What's happening in our learning spaces? 

Students of the Week   

Foundation

It was another week of smiles and excitement in Foundation as we continued the staggered return to face to face learning. We have fallen back into our routine with ease and look forward to seeing all of our peers in the coming days.  

As writers, we have been creating texts for the purpose of entertaining. As thinkers, we used a story map to plan our story and draw and label our characters, setting, problem and solution. Afterwards, we used these to help us write our story. As writers, we made sure to use spaces between words, capital letters and the beginning of a sentence and for names and full stops at the end of a sentence, and we applied our knowledge of letter sounds, blends, digraphs and word endings to record unknown words. Later this term, we will have time and opportunity to publish our stories and turn them into picture books. 

As part of our Discovery Time workshops, we were thinkers, writers, architects, researchers, communicators and collaborators. As writers, we created stories and picture books at the writing station with a partner. We collaborated by sharing our ideas, coming up with a plan and taking turns to draw and write.  We also collaborated to solve different puzzles and brain benders and discovered that if we work together, we will finish the puzzle quicker. As communicators and thinkers, we talked about what we could do, and helped one another to put together the puzzle. We applied our knowledge of Money as we created our own shops. As communicators and collaborators, we made signs, price tags and menus, and took our friends and teachers orders. Miss Marsico definitely enjoyed her vanilla slice and chai latte from the sweet shop, and Mrs Wenckwoski loved her yummy pizza from Bakers Delight. As architects, we looked closely at pictures of houses and apartments and different blueprints, before putting on our fluro vests and designing our own houses and buildings. Some of us collaborated to design apartments and holiday houses!  We thought very carefully about what our buildings would be made of and labelled our designs.  

As mathematicians, we continued to explore the concept of Time. We identified the features of a clock and learnt about the hour hand and the minute hand. As thinkers, we applied our new knowledge by using our paper plate clocks to make and tell time to the hour, such as 3 o’clock, and connected these times to different experiences in our day. We also learnt how to write o’clock times on a digital clock, and continued to practise telling the time at home as we engaged in our last two days of remote learning. 

As remote learning comes to an end, we are extremely proud of all that the Foundation students have achieved during this time and the independence, resilience and responsibility they displayed. We thank all of the parents and carers for their time and effort, it is truly appreciated. 

We kindly ask that you return your child’s small pencil case with the counters, teddy bear, playing cards and pencil so that we can keep it in a safe place in case we may need it again, and please return any blue number charts, picture books, levelled books and tens frames. You may keep all learning journals and other learning tasks. 

Foundation Team, Leanne Wenckowski and Alycia Marsico 

Year 1/2

It has been a very exciting time in Year One and Two this week!

We began our week by continuing to be positive and persistent remote learners, showcasing our enthusiasm for learning. On Thursday, we were able to return back to our learning spaces and be with our friends!

As inquirers, we continue to investigate our BIG question ‘What makes a good garden design?’. We did some finding out of the understanding ‘there are steps that people go through when designing and making things’. As collaborators, we worked within our groups to plan, discuss and critique what may and may not work in our school garden. We compared some gardens from different schools and thought about how we could implement or improve some ideas that they had. We shared our ideas and in turn, listened to others with respect and responsiveness. As reflective thinkers, we had to consider what the term ‘design’ means, what a designer needs to think about before creating something and who could help us design our new school garden. 

Here are some pictures of our brainstorming ideas:

As people of a Catholic Faith Community, we tuned in to the Rosary and its significance to our faith. We shared our current understandings and reflected on the things we wanted to find out. Using the ‘Chalk Talk’ thinking routine, we recorded our understandings and our wonderings. We look forward to continuing to unpack this further in the coming weeks.

As readers and writers, we enjoyed learning more about nature through different text types.

We engaged in some learning about worms because we know that worms help gardens grow. Our mentor text was ‘Yucky Worms’, a story about a little girl who found out some unexpected things about worms! We recorded our new learnings of worms in list form so that we could summarise the information. 

We investigated procedural texts and their purpose. One of our texts this week was called ‘How to Make a Bird Feeder’. This text helped us understand how to instruct. 

Some of us not only created a procedural text, but had a go at following our own instructions! Check out some photos here!

As mathematicians, we continued to investigate the concept of sharing. As resilient learners, we tuned into our learning remotely and during onsite learning. As thinkers, we learned about the concept of sharing objects equally and tuned into the connection that mutliplication and division share. We took our thinking further and came up with our own division problems for our friends to solve!

We are so excited to be back in our learning spaces with our friends and teachers. 

We look forward to continuing our learning back onsite! 

