Spotlight on Learning
'Socktober' in Prep
This term for our Inquiry/Religion unit, the Preps have been learning about the resources we need to live happy and healthy lives. The children have become aware that the resources in our world are not shared equally or fairly.
The children have learnt that many other children in different countries in our world are not as lucky as we are and don't have access to the resources we have. We have discussed the idea of 'fair' and 'unfair', and actions we can take to look after others with less than us.
The 'Socktober' initiative has invited our children to learn about life in mission countries and how our brothers and sisters around the world play the universal game of soccer- something that unites us all..
One of the most popular elements of 'Socktober' encourages children to create their own recycled ‘sockball’ – a replica of the type of ball thousands of children around the world play with each day.
This initiative is aimed to be a 'taking action' activity that combines our learning about recycling and the Earth's resources from last term, with our current Religion unit which is based around the Catholic Social Teaching of 'Preferential Option for the Poor'.
Here are some photos of us making our 'Sockballs' using all recycled materials and having fun with them.
Inquiry in 5/6 - GUESTSPEAKER
On Wednesday, 18th November, the Year 5 and 6 classes were lucky enough to have a very important guest speaker join us online from Canberra: Michael Sukkar. Michael Sukkar serves as Assistant Treasurer & Minister for Housing, representing the Division of Deakin in Victoria for the Liberal Party. The students were delighted to put a face to the name of one of the politicians they had been learning about in our Inquiry Unit on the Australian Government. Michael gave the students a talk about his roles and responsibilities, the function of government, how parliament works and the challenges he has faced in his role as a leader in our community. The students loved hearing the local references that Michael was able to give, as he is a representative for them in Deakin. Michael also gave the Year 5s a pep talk about being future leaders of the school and suggested ways they can make changes at a local level. After a Q and A with the students, we thanked Michael for his time and wished him well.
Auslan Update
What a year it has been. Like other languages, Auslan has proven it is a living and evolving language, with new signs emerging for ‘coronavirus’ and ‘pandemic’. I always enjoy learning new signs – but I think I could have done without the year that lead to them! Thank you to parents for supporting your children throughout remote learning and in particular for helping them to maintain their signing skills in their Auslan sessions. It has been heartening to hear of some families learning the set signed vocabulary together and continuing to use some basic Auslan at home to communicate.
It has been refreshing to return to the classroom, with face-to-face interaction and signed communicate in real-time. Given the long stretch away from onsite classes, we have spent time revising and consolidating learned vocabulary prior to commencing new material. In Prep, all our students have had the opportunity to ‘become the teacher’ and introduce themselves to the class using sign, showing their fingerspelling skills, favourite colours and animals. Our students in other levels have now learned how to introduce someone else in a signed conversation and in increasing levels of complexity have presented this to their classes. Simplified signed versions of Guess Who have been used to practise the necessary vocabulary, and puppets were available to introduce as ‘friends and family members’. Cookie and Grandpa Bob were the most popular characters to introduce!
To assist your child with retaining Auslan vocabulary, encourage signed interaction between siblings, ask your child to teach you some new signs, watch episodes of Sally & Possum on the iView app, practise their fingerspelling with them on passing car license-plates or play a fingerspelling game online. All of these ideas will help to grow their confidence in signing and assist in our ultimate quest of our Auslan classes becoming voiceless!
