Education News 

Next week, the whole school will be participating in a BIG Write. The genre for this week is an Information Report/Recount. "Spellbound" the Concert is the topic.

All families are encouraged to participate in the 'Big Talk' home  learning and discuss the topic and gather any ideas.

 

SOME HINTS FOR ADULTS TAKING PART IN A Big Talk for Big Writing CONVERSATION WITH THEIR CHILDREN:

· Encourage as many family members as possible to be involved in the Big Talk for Big Writing activity

· Make it an enjoyable activity

· Switch off the television to try to ensure that this is dedicated talking and listening time

· Begin a conversation by modelling… “I think that… because …”

· Ask other family members to give their ideas, opinions and reasons why.

These are exactly the same types of activities as your child’s teacher will be using when developing oral literacy. As well as word games and sentence building, teachers try to develop children’s listening and talking skills in every area of the curriculum. In short, discussion skills are vital. 

What else can help improve my child’s writing?

In your child’s classroom there are VCOP pyramids. These are being used in class to help your children remember the more ambitious Vocabulary (V), Conjunctions (C), Openers (O) and Punctuation (P) so that they can improve their talking and writing. The purpose of the pyramids is to show children how they can progress by improving the language they use, both orally and in writing. The simplest examples are at the top of the pyramid, working down to the more ambitious at the bottom. These are examples only – what is considered “ambitious” will vary from child to child. Ambitious vocabulary will also vary according to the subject being discussed or written about. We hope that you find these useful when approaching the ‘talking homework’.

We hope that Big Talk for Big Writing will provide the opportunity for parents to play a vital role in developing their children’s English skills. One useful way to get the conversation started is by using open questions, which lend themselves to extended answers, such as: · What would happen if... · I wonder... · What do you think about... · In what way... · Tell me about... · What would you do... · How can we... · How did you ...

Garden News

Spring is in the air!

Thank you to this group of students who came and helped weed in garden on Thursday. Who would have thought weeding could be so much fun?  There were lots of smiles and laughter as we struggled to pull up the big weeds and even more excitement at the amount of worms that were found! We have picked some turnips already and the celery, silver beet and carrots are slowly growing. In the next couple of weeks we will be planting some cucumber, zucchini, tomatoes and beans.

Our school garden provides our students with a great opportunity to have fun in a healthy and positive way, engaging them in the garden and connecting them with nature plays a very important role socially and environmentally. 

If there are any Parents or Grandparents who would like to be involved in the garden please contact the school, I could really do with some help and expertise. 

Happy Spring Gardening

Ms Ryan