Hola and welcome to our week 10 blog.

It is hard to believe we have almost finished our first term together!

This week was a busy one with lots of community events happening. This included  whole school Mass, Sports Day practice, Emergency Evacuation Drill and Parent Teacher Meetings.

We managed to squeeze in our curriculum alongside these events, and carried out some final assessment for Maths and English.

Some of the learning experiences this week included:

-Bookmaking: adding speech bubbles, consistent characters, ground lines and movement lines to our books

-Word detective activities on the letters L and U and the heart word ‘in’.

-rhyme time games

-reading workshop

-revisiting maths concepts: number formation and word sums.

-playful inquiry

-writing the sentence ‘The cat sat on the mat’ with the noticing that we knew the heart words and could sound out ‘cat’, ‘sat’ and ‘mat’.

Some Reminders

-Sports Day is next Wednesday. Please let me know by person or email  (Elle.baker@holyfamily.catholic.edu.au) If you are available to volunteer for the morning, it would be greatly appreciated!

PROGRAM

SPORTS DAY HOUSES

Nina Marni, Welcome to our week 9 Blog.

This week in English we:

-Engaged with word detective activities with a focus on the letters B and G

-focused on the heart word ‘on’

-added ground lines, speech bubbles and movement lines to our bookmaking

-familiarised ourselves with the poem ‘beehive’ and used this for shared reading

-engaged with reading workshop each day

-participated it CVC (blending sounds to make words) rotations.

In Maths we:

-began our new unit: position and location.

-We engaged with easter egg hunts where we used topic specific language to interpret and give instructions where eggs were located.

-we retold the story ‘Rosies Walk’ using language such as over, through, under, besides, around etc.

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In Religion we:

-joined Miss Cam’s class in the Stations on the Cross journey.

-engaged with a variety of texts about Holy Week and the sacrifices of Jesus.

-engaged with a variety of Easter craft activities, learning about the symbol of an easter egg.

In Health we:

-discussed ‘what is an emergency’ and represented our thinking through drawings.

REMINDERS:

-Our day begins at 8:50am, with our first group time happening at 9:00am. We appreciate your understanding in arriving at this time.

-library books must be returned for children to be able to borrow.

-Sports Day is in week 11 (Wednesday, 10th April)

Nina Marni,

welcome to our week 8 blog

This week in English we:

-continued to blend sounds together to make words

-engaged with word detective activities for the letters E and F

-Focussed on adding speech bubbles, characters and ground lines to our book making

-played with rhymes

-started our reading workshops

This week in maths we:

-went on a shape hunt

-drew regular shapes in sand

-engaged with shape rotations (making, drawing and matching shapes)

This week in science we:

-finished our science assessment which involved raking photos of habitats and sharing what our chosen animal needs to survive

In HASS we:

-made identity maps, showing our likes and what makes us unique

In Religion:

We were very excited to have another session with our Buddies. They helped us in making our Palm Sunday poster

As we returned from the long weekend we were very excited to see 2 butterflies had hatched in our enclosure. After observing them closely throughout the morning, we released them into our courtyard. We wondered where their first stop will be and thought that they may head to the billabongs for a drink.

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This week in English we:

-started our book making spotlight on illustrations. We focused on characterisation and how characters are usually featured on every page.

-engaged with word detective activities with a focus on the letters ‘O’ and ‘C’

-focused on our heart word ‘and’. We located this heart word in books, used it in sentences and practiced writing it.

-continued our practice of blending sounds to make words and found our magic letters (vowels) in these words.

In maths this week we:

-began our unit on shapes. We engaged with discussions and play activities where we learnt that shapes are closed, they can have curved or straight lines and have a certain number of sides.

In Science this week we:

-analysed our observations of the growth of plants and collected data by drawing our grass heads.

In Health this week we:

-discussed body signals and how they help us identify and work through our emotions.

This week was packed with learning new concepts and connecting through group games and rotations. We endured the heat (and less outdoor play time) with some extra yoga, dancing, visual arts and sensory provocations.

In English this week we:

-revised the letters we have been learning this term and wrote them in our books

-engaged with word detective activities for our letters of the week (O and G)

-learnt about vowels and how they are magic (in almost every English word)

-dove deeper into blending CVC (consonant, vowel, consonant) words

-deepened our philological awareness through rhyme matching and syllabification

-began the concept of heart words with a focus this week on the words ‘I’ ‘the’ and ‘they’. Heart words are very common words that can not be sounded out, therefore we learn them by ‘heart’

In Maths this week we:

-practiced our number writing

-explored the concept of subsitising and practiced this skill through dice games

-engaged with word problem activities.

