Dear Parents, Carers and Community Members,
It has been another busy and productive fortnight here at Macarthur Street. With only a handful of weeks remaining in Term 1, it is hard to believe that we are already approaching the end of the first quarter of the school year. The term has been filled with learning, events and opportunities for our students, and it has been wonderful to see the enthusiasm and effort across the school community.
This week in Foundation we have been completing some fantastic work across all learning areas! Students have begun unit 2 of ‘Sounds Write’ and have been demonstrating their learning of writing letters and sounds in our writing lessons where they are writing the ‘who’ of a sentence.
In Reading we have been reading a story ‘Come on Daisy!’ – which links to our knowledge unit on safety. Students made a daisy duck, using their handprint and practiced retelling the story.
Lots of learning this fortnight in the Grade One classroom!
In Knowledge, we have shifted our focus to safety, with a particular emphasis on staying safe in the classroom and around our school. Students have been actively brainstorming and discussing important safety rules, showing great understanding of how to keep themselves and others safe in different situations.
In Sounds-Write, we have successfully completed our Initial Code review—a fantastic achievement! We have now begun our Extended Code instruction, starting with the different spellings of the /ae/ sound (as in train, play, great, cake). Students have developed a strong understanding of this concept and have really embraced the challenge of learning that one sound can be represented in multiple ways.
In Mathematics, we are continuing to build our understanding of two-digit numbers, focusing on place value and number knowledge. We have also begun exploring the Gregorian calendar, helping students understand days, weeks, and months, and how we organise time in our everyday lives.
The Grade 2's this last fortnight have been showing great progress in their Wounds-Write lessons. Students were learning about the sound <l> as in words; medal, petrol, lips, nail and jungle. They know there are several different ways you can spell the sound <l>.
In class students completed a seek the sound activity where they read a text called 'Living the High Life' and identified all the different <l> sounds in the text. They are beginning to apply this knowledge to some of their writing, as well as being able to identify new <l> sounds in their fluency texts or class read-alouds. Fantastic work Grade 2's!
In the 3/4 room, the writing focus has been based around information reports. A part of this has been doing some short-and-sweet sentence work to hone our skills and develop our writing proficiency. An example of what we have done has been using a statement (a sentence that tells us information) and adding a transition sentence to it (adding more information). This way, we enhance the level of our writing.
Here are some examples of our work:
Trinity: Polar bears have thick fur. As a result, it protects them from the freezing cold temperatures in the Arctic.
Astrid: Ants can’t communicate with noise. Therefore, they communicate with their antennae.
Tom: Sharks have sharp teeth. Therefore, they can eat a human.
Charlotte: Some people believe the moon is made out of cheese. As a result, they tell their children and then the children believe it!
Over the last fortnight in Knowledge, we have been learning about the suffragette movement and women’s rights to vote. This topic sits beautifully alongside our class novel Princess Sophia Duleep Singh.
We learnt that women did not have the right to vote until 1902 and that South Australia was the first Australian state that allowed women to vote. This conversation has sparked some great discussions amongst students.
Happy Birthday to all students celebrating their birthday in the coming week or during the school holidays!
