News from MLC

It is the first week of Term 4, so as per tradition, the students had an opportunity to reflect on their holiday. It would have been hard to do the fun things we normally do during our time off, but from what I could hear, the kids still did a lot of fun things.

The first thing we did was break up into groups in Breakout Rooms so the students could catch up with their friends. They had five minutes for the group to discuss everything they did during their break. Afterwards, we came back and the students chose one or two of their favourite things and wrote a recount. A few of the children were excited to share their recount with the rest of the class.

Each week, students are streamed across the school to take part in a spelling test through a program called Sound Waves. This program teaches students how to spell through graphemes. A grapheme is a letter or letters that represent a sound. Students will complete a spelling test on Monday which focuses on one of the forty-three sounds in Australian English. The students collect ten words that they have spelled incorrectly and those become their personalised spelling words for the week. During the week, students complete a spelling sheet aimed at helping them learn about that grapheme and words that include that grapheme in it. 

As a new Term has started, we have also started our new Inquiry topic: Connections. During this topic, students will explore connections they have made in their lives between themselves and others, places and environments and the world around them. The children will build upon their understanding of the geography of Australia and its position in the world.

We introduced the topic by having students create a mind map based on connections they have made in their own life. We looked at their friends, family, hobbies and school life. Here are some of the mind maps created by the students.

It is always important to continue exercising even during a lockdown. The kids have missed out on a lot of Class Sport over the last few months so I decided to introduce the children to yoga. Yoga provides both mental and physical health benefits. It can build strength in mind and in body. What I love about yoga is that it helps a person to manage their stress levels and improve their well-being, the students also get a lot of joy out of it as well. It has been great to see the kids getting involved and giving it a go. It is best to maintain regular practice of yoga in order to gain the many benefits therefore I aim to continue to provide a yoga session every Tuesday during our Class Sport time.

Kind Regards

Mr Tom Brophy

MLC Classroom Teacher