Welcome to Week 4.

In English,  we learnt the ‘ue’ sound like in glue and the ‘ew’ sound like in grew. We also practised editing our writing and creating a final recount about a familiar class event, with 1EJ and 1IA writing about their own Assembly.

In Maths, we continued exploring the concept of mass. Students discovered that bigger objects aren’t always heavier and enjoyed hands-on activities such as hefting, using balance scales, and comparing the weights of different items. We also began exploring capacity, learning how we can measure containers by how much they hold through fun, practical investigations.

Last week in Technologies, we designed a boat for the Gingerbread Man to cross the river, drawing and labelling the materials we would need. This week we made our boats according to our designs. Next week, we will test them to see if they will float for one minute and hold the Gingerbread Man safely.

In Health, we learnt about protective behaviours and how to keep ourselves and others safe. We talked about what safe touch is, what not safe touch is, and why it is important to respect others, then drew pictures to show each scenario and shared our ideas about how to speak up and tell a trusted adult.

In Science, we continued our learning about living things, focusing especially on animals. We visited Mudla, the fish farm, and the billabongs, and had a special talk from Mr McCarthy, who cares for the animals at our school. We got to touch, see, and listen to important information about these animals, helping us understand how they live and how to look after them.

Welcome to Term 3. We hope that you had a safe and joyous holiday break.

In Literacy, we are learning about the “bossy e” (also known as the “magic e”). This special letter sits silently at the end of a word but changes the vowel before it, making it say its name. For example, in the word cake, the “e” makes the “a” say “ay.” This is a fun way for students to learn how spelling patterns can change the sound of words.

This week in writing, we are exploring recounts. Students are learning what a recount is and how it is structured. They will listen to a personal recount shared by the teacher and read an example text together in class. We’re focusing on identifying the parts of a recount — the beginning (when, who, where), the middle (what happened), and the end (how they felt). Students completed a fun “Sort and Match” activity to practise recognising these parts. This helps build their understanding before they begin writing their own recounts in coming weeks.

In Numeracy, We have been learning to identify repeated patterns and describe how they are structured by finding the unit of repeat, recognizing the pattern, and counting how many elements are in each repeating unit. We also talked about how patterns are everywhere—can you find any patterns in your home?

This week in Religion, we explored the idea of belonging, especially in the context of the sacrament of Baptism, where the Church community welcomes new members.

Students are learning what it means to belong and identifying different groups they are part of, such as their family, class, school, and faith community.

The children also created a web of belonging, placing their name in the middle and drawing or writing the groups they belong to. This activity helped them understand that we are all part of something bigger, where everyone is welcomed, valued, and loved.

In Technologies, students are learning to communicate ideas through drawing. They designed their own cubby house by drawing a bird’s eye view (from above) and a front on view, using an A4 sheet to bring their ideas to life!

In Science, we are learning to identify different animal habitats and match animals to where they live by thinking about what animals and plants need to survive. We learnt that animals need five things to survive: food, water, shelter, air, and space.

In Health, We are learning to identify and explore ways to build respectful relationships by understanding personal space. We looked at pictures to decide if they showed personal space or not, and we talked about why it’s important to respect other people’s space.

In HASS,  we are learning to name natural, managed, and constructed places. A natural place is formed by nature (like the ocean), a managed place is cared for by people (like our school oval), and a constructed place is built by people (like a school or a bridge).

Congratulations to Sonny for reading 50 nights!

Welcome to the last week of Term 2.

OUR ASSEMBLY

Congratulations to Jason for 100 nights of reading!

In English, we reviewed the vowel digraphs ay, ai, ee, and ea, and introduced the new sounds ow and oa, along with learning about homophones—words that sound the same but have different meanings and spellings.

In Writers Workshop, the children had a few lessons to finish off their information books about their chosen animals. It was fantastic to see so many experimenting with features like diagrams, fact boxes, and glossaries.

In Maths, We explored the concept of equal sharing and learned that when our groups are equal, it means each group has the same amount. The children enjoyed using concrete materials to practice sharing into equal groups.

In Religion, we listened to the Gospel Story of Jessus and Zacchaeus. We thought about a time when we did something wrong, but learnt a lesson and knew what we needed to do to fix it. The students illustrated this moment and wrote sentences to explain it.

