Learning Areas

Foundation

The Prep Team are so proud of our students and all that they have achieved, both socially and academically over the past 10 weeks. A huge thank you to all the families who have supported their children in settling into the routines of school and for fostering such an enthusiastic approach to learning. We can’t wait to see what the Prep cohort achieve next term!

The past two weeks have seen us continuing to work on segmenting and blending sounds in words (both in Reading and Writing) and exploring shape and colour patterns in Maths.

During the holidays, it would be fantastic to maintain the momentum gained in Literacy and Numeracy and practise the skills we’ve been working on this term.

Please encourage your child to read EVERYDAY! Offering different text types (fiction and non-fiction) and asking them to talk about what they have read will build their vocabulary and comprehension in preparation for Term 2! Make sure they are pointing to each word as they read, using the pictures as clues, and making the first sound when it is an unfamiliar word.
Keep counting! Practising number skills can be done at home, in the car or out and about. Have your child practise writing numerals and making a collection to match. Counting from different starting points and working forwards and backwards will help build their number sense and fluency.
Start a journal! Having your child record what they do over the holidays in diary form provides a meaningful context for writing. Encourage them to segment and blend the sounds in words and record the letters to match. Whether they are at the labelling single words or writing full sentences stage, it is all great practice!
Any fine motor activities such as threading, building Lego and tracing will also help with writing skills!

In preparation for next term, we kindly ask that you check that your child has a hat for school. Please ensure that the hat, your child’s lunchbox and water bottle are clearly labelled as it is very difficult to locate lost items otherwise.

We hope everyone has a safe and happy break.

Abbie, Joe, Sengul and Lexie look forward to seeing you all next term!

Grade 1

What an amazing Term 1 it’s been.

The students have had lots of fun exploring and developing their Reading, Writing and Mathematical skills in many engaging ways.

Just have a look at their responses to ‘read aloud’ descriptions

about characters and settings.

Here the students had to listen carefully to the descriptions

of the characters and settings and provide an illustration as a response.

We would like to wish you all a safe holiday and to see you all back in 2 weeks.

Enjoy your children.

Thank you from the Grade 1 Team

Hannah, Daniel, Helen, Verity, Luciana

Grade 2

It has really been a wonderful Term 1 in the Year 2 learning Area.

We celebrated our diversity, our history, our community and our families' special celebrations and events.

We displayed our ‘Acknowledgment of Country’ and coloured the Australian map beautifully.

Let’s not forget to mention we made our beautiful Earth with our spectacularly coloured people, who represented us and our families.

We look forward to Term 2 and continuing our learning.

Happy holidays everyone!

Grade 3/4

Through the Doorway

By Lily Smith

"STELLA!" "What is it mum?!" "Get down here right now!" "Fine! Fine." "Hurry up!" "Hmph! I'm coming!" * Thump, Thump, Thump* Stella was late for school, very Late for school. "Sam, come down with your sister!" "Yes, mum!" Sam was also late for school, very late for school. You see, they are twins, twin sisters, and they look exactly the same (and they are both troublemakers (Prankers)) except for one thing. They dress differently and have different personalities. Stella likes pink and Sam loves Blue. Stella likes dresses and Sam likes jumpsuits. As I was saying, they are late. Now they are very, very late.

Bang! Bang! Bang! "Someone's knocking on the door!" Stella yells behind the thumping. "I'll open the door!" Sam yells back. She opens the door and sees… NO ONE! "There is no one there!" she shouts to Stella. "Just hurry up and get to school!" "Yes mum!" The girls chorus.

A little later they're finally running to school. Running, running and more running! Until they bang into the school doors, but since Stella is super fast she ran straight through the door into… Principal Huffly! "You two troublemakers! Get to class!" (She is pretty angry.) "Okay Miss!" Sam tells the principal as she drags her sister to class.

After school, they run home giggling as they just pulled a prank on their teachers, Ms Charles and Mr StoneHeart, who are very strict and needed a laugh. But the girls still had to hurry because it was Sam's turn to make dinner and Stella's turn to make tomorrow's lunch. They run and run until… Bang! they ran through the door into not their home but, in the middle of a cyclone! "ARGH!" They cry as their hair gets whooshed up in the air. "Let's go through the door and get out." "But the door is gone, Stella!" "Oh, that changes th-" Whoosh! They changed spaces and are now in a giant desert! "Huh?!" And it changed again to a farm, this kept on happening for a while. Until it finally stopped at… their home!

"We need to hurry! Mum will be home soon!"

"Okay Sam!"

The End!

Grade 5/6

Reading by Maysara

This term in reading we have been reading a book every day and we then write a letter to our teachers about it. In this letter we discuss what we like about the book, make connections between it and ourselves and other texts, find examples of good language and make predictions about what might happen next.

This term we’ve also been exploring different genres like realistic fiction, procedural texts, myths, historical fiction, fantasy, traditional fiction, modern fantasy and so on. We've also completed book recommendations. Book recommendations are when you give your opinion on a book, give it a star rating and whether you could recommend the book to someone else.

Writing by Orpheus, Fox & Leonardo

Over recent weeks we’ve been writing imaginative recounts of the past. We were told to look back at the historical timelines we had completed earlier in the year which explained multiple events in the history of our new island, Cennet.

We then chose one of these made-up events and begin retelling what happened, either as a biography, a diary or historical recount would be presented.

We have also been choosing our favourite narrative that we’ve written this term and polishing that as much as possible. Many of the students are still working on them, but we have gone through many strategies that can enhance our writing, such as adding adverbs and dialogue.

We have been trying to put a little more detail into our writing pieces and we have also been proofreading aloud to see if we had made any mistakes. Both of these narratives will be included in class anthologies that we are putting together.

Mathematics by Andy

During the past few weeks in Maths, we have been finishing off looking at place value where we have explored into decimals. We have then moved into measurement and have been working on how to calculate area and perimeter more accurately.

We recently had to calculate the length from MPS to various different locations, some of which were not even in Australia! We have also been measuring regular and irregular shapes and discussing in groups our own strategies for doing this.

The Island Abby, Archer & Lochy

In the Island project, we have been creating our own native flora and fauna. A couple of weeks ago we did the bird beak experiment, which was all about Charles Darwin’s observations in the Galapagos Islands and taught us about adaption.

We then used that knowledge to create our own plants and animals, with a couple of adaptations. These could be physical, meaning on the outside, behavioural which are when an animal’s or plant's behavior, or natural instinct evolves, and finally, physiological which is an internal body process to maintain or to survive in the environment where they live.

The plants and animals were all amazing and we shall soon vote upon the national emblems of the flora and fauna to represent our island, Cennet.

We have also been finishing other project work, such as collating data from the bird beak experiment, completing songlines, maps, our historical timelines and our Cennet historical story.

Finally, we have voted on the official map of Cennet. Congratulations to Evie who designed the winning map and which we will be building out of paper mache next term.

Wellbeing by Rosie, Elvira & Dilara

This term we’ve been doing wellbeing activities to loosen the mind, be less anxious, to feel more relaxed and to be in control of our emotions.

Sometime during the week, the classes go downstairs into the performing arts room where yoga mats are placed on the ground and all the different year levels do mindfulness activities.

Bessi the instructor taught how to become more relaxed and she even taught us three warrior poses.

Nearing to the end, Bessi would play us calming music, and tell us to imagine an ocean and try to match the ocean to how feel. It has been really great to experience and we’ve all enjoyed it a lot.