What's happening in our learning spaces? 

Foundation 

There was great excitement last week as we reconnected with each other upon returning to school to begin Term 2. This week we are looking forward to our very first excursion to the Zoo on Monday 2nd May and the education workshop titled “Wild Explorers”. 

Today is Day 49 as we count towards 100 Days of School and Tuesday will officially mark Day 50, meaning that we are halfway to 100!

As part of our inquiry into living things, we have begun to tune in to our compelling question,  ‘How do Living Things change and grow?’  As a pre-assessment task, we illustrated four living things and our teacher recorded our thinking about what makes something living. This week, after returning from the Zoo, as thinkers, we will use pictures of different things and then sort them under the headings ‘Living’ and ‘Nonliving’. We aim to come up with keywords in our discussion to identify the attributes of living things.

The understandings for the Term 2 inquiry are:

• Living things have different features
• All living things have basic needs  
• Places meet the needs of living things and help them to survive  
• All living things grow and change in different ways 

As writers, we shared what we all got up to in the holidays by firstly illustrating our thinking using a holiday template. As communicators, we then shared with a partner, key events of the holidays referring to the illustrations on our holiday template. Lastly, we wrote about one of our favourite activities from the holidays. Our focus in writing last week was to include spacing between words and to end our sentences with a full stop. Special badges have been introduced as a form of peer appraisal in FLW. Everyone will be given an opportunity to be a “Full stop detective” or a “Space detective” during writing sessions. The wearer of the badges will be on the lookout for full stops and spacing evident in their peers’ writing and stamps will be given as feedback. As we continue to develop our writing skills, different badges will be introduced to highlight what good writers include when writing sentences.

We are very excited about our learning this week and we can’t wait to share our zoo experiences with you as we find out about different animals, the types of habitats they live in, and what they need to stay alive.

Have a great week!

Leanne Wenckowski

Foundation Teacher

Year 1/2

Welcome back to Term 2 everyone! Our week in the F-2 learning spaces began with the sound of lots of fun and laughter as we reconnected with our friends after the holidays. It has been so wonderful to share all our experiences from the break, we have all enjoyed hearing what everybody got up to!

As curious thinkers, we explored stories about ANZAC Day. We tuned in to the meaning of the special day and why it is important to us today. We activated our prior knowledge by engaging in the Thinking Routine ‘I used to think…Now I know’ and documented what we found out about ANZAC Day. As readers, we engaged with some different texts and demonstrated that we could predict what the text would be about, compare and contrast, and record the events of the story in order. After finding some words a bit challenging to understand, we discovered the perfect learning opportunity to bring in some dictionaries! We worked in pairs to learn how to use a dictionary and how it can help us solve words we don’t know. We can’t wait to continue using these in our learning spaces.

Check out some photos of us in action!

As mathematicians, we tuned into the concept of data. Using our upcoming trip to the zoo as inspiration, we posed the question: ‘Which animal are you most excited to see at the zoo?’ We learned how to take a tally and found out that when we draw five tally sticks, one tally crosses over to make it easier to count! We then moved on to collecting our own data and presenting our information in a graph. Some of us took it one step further and ‘told the story’ our graphs were showing. Check out some pictures of our graphs, and the stories we could see!

As people of a Catholic faith community, we began sorting out our thinking about the Holy Week stories. As thinkers, we reflected on our learning about Holy Week and talked about the resurrection of Christ.  The 24th of April was the Feast Day of St Fidelis so as researchers, we engaged in some learning about our school saint and the history he holds. Here are some of our discoveries…

• St Fidelis was originally called Mark - Leon 1/2SC
• St Fidelis was born in Germany - Juliano 1/2AP
• St Fidelis was a good man who wanted to teach others about God - Priscilla 1/2SC
• St Fidelis was a lawyer and a teacher - Jeevan 1/2AP
• Saints can only become saints after they pass away - Nefeli 1/2SC
• St Fidelis died a long time ago - Eponine 1/2SC
• St Fidelis helped sick and poor people- Hudson 1/2AM

We are so excited about the learning ahead this week, and can’t wait to tell you all about our Zoo Excursion! 

1/2 Team, 

Alycia Marsico, Stefanie Carriera and Alexandra Phillips 

Year  3/4

Welcome back to Term 2 2022! It was a short, but busy first week of Term 2. We celebrated St Fidelis Day, ANZAC Day and the Official Opening of the Junior Learning Area. 

As a Catholic Faith Community, we investigated the role of Saint Fidelis and why our school is named after him. We found out Saint Fidelis was called Mark Rey before he became a Saint. Our special feast day is 24 April and we celebrate this day every year. 