In Technologies, we focused on generating and communicating ideas through drawing. The children chose objects from around the classroom and worked on drawing both a front-on view and a bird’s eye view.

SANFL Clinic

Wishing you all a safe and happy holiday! We look forward to seeing the children in 2 weeks 🙂

Welcome to Week 9!

Just a reminder the both 1EJ and 1IA will be hosting Assembly next week in Week 10. Families are invited to attend.

In English, we explored verbs while focusing on the ‘ee’ sound (as in tree) and the ‘ea’ sound (as in leaf). We also continued developing our skills in writing information texts, building on what we have already learned.

Congratulations to Oliver for 50 nights of reading! 

In Maths, This week, we wrapped up our subtraction learning with revision, focusing on taught strategies and solving worded problems. We then began exploring a new topic—equal sharing—where we learned that “equal” means the same and practiced sharing objects fairly while explaining our reasoning.

In Religion, we listed to the Gospel story of ‘The Good Shepherd’ and related it back to our own lives. The children spoke about ways we can care for others, share our toys, speak kindly using gentle words and help to tidy up so everyone feels safe and welcome.

SANFL Clinic

Assembly Preparation

In Health, Students explored the meaning of trust and discussed how it plays a role in building respectful relationships. They shared examples of how they demonstrate trustworthiness in their daily lives at school and at home.

In Art, we’ve been exploring how colour is created by light and how different colours reflect off objects into our eyes. We also learned about the colour wheel and discovered the difference between primary and secondary colours.

Just a reminder that NEXT FRIDAY (4th of July) is our double class Assembly. The Assembly will begin at 2:10pm in the Hall.

All are welcome 🙂

Welcome to Week 6!

In English, we are practising reading and spelling CVCC and CCVC words and adding ‘s’ at the end of words to make plural words. We are also applying our phonics knowledge to accurately read words in isolation and in sentences using decodable texts.

We have continued working on our information books, specifically looking at how our animal moves. Furthermore, we practised writing a short narrative based on a picture of a family having a picnic with a woman in the background trying to control her three dogs. Do the dogs attack the family or does the girl control her dogs? There are so many possibilities!

In Maths, students have continued using a variety of strategies to solve addition problems. This week, they also learned how to apply these strategies to solve worded problems involving addition.

In Religion, we listened to a Gospel story of ‘Jesus Feeding the 5000’. One day, lots and lots of people came to listen to Jesus. They wanted to hear him talk and learn more about God. There were more than 5,000 people — that’s a huge crowd. But there was a problem… The people were hungry, and there wasn’t much food. A boy had five loaves of bread and two fish. That’s not enough for everyone! But Jesus took the little food, said a prayer, and shared it. The children thought about how they too have shared before and wrote a sentence and illustrated this in their learning journals.

In Technologies, students have been exploring how to generate and communicate ideas through hands-on making. This week, they designed and created their own snowmen, incorporating elements of a bird’s eye view into their designs.

In Science, we are learning how plants drink water to understand how it moves through the stem. Students made predictions, observed an experiment, and explained how the water travels through the plant. We also observed the growth of our own plants and wrote sentences about the changes we noticed. Many of our plants are now beginning to sprout and grow into seedlings.

In Health, we listened to the story ‘Don’t be a Bully!’ and we discussed what we think would be the best actions for someone to take to stop someone bullying them and others.

In Hass, we discussed how transport is different now compared to the past and the students showed the changes in transport through their drawings and writing.

In Health, students have been learning to understand what bullying is and how to respond safely. They are exploring protective behaviours and recording ways to help themselves or others who may be experiencing bullying.

In Arts, we revisited our geometric and organic shapes and used our imaginations to create a shape creature using different shapes – AMAZING!

AFL Clinic for Year 1 Students

Over the next four weeks, our Year 1 students will be participating in a free AFL clinic held at school on Wednesday mornings. We kindly ask that students wear their PE uniforms on these days for comfort and ease of movement.

As an added bonus, if you scan the QR code below, your child will receive a free football at the end of the four-week program!

Have a wonderful long weekend! We will see the students back on Tuesday the 10th of June. 

