Foundation

Welcome back! Foundation students have enjoyed sharing about their holidays with their teachers and peers. It is lovely to have them back refreshed and ready for a big Term 3! Our Term 3 newsletter went home on Monday with lots of information regarding upcoming events and which Maths Group your child is currently in.

Each Wednesday after lunch (even weeks) we will continue with ‘Buddies’. In the alternate weeks we have started our ‘Foundation Developmental Play Rotations’. Each Foundation classroom has a different play focus and students are able to freely visit and join in. Currently the four rooms are: Construction, Mindfulness, Dress Ups/shop play and Fine Motor. This is a wonderful opportunity for students to engage in activities that they are interested in, as well interact with students from different classes.

Thursday 27th July we will celebrate our ‘100 days of School’. A detailed notice will be sent home next week. We also have begun our new Inquiry topic; ‘Transport’. A reminder that we have the Fire Brigade visiting on Friday 21st and 28th of July which we are looking forward to.

We would love assistance with Monday writing 9:15-10, as well as Corridor Reading 8:50-9:15. Sign up sheets are located outside of each classroom this term.

Grade 1

Welcome back to Term 3! We have loved welcoming the kids back into the classrooms and hearing all about the 2-week break! After a busy and exciting first week back we have definitely noticed a few tired faces, and are all excited to have a restful weekend!

As you are probably aware, we are starting many new topics at the moment. We have begun discussing our new Inquiry topic, where we will be learning all about different places within Australia! The children have been very eager to share with us some of their memories and experiences, so to support this we have sent home a homework page, for children to discuss with their families any past holidays they have been on, around our beautiful country. We can’t wait to hear about some of your wonderful holidays when they are returned!

This term we will also begin learning about Narratives in writing, focusing on retelling stories to begin with, identifying key components of a good story. To assist with this, we encourage all families to discuss stories after reading, and have the students practise retelling the key events.

In Maths, all groups will pick up where we left off last term, by revising Place Value to 100 and beyond. The students will be modelling numbers according to Place Value (tens and ones, with some groups moving into the hundreds) and will also be sequencing, comparing and ordering these numbers from smallest to largest.

A reminder also that the new Reading helper sheets have been placed outside each classroom, for any parents still wishing to sign up!

Grade 2

Our Grade 2 students have made a terrific start to Term 3, looking refreshed and full of enthusiasm.

This fortnight, students are learning about ‘response’ writing, with a focus on responding to picture story books by describing the main character/s, retelling main events (leaving out the minor details), and including their personal opinion about the text. Students are also learning to apply their knowledge from our ‘Syntax Project’ lessons by identifying and using subject and object pronouns within a sentence. As part of our ‘Word Study’, we are focusing on the phoneme/grapheme correspondence for ‘igh’, representing a long vowel sound in a word, usually followed by ‘t’.

In Maths, we began our ‘Fractions’ topic. Students are investigating the fraction concepts of equal parts, fractions of whole objects and groups/collections, reading and writing fractions and what the symbols represent, and comparing fractions. As always, opportunities to explore and use fraction language in everyday situations at home will be a great way to consolidate and build on your child’s knowledge.

We have introduced our new Inquiry topic for this term, ‘Earth’s Precious Resources’, with some guiding questions including: What are some of the precious things we get from our planet Earth? Where does the water we use and the food we eat come from?

As part of our wellbeing program this term, we begin with a focus on teamwork, resilience and problem-solving.

Homework expectations for the term: Regular reading aloud and ‘Red Flag Word’ spelling.

Optional extras: ‘Nessy Reading and Spelling’ and ‘Sunset/Jetpack Maths’ (Essential Assessment).

Grade 3

Welcome back to Term 3! We hope all of our students had a relaxing holiday and are ready for all of the exciting activities in store for Term 3.

Reading: In our reading comprehension lessons, the students are learning to recognise cause and effect by understanding what happens and why in a reading passage. Our mentor text this week is Forces Make Things Move. The students are also increasing their fluency reading practice this term with the aim to read a text fluently focussing on their accuracy, reading rate and expression. Please encourage your child to read 5 nights a week for a minimum of 15-20 minutes and record this in their diary. Diaries are checked by their classroom teacher every Friday.

