Welcome back

Welcome back to term 3. I trust that everyone had a relaxing and restful break with family and friends. We are looking forward to a busy yet exciting term full of learning and special events which include swimming for PKD, PMM and PAL, Mad about Science incursion, Treasure Hunt incursion and Dress up day to celebrate book week, a footy clinic with Carlton footballers, Footy Day and Sleepover for PKD & PNC in the last week of term.

Camping Program

The camping program in Lower Primary has recently undergone some changes which are for 2018 and beyond. These changes will allow the program to be delivered more gradually so that skills can be built upon in a way that supports the individual needs of students. Students will continue to experience a variety of fun and challenging activities that will lead to increased time away from home and culminate in a sleepover at school. These changes to the program will ensure that students' emotional maturity, understanding and independence skills are developed at a rate that is supportive for each student and guarantees their success.

You should have received information about your child's camping experience. This information will outline the itinerary and costing. It will also tell you how much you need to pay and if you are entitled to a reimbursement due to the changes to the Camping Program.

If you have any questions related to the Lower Primary camping program do not hesitate to contact me.

Special Events

100 days of school

Last week the Prep students celebrated a milestone in their schooling - 100 days of school. To commemorate the day they wore fancy dress, participated in a variety of party games such as ‘Pin the glasses on a Prep’, ‘Pass the Parcel’, ‘Musical Chairs’ and enjoyed party food. What a fantastic way to celebrate their achievements.

Book Fair

As part of the Book Fair which is organised by Suzanne Bates students participate in a book fair competition. Some students were asked to design a book cover whilst others did some fantastic colouring. The book fair is always a highlight for the students and has been well received and supported by many families. Thank-you to all those who have contributed. A percentage of money raised from the book fair goes directly back into purchasing books for the library, which enables us to keep books from the fair that the students are interested in. The last day for purchasing from the book fair is Monday the 6th of August.

Special thanks to Suzanne for all the extra work she has put into organising and managing the Book Fair.

The book fair winners for this year are:

Overall winner was Angus who received a $15 voucher (PKW)

$5 voucher winners- Frankie (PKW), Naihi, (PLW) Eliza (PHT) Kristie (PLB), Anthony (PJL) Cooper(PKD), Kellie (PNC) Zoe (PAL) Tamara(PMM).

A visit from the Firefighters

We were once again fortunate to have the fire fighters from Greensborough station come to visit us over two sessions. These visits form an integral part in the development our students’ awareness of fire safety, fire safe behaviours, and what to do in an emergency. It also introduces students to an important member of their community and promotes the idea that fire-fighters are friends. During these sessions, the firemen talked to us about their jobs, and showed the special equipment that they use to put out fires. Students practiced the “Stop, Drop, Cover and Roll, and Get Down Low and Go Go Go” procedures and discussed the importance of making a family fire plan. Students listened to the sound that a fire alarm makes so that is was familiar to them. The emergency number 000 and when you should ring that number was reinforced. Everyone enjoyed talking with the firemen, but it was the opportunity to get into the fire truck, listen to the siren, see the flashing lights, and hold and spray the fire hose that really caused the most excitement.

An overview of term two Content Areas :

Number and Algebra

Money- weeks 1-5

The overall focus is on money but it will be taught as a repeat of counting, place value, addition and subtraction. Those students who are working on 1:1 correspondence and limiting to 3 will simply be counting coins and making small groups using coins and those who are working through to making small amounts.

Multiplication and Division (Groups of and Sharing) -weeks 6-10

Measurement and Geometry

Shape - weeks 1-5

Length - weeks 6-10

Reading and Viewing

Visual Language- weeks 1-3

Phonics + word knowledge - weeks 4-7

Decoding Strategies - weeks 8-10

Writing

Procedure -weeks 1-5
Descriptive- weeks 6-10

Term 3 to Date

I would like to reinforce that the skills listed in this newsletter are an overview of the scope and sequence of activities that have been or will be introduced. Within every classroom students are working at their own point of learning. Each student brings a range of skills and prior knowledge to their learning journey with some students at the very start and others that have developed further understanding of content areas. So when you read through the activities your child is somewhere on that continuum and are being introduced to concepts that are in their current area of learning.