Welcome to Term 2. We hope that you all had a relaxing and joyful holiday break.

In English, we are revising the ‘ch’, ‘v’, ‘x’ and ‘y’ sounds and using these letters to read and spell words. We also looked at the sound/w/; linking to letters ‘wh’ and /th/; linking to letter ‘th’.

Our writing genre this term will be on information texts. The children will explore different information texts, its structure and the differences between story books (narratives) and information books.

Our home learning this week will include a tricky word list, a reading passage for children to practise their decoding and fluency together with a writing frame. The children are asked to look at the picture and write as much as they can about it, using correct sentence structure and punctuation. If you child cannot spell a word, they are asked to sound it out and have a go.

Congratulations to Oliver for reading 25 nights!

Last term in Numeracy, the students learnt how to skip count by 5s and 10s. This term we are exploring how to skip count by 2’s. The students explored when and why they would use skip counting, what a pair is, things that come in pairs and engaged in a variety of activities to practice their skip counting.

In Technology, the students were introduced to the design process by creating their own emoji mask. They draw their emoji mask design and labelled it with a list of materials needed to create it. Their masks will be created next week.

In HASS, we revisited the words past, present and future. We also asked the students if they know where their parents, grandparents, or other elderly family members were born and raised. We discussed how their experiences growing up might be very different to ours. The students developed two questions to ask their grandparent/parent about life growing up. They have stuck this sheet in their home learning books (or placed in their bag if they didn’t have their library bags) to complete at home. Please assist your child with this.

In Health, we discussed ‘what a relationship’ is and the many connections we have with other people. Furthermore, we looked at ‘what a family is’ and how the concept of family is so diverse. We watched a video, ‘My family, your family, our families’ and as a class brainstormed different types of relationships that were viewed in the story. The students then created a mind map specifically about themselves; identifying people in their lives who they have a relationship with.

In science, We started a new topic looking at the needs of living things. This week we discussed the 5 needs of plants being- light, air, nutrients, space and water. The children wrote the needs in each petal and then constructed their flower.

Have a wonderful weekend!

We are looking forward to another week full of learning, beginning Monday.

Welcome to Week 10. What a fun-filled week we have had.

This week the children thoroughly enjoyed participating in Market Day held by the Year 5’s and 6’s.

In English, we revisited the sounds /z/ linking to letters ‘z’ and ‘zz’, /ch/, linking to letter ‘ch’ and revision of ‘sh’, ‘qu’, ‘ee’, ‘z’ and ‘zz’. The children have been practising their blending and segmenting of sounds for reading and writing. We have also introduced new tricky words this weeks; no, as, so, ball, call, this, then.

In Numeracy,

In Religion, we discussed the liturgical seasons which reflect the life of Jesus. We watched the story of Palm Sunday, Holy Thursday and Good Friday. The children drew and wrote sentences about the different days together with linking the stories to their own life.

In Science, we have been continuing to look at weather. This week the students began creating their own ‘Weather Report Booklet’. They were asked to describe the weather, draw it as a symbol, as a sentence and color in the clothes that would be best depending on the weather outside.

Congratulations to Chimobi and Jason for reading 25 nights!

Welcome to Week 9!

In Literacy, we looked at the /kw/ sound linking to ‘qu’ and the /e/ sound linking to ‘ee’. We practised blending and segmenting sounds to form words with these sounds and used our knowledge to read passages of text to consolidate our learning.

In Small Group Learning, we are engaging in a shared reading task using our knowledge of our focus sounds /kw/ (qu) and /e/ (ee).

In Bookmaking, we looked at what a ‘blurb’ is and attempted to add one to our own storybook. There are a lot of Authors and Illustrators in the making!

In Numeracy, the children practised counting in larger collections of 10 and practised the concept of skip counting by 10 from a different number, eg. 3, 13, 23 etc.

In Technology, we shared some of our favourite cultural foods that we eat at home. The children drew a picture of their favourite cultural food and drew the Country’s flag next to it.

In Health, we listened to the story ‘Hattie and the Fox’ and discussed the early warning signs that Hattie would have felt ie. her body messages, her feelings and the clues around her. The children drew a picture of Hattie and wrote words about how she was feeling and what she was scared of.

