Please find below each of our teaching team’s summary of what is happening across the school. Every class is certainly keeping busy with a strong focus on learning. We hope you find this overview informative and also provide you with an opportunity to discuss with your child/ren what is happening in their class.
Special Class
Umbrellaed by the story “Wombat Stew” by Marcia Vaugh and Pamela Lofts the students are looking at the story through the wombat’s eyes and identifying and naming feelings. Shared reading as a group is enabling the group to re-enact the story with puppets and props. Sequencing story cards as a group, supports the students’ reading comprehension and prediction strategies. It is exciting to see the students are reading the story and engaging in imaginative play beyond the formal lesson times. The students’ creative writing is scaffolded within the context of writing a recipe. Modelling the format of the recipe in Wombat Stew enables the students to identify the two main components, ‘ingredients’ and ‘method’, before embarking on the invention of their own recipe.
Reception
It was a memorable first day back to school following the lockdown as we celebrated 100 days at school. Staff and children dressed up as either a 100 year old or a child from 100 years ago. This term our cross curricular topic inquiry is Living and Growing. We will be growing our own beans, just like Jack in Jack and the Beanstalk and making information texts about animals. We are also hoping to visit Adelaide Zoo to learn more animal facts. Our current maths focus is measurement and we are investigating through hands on exploration activities.
Year 1
There has been a running joke in year 1 that the students must have spent their whole holidays practising as they returned to school with a high level of confidence and skill which was a pleasing start to the term as we celebrated 100 days of learning on July 28th. We are focussing on subtraction, repeated addition and sharing equally in Maths and in Literacy, extending phonics knowledge and persuasive writing techniques. Our HASS strand is Geography, looking at weather and seasons, with a curriculum connection to Earth Sciences. We are also looking forward to doing some nature weaving in Visual Art.
Year 2
In Maths the year 2s will be looking at repeated addition, arrays and multiplication, grouping equal sets and division. Students will also be looking to revise addition and subtraction concepts. For Literacy, in spelling, our focus will be digraphs, trigraphs, suffixes, syllables and tricky words. The class reading strategies we will look at are inferring, identifying the main idea and summarising. In writing we are exploring information and narrative texts.
Year 3
This term for literacy the year 3 students will be completing information reports on an Olympic Sport and also Australia (or a neighboring country). An oral presentation will also accompany these reports. In regards to spelling, students will be learning their specific spelling codes, and we will be investigating the reading comprehension strategies of inferencing and making predictions. This term in Mathematics, students will learn about the for operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division) as well as money and financial Maths. They will also continue to work on their problem-solving skills.
Year 4
In year 4 in literacy we will be covering factual reports using Seven Steps methodologies and we will focus on exploring MYON to build upon comprehension skills. In maths we will be focusing on fractions on number lines, equivalency and mixed numbers as well as introducing decimals. We will continue to work on problem solving. As part of our study of the First Fleet in HASS we hope to visit the Port Adelaide Maritime Museum.
Year 5
This term the year 5s will be continuing their studies of poetry in English and in Mathematics we will be switching from the concept of fractions to exploring decimals. Systems of Government will be our topic in HASS and animal adaptations will be covered in Science. As always we’ll be focussing on spelling, grammar and editing but guided reading will be a new focus for us this term.
Year 6
We are currently focusing on data and statistics in Mathematics, with a specific focus on understanding features of a graph and identifying what makes a good graph. This is also being supplemented by measurement topics, which was our focus during home learning. In English we are focusing on metalanguage in newspaper articles and the features of newspaper articles to develop our information writing. In HASS we have been learning about our natural wonders in Australia, such as the Uluru and the Great Barrier Reef.
Year 7
The recent lockdown really high-lighted the positive nature of having the daily work tasks on One Note. The students were able to access home learning and complete set work easily. We have started this term with a large project on the Tokyo Olympics. A power point will clearly show a full understanding of Tokyo, Japan and how the Olympics function. It will conclude with a summary of their understanding using a Bloom’s Taxonomy format. Maths concepts will cover money and percentages, English will explore motivational speaking and writing short narratives whilst in HASS and Geography will look at the topic of water.
Specialist Curriculum Areas
PE
In PE this term the primary classes are working on strategy within game types and the transfer of this to sports. They are looking at this in the context of Invasion, Striking and Fielding and Net and Wall. The Junior Primary classes have been working on movement challenges with physical problem solving where they need to work together to finish a challenge. We are going to move on to look at some Heritage games after this.
Science
Welcome to Science in term 3! The foundation classes and our R-2 class are learning about Physical science through exploring different things that move, including their own bodies and toys and beginning to understand the different forces that can be applied to them. Year 1 students are learning about light and sound. The topic provides opportunities for students to investigate sources of light and sound, how they are produced and how light and sound travel. Year 2 students are learning about mixtures. Students learn about substances that mix and don't mix well and others that are difficult to separate. Through hands on investigations, students explore how changing the quantities of substances in a mixture can alter its properties and uses. The year 3 students are going to be experimenting with Chemistry and expanding their knowledge on solid, liquids and gases by looking at how they can change the states of matter through heat. In Tracey’s 3/4 class, we are becoming Biologists and exploring living organisms, their life cycles, food chains and will be looking closer under the microscope at their features. We have welcomed Mr Johnston’s year 4 class this semester who will be exploring the properties and uses of different natural and processed materials through the Chemistry strand. The year 6 classes are also underway in the Science lab and will be spending this term experimenting with different materials and how some changes are reversible and irreversible. They will be exploring changes such as evaporation and solidification.
Technologies
The recent COVID-19 lockdown has provided students, parents/carers and teachers an opportunity to upskill their ICT capabilities. It was great to see students successfully submitting work online using the various platforms available. For Digital Technologies this term, students are learning about the various types of information systems available, the peripheral devices that connect to them, how data is transmitted and received, and how to be safe when using these systems. The foundation class are even getting their first taste at computer language, navigating their way through a fun coding program called Scratch Jnr.
Performing Arts
Reception - year 2
Our main focus in Performing Arts this term, will be Media Arts. Students will learn how to create stories using photos. Younger children will love building a basic narrative, whether it be silly or serious, by creating a photo story. It’s a great way to get imaginative. Step by step instructions will show them how to plan and make their story using photos, and then how to change the meaning of a story by rearranging the photo order.
Year 3 – 4
Our focus this term will be Media Arts. We will take a look at how magazine covers are designed to attract attention by using colour, fonts, words and images that appeal to their target audience. Over the term, students will learn how to plan and lay out their own magazine cover based on a topic of their choice.
Year 5 – 6
Our focus this term will be Media Arts. Specifically, a unit of work called, Shocko Doco. It introduces students to the concept of video interviewing. They will see the common mistakes that are made, and consider ways to fix them. Once they know the pitfalls to avoid, they can plan and shoot their own video interviews.
Year 7
Our focus this term will be Media Arts. Students will let people know about a topic or subject that they’re really passionate about by producing a podcast. This series of lessons provides helpful tips and tricks to help them produce a podcast and promote it to their target market.
