School News 

Prep News

It was wonderful to hear the students share their activities from the long weekend. It sounds like everyone had a lovely time with their families. It has been a very busy fortnight in the Prep classrooms.

Investigations

We were very lucky to have a visit from Angus’ grandmother last Thursday. Narelle is a nurse and came to speak to the students about the role of a nurse and all of the different settings a nurse can work in. The students learnt about the different equipment a nurse may use and they all had a go at listening to their heartbeats using a stethoscope. It was lovely to see the students apply their newfound knowledge in our Prep hospital.

Reading

The Prep students have been practicing their segmenting and blending skills in order to decode unfamiliar words in the books they read. We have been learning about all the strategies we can use ‘if I get stuck’ when reading an unfamiliar text. It has been encouraging to see that our Prep students are becoming more confident with the common words we have learnt so far, with many of them now able to read the words confidently in the context of a sentence. 

Writing

We have been continuing to work on our knowledge of the structure of a recount. Sometimes it can be tricky to come up with an idea for writing, so students have been practising sharing their ideas verbally with a partner, before drawing a picture to represent their idea and then having a go at sounding out a sentence to match. We have also started seeing our students use spaces between their words and full stops at the end of a sentence. 

Maths

The Prep students have been doing a lot of hands on counting activities in Maths to consolidate their understanding of the numbers to 10. While our classrooms have been quite a messy site with piles of counting materials scattered across the tables and floor, it has provided our students with the opportunity to practise their counting fluency using one to one correspondence. Sometimes a messy classroom signals a busy and productive learning environment!

Reminder: The Prep students will be participating in the STOMP dance concert this coming Monday at 3:45pm. All students are expected to attend. We do have some minimal costume requirements outline below. Please send your child’s costume in a labelled bag on Monday 21st March and we will help them change into their costumes at the end of the day. 

PAC: black pants/shorts and a black t-shirt. Mrs. Warner will provide a sparkly vest. 

PMH: blue pants/shorts OR white pants/shorts with a blue or white t-shirt (we are going for an icy/snow vibe). Mrs. Warner will provide a sparkly vest. 

Have a fantastic weekend, 

Allie Harrison, Elyce Munnecke and Alarna Creed

Grade 1 & 2 News

Dear Level 1/2 Families,

The students have had a wonderful week at school, and it has been great hearing about their long weekends and all the activities they got up to. They have been very busy at school this week!

Reading

Students have been making text-to-text connections during reading this week and have been looking at the setting, characters, the problem and resolution, then connecting it to another story that may be similar. It has been great to see them making these connections outside of reading time too, which means they are applying it to other areas of their learning. They have also made text-to-world connections by reading a book called ‘Flood’ and connecting it to the floods that happened in Queensland. 

Students are encouraged to continue to read 4 nights a week and fill in their reading calendar. These are perfect opportunities for students to practise their fluency, expression and even apply their reading skills from class that week. 

Writing

Students have been completing various diary entries from the perspective of a person, animal or object. They have been very creative, and even at times, humorous! The students have done a great job of writing from first-person perspective. They are using WOW words, emotion words and making it funny to keep the audience engaged. They have done a great job completing their learning task too this week! 

Maths

In maths this week, students have started a new topic – addition! They have been learning various strategies, such as the counting on strategy, a number line and problem solving. Last week they completed a mapping unit, and thoroughly enjoyed creating their own treasure map with a compass rose, landmarks, a key and a treasure chest. This also perfectly aligned with the inquiry unit this term.

Inquiry

For inquiry, the students have been learning lots about their local community! Over the last few weeks of term, students will be constructing a building out of a cardboard box to create a classroom community. This will be based on a place in their local community e.g. McDonalds, the doctor, Coles, a lolly shop, the bakery etc. They will create a plan and list the items they need from home to bring in. We ask that you please bring small boxes (no bigger than a box of shapes). 

Reminder: The Prep, Level 1 and Level 2 students will be performing their STOMP routine on Monday the 21st of March, from 3:45-5:15. We would love to see you there!

Kind regards,

Daena Hailey, Kayla Hartrick, Timothy Wilson, Mykaela Oakley & Llinos Poole

Grade 3/4

The level 3/4s have been hard at work learning lots of new concepts over the past fortnight. In Reading we moved our focus to finding the main idea and using supporting evidence. This culminated in completing the Term 1 Learning Task where they showed off these reading skills.

Persuasive writing has been our goal over the past 2 weeks. There have been some amazing arguments ‘for’ and ‘against’ with a range of topics. Popular persuasive topics have included pieces of writing that link to our environment – plastics in our oceans, too much litter in schools, animals in zoos, to name a few.

Working with fractions has been the focus in Maths and starting to link fractions and decimals together. The students have completed some assessments on Essential Assessment and begun observing what learning goals they have for these areas. Using ‘My Numeracy’ has been a great way for the students to practise skills that are linked to their learning goals!

It’s been fantastic seeing our kids get excited to go to a different classroom to participate in differentiated Maths groups on Thursday’s, with a focus on Number based learning.

Our Inquiry unit ‘First Contact’ has continued to give the students and insight into life as a European first settler and from the side of our first nations people. They are beginning to research important artefacts from that time period, with the idea to design and re-create a model of a chosen artefact.

Spotlight Maths and Literacy has begun for students who are being extended. Maths challenges and team-based problem solving has been the focus for Numeracy. In Literacy, word choice and creating ‘Super Sentences’ was the goal of the first session.

Grade 5/6 News

These past three weeks have been exhilarating! We did all sorts of amazing events. Firstly, all the grade 5/6 classes participated in Clean up Australia day. We went a local park called Balcombe Reserve. Quite a few of the year 5/6s found unique treasures and belongings but most importantly we cleaned up the area! And did something good for the environment. Thanks to Mrs Hailey for helping us.

For inquiry the grade 5/6’s are learning about ‘making democracy’. So, we got someone who used to be the Mayor of Knox to come in and talk about local government. He told us about democracy and what they do on local council. We did an activity that we would have an amount of money to add local attractions. We had an amount of “$70 million dollars” for the local attractions. When we finished that activity, one person from each group had to come up to the front and read what their group agreed to have for their local attractions. After that we had to come up with a local councillor for each group and had tell reasons why if we should change a local oval to a dog park, waterpark or keep it as an oval.

For Science we had to do an experiment on whether the colour of the animal changes the temperature of the animal. Since we couldn’t get real animals we tested it on coke-cola cans. Each 5/6 student did this activity where we fill each can with cold water and the same amount of water in each. Then we put the cans in sunlight then we took a thermometer, and we checked the temperature ever 30 minutes. Then we wrote down the temperature on a piece of paper. Then we did the blubber test. For the blubber test we put animal fat onto a disposable glove then we put a rubber glove on top of a rubber glove then we put a normal rubber glove on our other hand. Then we put the normal rubber glove hand into a cold bucket of water and we timed how long we could last with our hand into the cold water. Then we put our animal fat hand into it and timed how long we could last. It was most likely that the animal fat hand would last the longest in the cold water.

Last week all the grade 5/6’s made a hybrid animal. The options for an animal were a pug and a bunny, a giraffe and a cat, a cat and a penguin, a husky and a penguin, an owl and a koala and a duck and an elephant. We all had to make a poster to advertise to sell the animal as a pet, but we also had to make a paper collage of the hybrid animal to put on the poster. It was really fun and funny.

Grace Palmer, Abbie Hays and Zack Loci

5/6 students