Writing -Procedural Text

The purpose of a procedure is to tell the reader how to do or make something. The information is presented in a logical sequence of events, which is broken up into small sequenced steps. As with all of our writing text types students have participated in stimulus activities such as making paper planes, blowing bubbles, making a piggy bank, decorating biscuits, making hot chocolate, making a milk shake, creating a shape monster and a snow man and brushing their teeth. Students were provided with explicit instruction, visuals to assist them to complete the procedure. They then used photos, pictures, picture words, picture word sentences or their own writing to sequence the steps of the procedure and to create their own procedural text.

Reading and Viewing- Visual Language

Visual Language is about exploring how images work in texts to communicate meaning. Visual texts are not only found in books but in photos, pictures, diagrams, picture books, environmental signage, the internet and multimedia technology.

The learning program has focused on:

knowing the difference between an image and words.
using words and phrases to describe an image.
matching words to images.
matching words to objects.
using visual images to identify the key topic of a text.
exploring how the combination of print and images in texts create meaning.

Mathematics

The younger students have enjoyed "playing shops" in their classrooms. This role play is an important aspect of developing an understanding that money is exchanged for goods. They have taken turns at being the customer and the shop assistant, using the register and packing goods. Students who have developed this understanding have moved onto role play that focuses on the labelled cost of an item- 10 cents, 20 cents, 50 cents, one dollar and using the right coin to pay for items. As students continue to develop skills they are working on counting coins to make a specific amount- making 5 dollars from dollar coins.

Other activities have included:

matching coins that are the same.
sorting coins by size, colour, shape.
counting coins that are the same touching each coin as it is counted.
naming coins.

Shape

Students have been involved in activities to develop and understanding of simple two dimensional shapes by matching, sorting and naming them. They have been encouraged to locate shapes in the environment and in familiar objects- a basketball is a circle, that roof looks like a triangle, my work book is a rectangle.

Integrated Unit

The integrated unit for semester 2 is "Weather". Students will be given the opportunity to investigate the weather and how weather can affect their lives. Students have been encouraged to use their senses to develop understandings and concepts about the weather.

They will focus on key questions such as:

What types of weather is there?
Is the weather the same for the whole day?
What can we find out about the weather?
How does the weather affect what you wear, eat and do?

Given how cold and windy it has been recently students have had lots of opportunities to observe and document through photos, pictures, drawings and writing the type of weather conditions that occur in Winter. Our younger students have been working out which clothing is best to wear in winter. They have been choosing from a range of clothing - shorts or long pants, sun hat or beanies, coat or t-shirt and having great fun putting the clothing on. Students have also observed the weather and recorded their findings using descriptive language such as cold, windy, cloudy, and rainy. Word picture walls have been created so that students can use these pictures or words in their writing. I have also seen some great art work about the seasons, rainbows along with some very impressive wind vanes.

Social Competencies

Social Competencies this term has commenced with a unit of work on Self Perception. Some classes have been working on personal preferences and identifying personal likes and dislikes with things they like to eat, play and do. Other classes have been working on how their behavior and what they say and do influences others feelings. Preps have been focusing on turn taking. They are learning to wait for a turn and accept when their turn has finished. All students have been involved in practical daily tasks.

Speech program –Adapted Writing

PLB, PJL, PNC and PKD have been focusing on developing their sentence building skills within our adapted writing sessions. Students have been using ‘colour coded sentence strips’ to write the ending to a story that we have read in class. The students enjoyed using the interactive TV to help match the coloured words.

To help develop these skills at home, you can encourage your child to read aloud to you, which will help to increase their familiarity with sentence structure!

Kath Moore - Campus Principal

Dates to Remember

August

September