Learning News

Learning News Week 9

The term may be winding down, but the learning is certainly not at St Michael’s. Classes have been busy reading, writing, praying, learning about area, perimeter and chance as well as practising for upcoming readers’ theatre. Phew! What a busy week.

We hope you enjoy the work samples from just a portion of our clever students.

Yours in learning,

Mrs Shepherd

Kindergarten

Kindergarten have enjoyed showcasing their great emerging writing skills this week. First, we read the text, Superworm by Julia Donaldson. Superworm is a superhero- he can do all sorts with his strong body. The children used clay to create their own Superworm and turned Superworm into different shapes and objects. They then wrote a sentence about their super, Superworm with the opener ‘He is a…’. The children received three ticks when they used a capital letter, full stop and used finger spaces. Well done Kindergarten, you are super writers!- Miss Fraser

Year 1 and Year 2

This term in Religion, Year 1 and Year 2 have been exploring the parts of the Mass. They have learned that Mass has four parts that ask us to participate in different ways: to gather, to listen, to give thanks and to go forth. They have also learned about spontaneous prayer and prayers of thanksgiving. Students were asked to think about the people who care for them and then had to write a prayer to God to thank Him for these people. Great job on your thoughtful prayers Year 1 and Year 2.

Miss Myers

Year 2/3

This week in Drama, Year 2/3 have been preparing a Sock Puppet Performance. We have been preparing a short scene lasting 1-2 minutes where the students perform using their puppets. With the help of Mrs Holden and Mrs Mitchell the students have designed and created their puppets and have begun to practise. We are looking forward to finishing up our drama topic next week. Well Done Year 2/3.

Mr Beaumont

Year 4

Over the past few weeks, Year 4 have been learning about the process of how to make cheese which they’ve researched and presented as an explanation and a procedure. From this, the students then experienced the process of making cheese. This involved heating the milk to a particular temperature, adding in vinegar, removing the curds from the whey, setting the cheese and then eating. The students had a wonderful time and enjoyed eating the cheese. Great Work Year 4!

Miss McDonald and Miss Maunder.

Year 5/6

In recent weeks, Stage 3 has been practising reading out loud to an audience. Students chose a picture book to suit a young audience and focused on reading fluently with exaggerated expressions and having the illustrations visible to the audience. This week in reading rotations, students visited Kindergarten to read their chosen book to a little group. We hope Kinder enjoyed it as much as Stage 3 did! Excellent work Stage 3!

Miss Summerell & Miss Rasche

Numeracy News Week 10, Term 2

Numeracy News

Ideas to explore data with your child:

Together with your child, keep track of the time they spend watching TV or using their device. At the end of the week, see if you can make a simple display of each day of the week and the time spent using their device or watching TV.
Play games such as ‘paper, scissors, rock’ and record wins and losses.
With your child, read and collect information about their favourite sports teams. This could be their own weekend sport teams.
Collecting data together about something that you both find interesting. For example, what kinds of pets are most popular with your extended family or friends?
Designing a simple data display from blocks, pegs or counters to represent the data gathered. For example, 5 blocks mean there are 5 dogs, 3 blocks for 3 cats, one block for a rabbit and 6 blocks for 6 birds
Asking questions to understand and make meaning from your data display. For example, What pet was the most popular? What pet was the least popular?

Tips for exploring chance with your child:

Using the language of chance such as certain, impossible, more likely, equally likely and less likely when describing everyday events. For example, I have an equally likely chance of tossing heads or tails on a coin flip or We are in the Summer season, so it is certain to be hot again tomorrow.
Talk about plans for family outings and the chances of the weather being favourable. Include possible, impossible, likely and unlikely scenarios in the discussion (e.g. Will there be a snow storm when we are having our picnic?)
Discuss other chance happenings that might occur (e.g. Do you think it is possible that Grandma will visit us tomorrow? What could happen at football today?) as well as how likely this is (e.g. Grandma might come to visit, but as she lives in Perth this is pretty unlikely).
Talk about chance when playing games (e.g. It’s possible that I will roll a six but not certain).

Kindergarten

For our last unit of the term, Kindergarten learned about the topic of Data. Students learned to answer questions with a yes or no response and collect information about their environment and peers. Kindergarten collected their information and learned to sort it into groups. We first did this by using natural resources like sticks, pebbles, leaves and grouping them into categories. Later this week, Kindergarten had the important task of helping Miss Fraser choose a new car! Their first task was to draw a picture of the car they think I should buy. Later on, I showed them a picture of the wacky car I was planning to buy. Kindergarten had to vote and ask six of their friends whether or not they think Miss Fraser should buy the car. Kindergarten showed their votes in a yes or no chart format. Well done to a great group of Mathematicians!

Year 1

To finish Term 2, Year 1 have been learning about chance and the possible outcomes of different situations. They have enjoyed playing lots of chance games and beating the teacher. They have learned to use the words will happen, might happen, won’t happen, probably and impossible to describe the chance of something happening. They were given a card to sort into the correct chance column and then drew their own situation to sort. They had to work as a group to brainstorm some things they might see in different settings and they came up with some wonderful ideas! Fantastic work Year 1! I look forward to making a comeback for our games next term!

Miss Myers

Year 2/3

To finish off the Term, Year 2/3 have been learning about the topic of Chance. This week we have been focusing on identifying the outcomes (possible results) from different chance experiments. These have included picking different coloured counters from a container or rolling a 6-sided dice. We have greatly enjoyed making predictions about what we think will happen then testing them. Fantastic effort this week Year 2/3!

Mr Beaumont

Year 4

In Mathematics, Year 4 has been learning about estimating and accurately calculating area using centimetres and metres squared. This week students worked in groups to stick metre rulers together to create a metre-squared measuring device. From this, students were required to make an area estimation of a drawn rectangle and then work together to correctly measure these rectangles and calculate their area size. Great work Year 4!

Miss Maunder and Miss McDonald

Year 5/6

Stage 3 has been learning to find the perimeter of a variety of shapes and exploring how shapes with different side lengths can have the same perimeter. This week, students were challenged to see how many different 4 sided shapes they could make with a perimeter of 20cm. Students uploaded their work to Padlet and explored each other's creations. Awesome work Stage 3!

Miss Summerell & Miss Rasche