PLC News
Professional Learning Community Foundation (Preps)
Hi Prep Families,
We have some very exciting events coming up in the next few weeks.
Wednesday, Week 6 - Book Week Dress-Up Day. We can all come dressed up as a character from our favourite book. Please don't feel like you need to spend lots of time or money preparing a costume - finding items that match from around your house or borrowing from friends is a great option. If you can, please bring in the book that matches your costume so you can share this with your classmates.
Friday, Week 7 - 100 Days At School Dress-Up. To celebrate being at school for more than 100 days we will be having a dress-up day where you can dress as a 100-year-old. We will also have a focus on the number 100 during the day in our Reading, Writing and Numeracy lessons. This special event is just for our Prep students.
In Literacy we have been continuing to build our letter and sound knowledge, adding some trickier spelling patterns to help us read and write. We are so proud of how much our students are remembering and applying to their work. We have also loved reading the 'Pig the Pug' books with our class - which one is your favourite?
In Numeracy we have been working on many different skills including number patterns (skip counting), measuring and reading/counting numbers. As we progress throughout the year we are seeing our students become more confident in ordering numbers as well - if you think this is something you would like to work on at home you can use some number cards, shuffle them and practise putting them in order. Then you can check for accuracy by looking at a number chart, ruler, measuring tape etc.
We are so glad to have everyone back at school together - it's just not the same without your bright smiles filling our classrooms.
From the Prep team.
Professional Learning Community 1 (Grade 1 )
It was so wonderful to see the majority of our Grade Ones quickly switching to Online Learning without batting an eye and simply taking the change in their stride.
Since we have been back onsite we have continued to work on our skip counting and challenging ourselves to try skip counting from a non zero starting point for example counting by 10s from 28- 28, 38, 48, 58… Reading has seen us making predictions. Not just what will happen next in a story but what do we expect to find in the book. For example if it is a Non Fiction text about chickens then a reasonable prediction would be that there would be a contents page, a glossary, a life cycle, information about what they eat, where they live etc. In writing we have been giving arguments about why Winning Isn’t Everything, as we learn more and more about the Olympics in Project Based Learning we have been using this information to enhance our writing.
A few odd uniform pieces have started slipping back in such as coloured socks and bows, as well as black trackies. Please ensure you are in correct school uniform or ask at the office if you can borrow something for the day.
Professional Learning Community 2 (Grade 2 )
A big welcome back to school after a brief but necessary lockdown.
In what has been a busy first week back, students have gone back over the school values, as well as the rules of their classroom. It has been great to see the students get back into school life.
In Reading, we have been focusing on our reading stamina. Looking to read for longer periods of time. Students have also been learning how to predict, how to infer and how to search for and use information.
In Writing students have continued working with the theme of space. We have looked at a narrative, and description and an exposition. Students have really enjoyed writing about space, and it shows in their writing pieces with some great uses of figurative and descriptive language.
Numeracy has been all about multiplication and division over the last 2 weeks. Students are starting to really grasp the concept of multiplication and division and how they work together as fact families.
With the concert unfortunately postponed until next year, PBL has turned to the Olympics. Students have been using their teamwork and research skills and putting together a Book Creator book with fantastic information about the Olympics. Following the Olympics topic, students will be focusing on Health, with some great fun activities.
Until next time, stay safe!
PLC2
Professional Learning Community 3 (Grades 3)
Well done again to our incredible students and their families on another challenging lockdown. Many of our students were able to engage in remote learning and got on with the tasks without too much complaint! It shows how much students (and teachers!) have learnt when using Chromebooks and how much resilience we have developed. Lockdowns are never easy nor are hard times. What we need to remember is, hard times come and go and the help make us bigger, better, and stronger! We can take this message and apply it in all areas of our lives and learn to take the bad with the good.
It is wonderful to be back in the classroom and out in the yard playing with friends. Upon returning to school, we have really got into analysing authors craft and techniques. We have had a big focus on Aaron Blabey and his texts and have discussed his writing style, craft, and text features we see in his books. Look out for our reading portfolio tasks also, as we have used that knowledge while building our critiquing knowledge.
In Writing, we have developed our own characters and described them using figurative language. We have now begun to write a narrative using our characters.
In Numeracy we have worked more on place value knowledge and being able to rename number using number expanders. We have seen a huge improvement in students being able to visualise numbers and rename them. Boys and girls, if you had the number 2, 542 and could only make it using tens and ones, how many tens would you need? Show off to your families and give it a go! This week we are looking at multiplication and division and how the two operations link together.
If anyone is yet to return their portfolio, there are now OVERDUE and must be back at school this week!
Professional Learning Community 4 (Grades 4)
It’s so great all being back together in the classroom after our quick stint in lockdown. Though, we were very impressed with students and parents being so eager to start remote learning again. Thank you all for your willingness and understanding through that difficult time.
This week in Reading we have been focusing on making connections. We do this by making connections with the text we are reading through our experiences, events, prior reading/knowledge and the world around us. When your child is reading daily ask them if they made any connections. In Writing we are producing spooky/scary narratives. This topic was chosen by the students to write about and they are creating some thrilling stories. In Numeracy we are continuing to revise our multiplication and then linking those strategies to division to solve some open-ended worded problems. Over the next 2 weeks we are making PowerPoints about a sport from The Olympic Games that we can then present to our classes. They will explain what that sport is, any rules, equipment, records, origins and champions. It is going to be extremely interesting to learn about all these sports.
Please remember our uniform policy and attendance challenge we have on at the moment. If you’re unsure ask your child about them or there are details in the newsletter.
Stay warm and safe.
PLC 4 Teachers
Professional Learning Community 5 (Grades 5)
Welcome to Week 4. We have finally made it back to our first full week of face to face learning since Term 2- it has felt like forever! We are so pleased to be back and teaching the kids and we have some amazing activities planned that we cannot wait to get started. Part of the process on our return to school has been to remind the students of the expectations/ values of our school to ensure we can start back in a positive manner. We are looking forward to seeing some of our future school leaders take control of these values and push the message out to their peers.
Literacy
In Literacy this week we are starting our brand new class text ‘ Tomorrow when the war began’. We will begin with introducing the text to the students and allowing them to predict what the story might be about and we will then move to reading the first few chapters. In Writing we are working on a new text under the topic of ‘ The last day of Earth’. This text will be a narrative and will be linked closely to the descriptive text we wrote last week on the topic of ‘Ruined’. We have been so pleased with the progress that the students have made this year and we can’t wait to see them continue to flourish as the year goes on.
Numeracy
In Numeracy we are continuing to work on increasing our knowledge of fractions and decimals. We will have a large focus on the words ‘simplify and equivalence’ so the students will be able to explain these two terms to you at home after the end of the week.
Have a great week everyone! Stay warm.
Professional Learning Community 6 (Grades 6)
Our year 6s have been working extremely hard since coming back from Lockdown completing practise NAPLAN tests, building our knowledge of operating with fractions, developing our inferencing skills and writing a persuasive text arguing their view on the continuation of the Olympics. Why not ask them their view? We are also excited to once again take part in Police in Schools, with a session taking place earlier today!
Students have been putting in a great effort to ensure that they are upholding our uniform policy, but we would like to remind you to be mindful of this, ensuring all items are of an appropriate length, jewellery and nail polish is removed and jackets are used for extra warmth on top of school jumpers.
It is time to start thinking about costumes for book week in Week 6. Students will be able to dress up on Wednesday 18th of August and can even when prizes for best dressed – better get those thinking caps on PLC 6!
That’s all from us, we hope that you are enjoying our first full week out of Lockdown!