News from the learning areas

Getting to know your Teachers

Rosa - 1/2 Teacher

A little about me:

I loved knitting hipster jumpers for my 19-year-old pussy-cat Franciscus-Henry, who now sadly has crossed the Rainbow Bridge.
I am learning to play the ukulele during lockdown.

Before coming to MPS:

I was the manager of the Phar Lap Club for Kids at the VRC (Victoria Racing Club) and amongst other things, I had a go riding a mechanical racehorse that jockeys used to train on!
I helped to look after orphaned animals like this delightful baby chimpanzee called Lucy, when I lived in the Dublin Zoo residence in Ireland.
I worked at Melbourne Zoo as an Education Officer for 10 years; and 5 days a week, I would handle at least a couple of snakes such as boa constrictors, Taiwanese Beauty snakes, corn snakes, carpet pythons, Black-headed pythons & green leaf pythons.

So, can you do the math about how many snakes I may have handled over 10 years?!

All animals are incredibly amazing, and it is such a privilege and a joy to be so close to them throughout my life.

Luisa - 3/4 Teacher

5 thinks about Luisa

When I was 20, I worked in London for 3 months.
I rode a camel near the Egyptian Pyramids.
I enjoy hiking and skiing with my family.
I like cooking homemade pizza.
I holidayed in Bali last December. I can’t wait until we can travel again. For now I will be happy to be able to travel outside my 5km radius zone!

Natalie - 5/6 Teacher

Well you probably already know this but I LOVE SPORTS! I have played all these sports as an adult: tennis, cricket, basketball, dodgeball, futsal and touch rugby. I played all these sports and more while I was at high school too. My high school had to make a rule that kids could only play one sport a term because I played every sport and kept having days off school!
Since 2010 I have enjoyed travelling the world - my goal was to visit 30 countries by the time I turned 30! Lucky I snuck that in… It’s too hard to decide on a favourite place, but the most intriguing sights I’ve seen would have to be the Pyramids of Giza or Machu Picchu!
I have never broken a bone or got stung by a bee! Touch wood! But I did slice the bridge of my nose open when I was a kid, on the wire of a tennis net! What a surprise…
I used to work at Coles Moonee Ponds in the deli. I referred to myself as a hamspert!
Most of you know who my mum is, but my fun fact about my family is that my brothers are twins and my dad is a twin!!

JAPANESE SCIENCE

PHYSICAL EDUCATION

SUSTAINABILITY TEAM

https://sites.google.com/view/mpssustainabilityteam/meet-the-team

Are you feeling bored, or don’t have anything to do? We have a really great site, with lots of great ideas. Our recent additions to the website includes information on how to enter a threatened species Bake-off and helpful tips and examples for letter writing. Enjoy!

PREP LEARNING AREA

The Preps have had another busy 2 weeks of remote learning.

Here are a few things that they have been learning about and what’s coming up:

Literacy

We have spent time in our small group Google Meets to share and celebrate the students’ findings from investigations about an animal of their choice. This was a fantastic opportunity for the students to learn new information from their peers and also be able to feel proud of the hard work they have put in by sharing with their friends and homegroup teacher. We saw some very creative ideas and interesting ways that students chose to explore their chosen animal. We have included a fantastic example of one student making a koala using some very impressive craft skills, whilst also recalling information learnt from their investigation.

The Preps have also been learning about rhyme and word families, which will help them for our upcoming unit on poetry to finish off Term 3.

Maths

In Maths, the Preps have been exploring subtraction. They have used concrete materials, subtraction stories and even a game of subtraction bowling to help show their understanding of taking away a number from a whole group of objects. All of the uploaded work was fantastic! We have included a few very creative examples here to share with everyone.

Coming up, we will be continuing subtraction by solving problems using a number line and also playing more games including cards and counters.

The Prep team

1/2 LEARNING AREA

The fantastic students in 1/2 have been working enthusiastically on their Integrated Curriculum unit, "I call this place home..." over term 3.

They have been learning the geography of Australia and how the natural places have special meaning to the Indigenous and non-Indigenous Peoples. Their triaramas showcase their understanding and their hopes to be able to visit these places one day, when we are out of Lockdown.

The students have also illustrated their favourite line from the National Anthem "Advance Australia Fair" and discovered some of the lines refer to the geography and natural beauty of Australia.

1/2 Triaramas Gallery

1/2 National Anthem

3/4 LEARNING AREA

As part of the 3/4's project on, ‘War on Waste’ the students have taken a closer look at

specific areas of concern, such a clothes waste or what goes down their drains.

The intention for the activity was to develop an awareness and begin discussions in the household and among students.

Students were asked to consider how their everyday actions contribute and what possible changes or choice we can make at home to improve the impact we are making.

5/6 LEARNING AREA

In the last few weeks the 5/6s have been continuing their poetry sessions in English. We have been learning about songs, raps and how each of them has a different meaning. We have also been completing lessons that are helping us learn how to write well structured information texts. This week we put together some facts files. Enjoy reading some of them below.

In our specialist classes we have been doing some interesting tasks. In art and JS we are doing a special Japanese competition where we get to enter something to do with Japan. In PE we are doing cool new soccer drills which are challenging but fun. Overall the 5/6s have had an awesome week!

Astrid and Uma

Moreland Mail

Issue 13 · 04 Sep 2020

In this issue