On Monday 25 April, we celebrated ANZAC Day, a commemorative day in our calendar. On this day, we take a moment to remember those who bravely risked their lives for us. We are grateful to be able to honour the fallen on this day. As readers, we read many ANZAC Day stories including My Grandad Marches on ANZAC Day, ANZAC Day Parade and ANZAC Ted. We investigated the traditions and symbols of ANZAC Day. As writers, we used our five senses to write a poem  about ANZAC Day. 

On Friday 29 April, we officially opened the Junior Learning Area with the many special guests that joined us on the day. We are very fortunate to have such an engaging and flexible learning space to learn in. 

We look forward to seeing what this Term has installed for us!

Year 3/4 Team

Belinda Panzarino, Katarina Davidson & Graham Troy

Year 5/6

Welcome back to yet another exciting term of learning. We hope you all had a restful and peaceful break and are prepared for yet another fun-filled, busy and exciting term. What a fun-filled week we have experienced.  

We began with our ANZAC Day whole school celebration followed by our Year 6 children attending the Coburg RSL to commemorate Anzac Day and finally on Friday we had the official opening of our new building.  Our children are to be commended for their amazing participation and reverence at this event.

As inquirers, our 5/6 learners will be given the time and opportunity to prepare for camp by unpacking various learning opportunities that they will be engaged in while exploring Sovereign Hill. 

As researchers, our learners will have the opportunity to engage in different learning experiences to help us find out and explore Sovereign Hill.   Our learners will gather new information in a variety of ways including engaging in the education sessions- Gold Fever and Eureka story, observing, dialoguing, note-taking, listening to stories, sketching and taking photos. They will explore and take part in the Labyrinth mine tour, confectionary making demonstration, Aura sound and light show, and pantomime performance. Other learning opportunities will include visiting the blacksmith, red coat soldier’s parade, printing, gold pouring and candle works demonstrations. 

We ask parents and students to take time to prepare for camp by packing together. We ask that all medication is clearly labelled and given to your child’s class teacher on the day we depart for camp. All children must be at school no later than 8.20amand to assemble in the Benny Courts with your luggage or alternatively in the hall if it is raining. 

On Tuesday, our Year 6 learners took part in the ANZAC Day celebration at the Coburg RSL. This is an opportunity to reflect and learn about the importance of this historical day. Our learners took the time and opportunity to reflect and document their thinking and what they experienced while learning about the importance of ANZAC Day.

I enjoyed the Anzac Day excursion because we learnt many new things. One of my favourite facts was that on the Australian symbol, there is the rising sun.  The 7 longer rays stand for the seven states in Australia. Our educators there were helpful and informative, sharing their knowledge with us from their time serving in the war. It was a creative and engaging excursion that I thoroughly enjoyed!  

Ava B 5/6OS

I didn’t know what to expect as I entered the RSL, but I was surprised when I saw glass cases with photos and medals, war rifles hung on the walls, and mannequins with soldier’s suits. Throughout the presentation, led by a more modern war veteran, I learnt much more than anticipated, such as what the soldiers wore, how they lived, and even what they drank from and why soldiers’ hats are pointed up from the front. One of the most interesting moments in the presentation was when we got to take a closer look at some war artefacts, like helmets, photo albums, drink bottles, first aid kits, and even bombs. Some facts I learnt included that in World War 1, one first aid kit could heal 300 people, but now it can heal only 1, and that different people fighting in the war had different helmets and suits. Afterwards, we looked at some more artefacts in cabinets, such as bottles, glasses and flags. We then had a small ceremony, where we placed a wreath on a war shrine, and listened to the Last Post, before we departed back to St Fidelis.  

Ava Piotti 5/6VC

At the Coburg RSL we learnt about Anzac Day. Michael Pianta showed us the different army tools and how they have changed over 100 years, we saw the medical kits, guns, a bombshell, hats and helmets, food and the clothes that different people wore. Michael was a veteran that went to Afghanistan and he showed us some photos of himself and others when he was in Afghanistan.   

Dimitri 5/6OS

As Mathematicians, we are learning about “Measurement-Time/Location.”   As mathematicians, we have been dialoguing, exploring and interpreting different timetables and the importance of these timetables while comparing 12 and 24 hour times. 

As people of faith, we are unpacking the story of Pentecost.  Our learners were given the time and opportunity to document their thinking about the events that happened during this time.  We also engaged in a zoom-in thinking routine.  This thinking routine enabled our learners to document their initial thinking and how their thinking changed over time. 

As writers, we discussed and brainstormed the importance of a Narrative. We dialogued and documented the following: What is a Narrative? What is the structure of a Narrative? Who is the audience? What language features does a Narrative have? Our writers used a picture prompt to write a Narrative about the Anzacs.

Thank you from the 5/6 team

Annette Gasbarro, Michelle Casamento, Vivien Clarke & Olivia Sargent