read or using Sentral’s Parent Portal.
Thank you for all of your support,
Kind Regards,
Ainsley, Amber, Michelle and Jagruti.