Classroom News
Junior School News
It has been wonderful to welcome the junior students back this term and see them continue to show their independence by completing their morning jobs. We are settling back into the routines and expectations and lots of great learning is well underway.
In the term ahead in Maths, the P-2 students are exploring Addition, Subtraction and Time, and further developing our understanding of Place Value. There is a continued emphasis on “hands on” activities and students use concrete materials such as counters, blocks, teddies, cards, dice and dominos to support their problem solving. We have some new and exciting games to introduce and look forward to sharing them with our classes, who will then hopefully share them with you.
TOP READING TIP It’s okay to re-read the same book! Vocabulary, fluency, comprehension and confidence all improve when children re-read books. The more that children read, the larger their vocabulary becomes. When they are reading or hearing the same book multiple times, they become familiar and comfortable with a greater number of words. Repetitive reading allows them to read without stumbling or stopping, and reading time becomes more pleasant for everyone. Once a child masters one book, it makes moving on to another more appealing. Each time your child reads or hears a book read to them, they learn more about the story itself.
Middle School News
Middle School Students are currently, excitedly undertaking a unit of work titled ‘Into the Unknown’ where we are learning about explorers who changed the world, the concept of change, and important Australian symbols. Our kitchen garden program is incorporating many of the foods and spices that these early explorers brought back from their explorations, as a tangible and tasty way to reinforce the learning. We are going on a walking excursion through the township of Ballan on 12th May, to explore changes in our local area, noticing the historical buildings that remain and what they can teach us about our past.
Literacy:
In English we have been busy changing up our teaching and our program to align with the latest research into the Science of Reading. As well as a stronger focus on phonics and phonemic awareness, students are now being explicitly taught morphology (the smallest meaning-making elements of words including prefixes and suffixes), and grammar to aid in their creation of expertly crafted sentences using ambitious and technical vocabulary. Our overall writing goal is to learn to construct excellent paragraphs with topic sentence, supporting details and concluding sentence. We are exploring genres; informational and procedure texts, through our ‘Into the Unknown’ unit as well as through recipes for the kitchen garden program. Fluency remains a big focus when reading, especially for homework, but additionally, we are reinforcing comprehension strategies including identifying the main idea, summarising important information, locating directly and indirectly stated information, and making inferences (reading between the lines). As always, our homework program reinforces important learning undertaken in class (especially spelling and number facts) and most essentially, includes daily reading with comments in the reading diary to reflect students’ understanding and enjoyment.
Numeracy:
In Maths, we are embarking on multiplication now, having thoroughly explored addition and subtraction. We will now begin to practise and learn multiplication facts to build a strong foundation for future work on division and fractions. Students are engaged in daily reviews as part of their Maths classes where previous topics are revised on a daily basis to keep skills current, as well as games to practise their number facts in fun, engaging ways.
Senior School News
All students have settled back into their own classrooms exceptionally well after the break, and we are looking forward to a busy term ahead, with Buddies, Japanese Children’s Day, and Winter School Sports all happening this term! We are continuing to set high expectations and encourage students to complete their Reading Diary every night, and have their Homework completed by each Friday to a high standard. We are encouraging in the classroom that we are looking for quality over quantity and for students to explore topics that are of interest to them.
Literacy:
This term we have started with a focus on engaging with non-fiction texts. Our reading and writing lessons have included a variety of topics ranging from the Great Barrier Reef to Renewable Energy Sources. The question underpinning our learning is ‘why did the author write this?” with students invited to think critically on whether a text is designed to inform, persuade or entertain the reader. An additional priority this term is our fluency practise as we encourage students to bring meaning to their reading by demonstrating appropriate tone and expression. Families at home can support students by reading and talking about topics of interest.
Numeracy:
In numeracy we are starting on our new unit of Multiplication and Division. This unit can be a tricky one for students to grasp as prior knowledge in multiplication facts are sometimes not always easy to call upon. Ways that families can help support students in this unit is practising their times tables at home. We have also embarked on using some different assessment tools to help give us a bigger picture of what our students need. 3 way maths lessons throughout the Senior Team have started back up today and are scheduled for 3 times a week which gives students the opportunity to work with both different students and teachers that are outside of their everyday class.