Writing: The students have been writing creative poetry this week. They have investigated the structure of clerihew poems, brainstormed and selected quality rhyming words before writing a humorous one based on a fictional character, famous person and even a teacher. In our spelling lesson, we have focused on the ‘eigh’ grapheme. During our grammar lessons, the students have continued to learn how to combine and punctuate sentences using subordinate conjunctions.

Maths: We have started the term with a focus on multiplication. The students will be exposed to a range of strategies to solve multiplication problems including repeated addition, arrays, number facts, split strategy, and vertical multiplication. Please continue to encourage your children to regularly practise their times tables facts at home.

Inquiry: Our inquiry unit our inquiry focus is forces and motion. The students will be engaged in the practical application of physics and programming. They will learn how forces can be exerted on one object by another as they complete a range of projects. This week, the students have learnt that a force is a push or a pull and that forces can be balanced or unbalanced. They can describe forces in terms of strength and direction and describe changes in motion in terms of speed and direction.

Wellbeing: The students have identified how big a problem is, differentiated between the different levels of problems and plotted them on a problem scale. The students also gained a better understanding that a problem for them may feel different to someone else.

Grade 4

Welcome back! We hope all Grade 4 families had an enjoyable holiday break and are refreshed and ready to go for an exciting Term 3.

Numeracy: This week we consolidated our knowledge on Whole Numbers. Students have been learning to identify properties of odd and even numbers, compare and order large numbers, find factors and multiples of numbers. We strongly encourage students to practice their multiplication facts as we approach our Division unit next week.

Literacy: Our reading and writing has been based around government this week. In reading, students have accessed a range of materials to find out about the different ways a country can be ruled. During our writing sessions we have continued our information report writing where students have been writing introductory paragraph on Anthony Albanese using their writers voice.

Inquiry: We have begun our new Inquiry topic ‘May The Best Party Win’. Throughout this unit we will explore how the Australian government operates. This week we learnt about the different government styles including an absolute monarchy system, direct democracy, and representative democracy.

Grade 4 Team

Grade 5

Our students have all made a wonderful start to what’s sure to be a jampacked term. Just a reminder to all families to ensure they’ve completed the consent and payment for camp which you can find via our Compass notification.

Reading

All grades have begun reading our thrilling mentor text ‘A Long Walk to Water’ written by Linda Sue Park. After reading each chapter, classes will put their learned comprehension skills to the test by answering differentiated questions and completing a range of engaging tasks.

Writing

Our unit on explanation texts has begun with students learning about the structure and features of this scientific genre. As a class, we’ll be workshopping an example based on the topic ‘Why is the sky blue?’ before planning, drafting and publishing their own examples in pairs and finally individually.

Inquiry

In order to provide our students with more choice, voice and ownership over their learning, the Grade 5 students will be completing our Genius Hour inquiry topic this term. We will be looking at what makes a great inquiry question and completing a mini project as a class. Then students will begin brainstorming and forming an inquiry question on a topic of their choosing before researching and sharing their findings to their peers in a creative way.

Maths

It's back to fractions for the cohort as the students continue learning about fractions. Concepts covered in maths groups could include adding and subtracting fractions with related and unrelated denominators, finding the fraction or a quantity and multiplying and dividing fractions efficiently.

Grade 6

Writing

To begin the term, our Grade 6 students will be writing narratives. The students will link their knowledge from our response writing in Term Two to write in descriptive detail about topics such as characterisation, setting, and plot. The students will investigate points of view such as narrative and altered perspectives.

Mathematics

In Mathematics, we will be working through our angle’s topic. The students will use protractors to measure and construct angles and increase their knowledge of angle types such as corresponding and co interior angles.

Inquiry

This term, we switch our inquiry topic to ‘Moments that Made Australia’ and specifically look at the key events, and people, that helped shape Australia from the time period between the 1800s to 1900s. This topic will incorporate an excursion to Sovereign Hill where students will have an opportunity to get a ‘hands on’ perspective of what life was like for people living within this period of Australian history.

Interschool Sport

This week, our girls’ and boys’ soccer teams will be participating in the next round of finals to represent our district. Good luck to all participating!

Term Dates and Events

Grade 6 Log Cabin Camp 16th – 18th August.

Forms will be sent out soon regarding dietary and medical requirements.

Please check Compass for further information regarding events relating to Grade 6 students.

Focus Newsletter

Together We Achieve

Issue 11 · 13 Jul 2023

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