Year 1/2 Team,

Stephanie Carriera, Belinda Filippone and Maria Delaney

Year 3/4

It was wonderful to have the Year 3/4 students back to school again, even if it was for only two days. The joy on their faces at seeing their friends was very evident. Laughter and excitement filled the rooms, it was fantastic to see. They received gifts from Mrs. Watson on their return.

The Year 3/4 students have continued to work hard both online and when we were at school. They continue to show themselves as self managers in the way they have been able to be flexible and adapt to learning in both environments.

In Literacy, we have continued to focus on poetry. The students have practices using hyperbole and identifying exaggerated language in poems. Shape or concrete poems have been written during our writing sessions.

In Mathematics, we have started working on the concept of division. The students have explored how we can use materials to display ‘groups of’. Through the manipulation of these materials the students have discovered how equal groups can be displayed and how sometimes we do not always have equal groups.

In Religion, we have continued to learn about Catholic Mission and the work of the Good Shepherd Sisters in Thailand. The students viewed a presentation of their work and how money raised during Socktober is used to fund the work they do.

In Inquiry, the students have viewed a series of slides which are photos or the upgrade to the Coburg Station. The students have been asked to think about what is new, what benefits these new facilities bring to the community and how these new works would have been planned. This thinking will hopefully aid the students when they start to design some of the possible new areas in our school yard.

We would like to finally thank all of the parents and carers who have assisted your own child over this extended period of home learning. Your continued support has been much appreciated. Hopefully from Wednesday we will remain at school until the end of the year and schooling can resume as normal.

Year 3/4 Team, 

Katarina Davidson, Mark MacGregor, Graham Troy 

Year 5/6

The students were excited to be back in the classroom with their peers and teachers.  Some students said they learn better at school, because the teacher can explain the learning on the ‘spot’.  Others said they are not distracted at school like they are at home.  The positives of remote learning included having their own schedule, finishing earlier and even sleeping in. 

In Literacy, the students are continuing with the comprehension skill of determining important and interesting information in a variety of fiction and non-fiction texts.  They are particularly engaged in using this skill in our class text “The 39 Clues”.  The students are learning how to write different perspectives and points of view.  They explored different character perspectives by studying texts such as the traditional story of The Three Little Pigs and “The True Story of the Three Little Pigs”. (see Maddie's story after this report)

In Mathematics, the students were introduced to angles.  They brainstormed all the know about angles.  The students learnt about different types of angles including right, obtuse, acute and reflex angles.  They are learning to estimate and find angles in the environment.  The students are learning how to measure angles using protractors.

In Religion, the students are continuing to learn about the Catholic Teaching of the Preferential Option for the Poor.  They are investigating Church teachings on caring for the poor and exploring scripture readings to deepen their understanding.  The students were excited to learn about all Saints Day and engage in an art activity about the significance of Halloween on Friday.

The Year 5 students are looking at Leadership positions for 2022.  They discussed what a great leader looks like and does at St Fidelis.  The students had the opportunity to discuss the roles and what should be included in writing a speech for their preferred position.  Applications must be submitted to their teachers before the 12th November.  Good luck everyone as we are excited to have you are leaders of our school in 2022.

Due to the bad weather on Friday, we had sports games inside!  The students enjoyed playing different ball games and competing with each other.  

Well done Year 5/6 students for a great return to onsite learning!  Keep up the great effort!

Year 5/6 Team

Cherrie Arnold, Michelle Casameto, Olivia Sargent, Viviana Clarke

The Two Little Pigs 

by Maddie Russ

It was just a normal day when me and my sister Alice were walking into my luxury stick house. “What type of house is this?” Alice questioned, rolling her eyes. “What happens when a wolf comes? What will you do then?” She did make a good point so I started thinking about what improvements I could do.  But nothing came to my head.

While me and my annoyed sister Alice stopped to think what I could add, there was a powerful knock on the door. I peered through the window and saw a big, tall, grey wolf wearing an apron covered in flour staring into my amazing stick house. 

“Oh, well hello Mr Wolf, what brings you here? Last time you threatened to Pork Chop me!” He rushed up my small stick steps and replied with. “Oh, well hello Mr Pig, we all know that was just a joke, don’t take it seriously. I just came for a cup of flour. I looked at him and gave him a confused look, while he stared down at his apron and brushed himself off, and stared at me with a sly grin.

“Well If that's what you need, just wait here” I said. He stood at the door and whispered to himself “I can’t wait for bacon as my lunch today.”  I tried to ask him what he said but he denied saying anything. I was about to hand him a cup of sugar as he said. “I hope you like bacon, I just need to blow your house down now.” 

Before he could do anything the cops arrived and locked him away and he earned the name THE BIG BAD WOLF!