Class Celebrations

Grade Prep

This term in reading students have been exploring the features of narrative texts. We have examined characters and their traits, different settings and problems and solutions. It has tied in well with the Narrative Writing Cycle we have started. Last week students were immersed in a range of mentor texts and responded to these. This week students began to plan their own narrative by identifying a good idea, creating their character, drawing the setting and making props that support the problem and solution. This is all kept in their story bag and is the plan that will be used to help draft their narrative next week. 

In maths last week we learnt about measurement and capacity. Students compared how much containers held and described which held more or less. We also used informal units to confirm or predictions. The highlight was completing a fun challenge to to see who could make the container which held the most unifix. Their were some really clever designs. This week in maths we have explored place value by modelling numbers as 10’s and ones. We also described more and less, before and after and ordered numbers from smallest to largest.

In Inquiry we learnt about living and non-living things and how living things grow and change over time. We had a great morning at beach school on Monday and Lucy taught us how the traditional owners of our land were able to get everything they needed to survive from our amazing local environment. Thanks to all the parents who came along and helped. We are really looking forward to next week's session. 

Grade 1

In Grade 1, students have been busy working with great focus in all areas of the curriculum and displaying great persistence in their learning. It has been great to see students applying themselves to achieve their reading, writing and numeracy goals.

Within Reading and Writing, students have been investigating Character Traits and how we can describe a characters’ inside and outside qualities. Students also learnt about using interesting adjectives to describe characters, building on their interesting vocabulary that can be used within their daily writing. Students have participated in lessons that encourage the Gradual Release of Responsibility which is the framework of “I do, We do, You do it together, You do it alone”. This provides students with appropriate structures that help students to become independent workers when developing a skill set, in this case, being able to identify Character Traits and qualities.  

The next few weeks sees the students begin their unit of work on investigating money, its use and counting collections. Students have loved learning about coins and notes, ordering them in terms of value and adding collections of coins using skip counting. A great way to encourage and foster curiosity and understanding of money at home is to involve students in the buying of products at the shops. Discussing the cost of products, how we pay for these products, the coins or notes used as well as adding amounts of money, helps student build up experience and knowledge of using money in real life scenarios. Here are some pictures of students exploring money in small groups situations.

The Grade 1 students are displaying great engagement and commitment to our Voice focus of developing themselves as leaders. The last few weeks have seen the students discussing the Character Strengths that a leader displays. They have also collaborated in small groups to develop some common goals that students will use daily to work towards building their capacity as a leader at school. The photo’s below show students engaging in a teamwork activity that involved a leader helping lead the making of the letters that spelt the word LEADERSHIP. Amazing fun! 

Grade 2

This week the Grade 2's have been learning about time and practising our skills in telling the time on both digital and analogue clock faces. We have made our own analogue clocks so that we could practise placing the minute and hour hands in the correct positions. We have played lots of time games to help our learning about time.

Grade 3

This week the Grade 3's went to Camp Wilkin in Anglesea. We all had an amazing time. Some highlights were:

• Leap of Faith
• Mini Golf
• Flying Fox
• Archery
• Low Ropes Course
• Initiatives
• Night Walk
• Sleeping in Cabins
• Hanging out with friends

Here are some photos from our time at camp.

Grade 4

In grade 4 we are working through the Positive Gender Relations section of the Respectful Relationships curriculum. This includes focussing on empathy and demonstrating behaviours associated with respect, kindness, fairness, and gratitude. The evidence base supporting this shows that school-based harm (violence) prevention and respectful relationships initiatives can make a real difference, producing lasting change in students’ attitudes and behaviour. These initiatives are also pivotal in the prevention of discrimination and physical, verbal and psychological violence. Whilst participating in interactive lessons, students will also learn about social norms and to develop social skills needed in daily life.

In reading we are working on annotating and identifying the main idea. In writing we are looking to persuade and to craft an argument using technology. In math we are focusing on revisiting place value and using the CUBES strategy to answer worded questions. 

On Wednesday, the Grade 4 students were lucky to meet Milly Fornby who came to BHPS to talk about shore birds. Milly is flying a microlight aircraft around Australia raising awareness about migratory shorebirds. Milly started her flight at Perth, and now she is at Barwon Heads. She has visited 40 different schools along the way. We enjoyed having her come and talk about flying . Her project is called Wing Threads flight around Australia. We learnt a lot such as…the red necked stint weighs as much as a Tim Tam and these birds breed in the Artic, not Australia. Amelia’s aim is to fly her microlight airplane around Australia for 20,000 kms, which is the distance the migratory birds fly to get to Siberia and back. She chose a microlight because she gets the same view as a shore birds (written by Clemmie, Chilli and Edie)

Finally, this week the Grade 4 garden program recommenced, each class will participate in a three-week rotation to learn about the composting, soil and the Principles of Permaculture.

Grade 5

Respectful Relationships:

Over the past 2 weeks, the grade 5 students have been learning about the 4 different types of harm in Respectful Relationships. As groups, they built a collective definition and understanding of Physical Harm, Verbal Harm, Psychological Harm and Sexual Harm. They discussed a range of different actions that come under these headings such as rumours, hitting, stalking and bullying and how these actions affect the emotions of others. We discussed that when harm becomes gender-based, no matter the gender of the perpetrator or victim, all people feel the same emotions and experience the same negative outcomes.

We have also started learning about power within relationships. We have played a range of games to show the difference in social relationships. We ave also discussed the role of a dominant, submissive and an equal within a peer relationship and how these can affect the emotions and actions of others. Over the next 2 weeks, we will be investigating ‘active respect in peer relationships’. 

Writing

To begin Term 4, students have been investigating procedural and explanation texts through conducting science experiments with common household objects. In Week 1, we created our own lava lamps using oil and water, before students wrote a procedural text about how to recreate the experiment. 

Our second experiment in Week 2 was ‘Rainbow Milk’ where students used milk, food dye and dishwashing liquid to create colourful patterns. Students wrote their second procedural text for this experiment, before they began investigating surface tension to help them write a text that explained why the dishwashing liquid created the rainbow patterns. 

Students will continue to explore procedural and explanation texts over the coming weeks before moving into a unit on picture story book writing. 

Grade 6

Tuning in to our ‘big question’ this term: Is Australia an Inclusive Nation?

Our Term 4 Inquiry kicked off with a highly enjoyable and thought-provoking visit to Laverton P-12 College where students and staff alike had the opportunity to meet some awesome people, many of whom came from interesting and diverse backgrounds. Students were introduced to new games, skills, culture and friends, with many swapping socials and maintaining a line of communication. 

Our Grade 6’s loved receiving letters from the Laverton students and are currently in the process of drafting their own.

Supporting the tuning in phase of our inquiry, we have been viewing 'The Final Quarter' documentary and engaging in our class text: The Boy at the Back of the Class by Onjali Q. Rauf. 

Below are some of our student's 'wonderings' generated from the above texts that we will investigate further as we progress through our Inquiry.