In Science, we discussed the wind, how it moves and its effects on objects. The children made their own pinwheels to observe the changes in the wind.

Welcome to Week 8.

In Literacy, we reviewed ‘w’ and ‘ck’ from last week and introduced double consonants ‘ll’, ‘ss’ and ‘ff’ and the digraph ‘sh’. We practised reading and spelling words and engaged in writing and text reading tasks.

 In Storybook lessons, we listened to Edwina the Emu, visualised the story in our minds, learnt new vocabulary words like announced, required, and perfect, and practiced summarising the story in our own words.

In Bookmaking, we worked on the climax of our story writing; showing how our character/s fix the problem. We are also exploring how stories have a happy ending, and how the character lives have changed at the end of the story.

In Numeracy, the students completed an assessment to show us all the things they have learnt about place value. We then began a new topic all about skip counting. We have been learning how to skip count by 10s to 120 and beyond. Have a look at the various activities we completed to support our new learning. You may also like to practice this song at home…

In Religion, we watched a video of a family who is less fortunate than us. We discussed the differences between that family and our family life and prompted discussion around being grateful. The children reflected on things in their life that they are grateful for and illustrated and wrote about this in their learning journals.

In Technology, we continued to explore how plants and animals are grown for food. This week, we looked at traditional foods that Indigenous people source and eat. The children identified the different foods, drew them and labelled them by name.

In Health, we discussed a range of possible safe/unsafe places at home and in the community eg. at home, while shopping, at school and whilst playing.

In Science we explored how shadows are made by the sun.

Harmony Day

Whole school dance party, bracelet making, cultural dress and a special orange lunch!

Welcome to Week 7!

In Literacy this week we have been reviewing previously learnt letter names, sounds and tricky words. We focussed particularly on the sounds ‘w’ and ‘ck’; reading , spelling words and writing. The children are also working in small groups to consolidate whole group time learning concepts ie. making words with letter tiles, reading text passages and writing sentences.

Here are some children independently reading their borrowed library books during morning reading time. Thank you to parents who are listening to their child read every night and filling in the children’s yellow reading diary.

In Numeracy, we have been further exploring how two-digit numbers can be broken down into tens and ones. The students have been deepening their understanding of what it means when a number has 2 tens and 3 ones, and they have practiced writing these numbers in expanded form, for example, 20 + 3 = 23.

In Technology, we viewed some of the food options available in our School Canteen. We identified ‘sometimes’ foods and ‘everyday’ foods that can be bought. Students also thought about other foods that they would like to see in the canteen that aren’t in there already.

In Health, we explored various feelings and emotions. The children practiced describing different emotions based on physical appearance and body language, and then sorted images into four common emotional categories.

In Health, we looked at ways to self-regulate our bodies when feeling angry and we created our own safety plan including; triggers and warning signs, people who children can ask for help, safe places to go to when feeling overwhelmed and different strategies to assist self-regulating our bodies to get back to our happy place.

In HASS, we explored the concept of families. We discussed how all families look different and listened to a story about an Aboriginal boy called ‘Tom Tom”. Tom Tom’s family had similarities and differences to many of our families which we enjoyed exploring. Have a look at who lives in our homes.

Harmony Day- Week 8 (Next Week)

Harmony Day celebrations will be held in Week 8 of this term. Harmony Day is a day to celebrate Australia’s diversity. It is a week of cultural respect for everyone who calls Australia home. The ongoing theme of Harmony Day is “everyone belongs”.

By participating in Harmony Day activities, we can learn and understand how all Australians equally belong to this nation and enrich it. At Holy Family children will be involved in activities leading up to and on Harmony Day. These include the opportunity for children to be involved in lunch time activities such as making Harmony Day craft and dances.

On Friday 21 March students are encouraged to wear traditional cultural clothing, orange or school uniform. Students will also be able to order a special Harmony Day lunch of 6 chicken nuggets or 6 plant based nuggets, orange donut and an orange juice through the canteen. The meal deal is $9.  Children can also order a donut for $4. The normal canteen menu for lunch orders will NOT be available on Harmony Day however the canteen will still be open at Recess. You can place orders at the canteen (eftpos available or cash), via QKR! App or in the front office.