From the Classroom

Foundation

Each morning the Foundation students enjoy listening to a modelled non-fiction book from the website Epic. These books usually involve an animal beginning with the alphabet letter focus.  This week we have looked at books on the following, fish, foxes, frogs and flamingos. It is exciting to observe fascination, interest and wonder on their facial expressions as they build their world knowledge.

The children currently have a “Learn to Write”  book. Each day, a sentence is explicitly modelled with an illustration.  This is an important lesson where the children are exposed to learning to hear sound / symbol relationships and recording them. We also view learn to draw videos to assist with our drawings.  Enjoy some the photos of our foxes and our wonderful efforts with our tracing and handwriting.

We are also reading a fiction big book titled Fish Head Soup. Mrs Spatt is a crazy character who is as crazy as a goose on the loose.  Ask the children what she likes to boil up in her pot!

This week I have set up a reward system.  Each table group has a jar that collects points (a tile) for positive behaviours.  These can be individual or as a group. Rewarding such behaviours such a using kind words, caring or helping a classmate, packing up in an organised manner, trying their best with learning and using an inside voice are all easy behaviours score points for their jar.  The table with the most points will collaboratively decide on their reward. Jar counts will happen each Monday.

Thank you to all those supporting the alphabet practice sheet that was placed in the plastic pocket last week. What you do at home can make a real difference.  The children as a whole class love the challenge of learning to blend the learnt letters into real or nonsense words.

This week in Maths, we have worked on numeral formation in order for it to become automatic and fluent.  We have also enjoyed learning the pattern involved in counting by 10s.

Our first week of five days is very full so please remember the importance of your daily bedtime routines. 

And only three more weeks of school till Easter Holidays! But who is counting? 

Grade 3 

We have had another busy week in the classroom. The children have been working on the following in each learning area.

Reading: Decoding skills to check the beginning and end of a tricky word. Think about what word makes sense here in the text. 

Writing: The children have been working on ideas and mind maps for their Narrative writing pieces. 

Punctuation: How to apply commas to separate items in a list. 

Maths:  The focus has been to read and tell the analogue time on the past and to side of the clock, as well as, learn how to tell time to the minute. 

Chemical Science: The children have been learning about how different heat sources can melt solids. 

Grade 4

We have had a fun few weeks in Grade 4. 

We have been practising our Athletics Events on a Wednesday afternoon with the Grade 3’s and are participating in more science experiments.

This week we have started to incorporate Mindfulness into our daily routine using the Smiling Minds platform. After recess and lunch students come into the room and choose to either sit or lay down while they participate. We are also working on some informal meditation practice where we take a couple of minutes to focus on our belly breathing.

Mr Thompson has been coming into the classroom to help us with Numeracy. This week he taught students how partition numbers. All of the children are loving the tasks he sets for them each week!

We are using technology in our classroom daily and some tasks do require students to listen to instructions, stories or questions. If you haven’t already, please send some headphones for your child to use at school.

Children can also bring in a wireless/corded mouse, if they wish.

Our EPIC code is gbz5452

Pen Licence

Congratulations to Sophie B on receiving her pen licence. Her beautiful bookwork and attention to detail is something for all to aspire to.