In Science this week we:

-continued our investigations into the animal living beings group. We began analysing the MUDLA more deeply with a focus on comparing habitats and needs of specific living beings. We collected data through drawings of our selected animal..

In HASS this week we:

-acknowledged that we have a richly diverse community and explored google maps. We zoomed in on countries of interest to us and then applied our knowledge to world maps.

In Health this week we:

Discussed signs in our environment and how they are there to give us information and keep us safe. We then created our our own signs based on our observations.

In Visual Arts we:

-Discussed and observed how artist use colour, lines and shapes to influence their viewer. We engaged with various mediums (water paint and oil pastels to create our own warm and cool pictures.

In religion we:

– have been learning about the importance of the sacrament of prayer. The Sign of the Cross is a prayer with actions and words.

Doctrinal Insights from the Catholic Tradition that support this Enduring Understanding include:

• The Sign of the Cross is a prayer with actions and words. 
• The words remind us that God is called Father, Son and Holy Spirit. 
• The actions represent the symbol of the Cross, and that prayer involves our head, heart and body. 

Another amazing week shared together, filled with co-constructive learning, mindfulness and fun.

It has been so bucket filling to see children take ownership over our classroom and apply their agency as they source their own and pack away their learning resources.

In science this week we:

-continued to observe the growth of our grass heads and wondered together why they are taking so long. We decided that perhaps they need to be placed outside or may need some more seeds added.

-we are shifting our focus to the living beings animal category and what better way to dive into this concept that observing a caterpillar life cycle. This was one of the most engaging experiences of our week and many children shared their prior knowledge and predictions about the process.

We also visited the MUDLA with a focus on comparing habitats.

In english this week we:

-focused on the graphemes (name) and phonemes (sounds) of the letters I and N

We engaged with letter school, songs and word detective activities.

-engaged with bookmaking and focussed on editing our books and adding detail to illustrations

In maths this week we:

-continued to focus on number recognition and placement between 10-20

-learnt about and practiced counting on from numbers between 1-20

-engaged with new number games: snakes and ladders, bingo and teddy bear race

In Health and HASS we:

-discussed the concept of feeling safe and our thought more deeply about places where we feel safe.

In Religion we:

-Focussed on compassion and gratitude. We resprenseted our thinking through drawings of ways we can care for our world

In Visual Arts we:

-dove deeper into the concept of warm colours and how artists use them to influence the mood of their pieces. We  discussed the various ways that artists created depth and texture to their paintings and practiced these skills as we painted a sun.

This week we applied the knowledge and skills we have been learning to more challenging and abstract tasks. we continue to discuss the importance of giving things a go and stretching our brains and  It was bucket fillling to see children work with resilience and perisistence.

In English this week we:

-continued our bookmaking with the focus on ‘what makes a book finished?’ And the components of a front cover

-engaged with words detective tasks on the letters ‘I’ and ‘M’. This included  collaborative word search, brainstorms and catalogue spotting

-began blending some of the sounds we have learnt into words. (Such as sip, map, tap)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOiNSTsIvfA

In maths we

• created independent and collaborative number lines (1-20)
• Engaged with counting collections (1-20)
• Discussed the importance of counting in order (everyday contexts)
• Engaged in number games

In Hass we:

Explored the uniqueness and our names. We  constructed collaborative research of the history and origins of each of our names and created name tags.

In Health we:

Discussed what makes as special and unique and represent this through drawings

In technologies we

• collected data (photos) of numbers in our local environment. We noticed that lots of things have numbers which represent different things for diffeeent purposes.

In science we:

• had deeper discussions about what makes something living. Some key things discovered included: living beings can’t move on their own and they all grow.
• Collected data through drawings on the growth of our living beings. We noticed that they weren’t growing yet and decided they needed more sunlight.

In Religion we:

-discussed project compassion and thought about ways that we can help others in the world.

This week we were able to find the time and energy to dive deeper into some of our topics, highlighting our new sense of belonging and comfortability with routines and expectations.

In maths we:

-continued our focus on numbers 1-10. This involved creating number lines and represeting our counting and one-to-one correspondence

In English we:

-learnt about the letters and sounds A, T and P. This involved our word detectives activity, air writing, letter formation, word sorting and singing.

-focussed on rhyme through books such as ‘Piranhas Don’t Eat Bananas’ and ‘Room on the Broom’

-focussed on syllabification through clapping out our names

-focussed on adding Authors (names) on our front covers in book making. As well as sticking to a topic. What is Bookmaking

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1xmriwh2T8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rg4t5cUeZZo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ul4N3f-heFM

In Science we:

-Focussed on the plant group of living beings and made our own grass heads. We look forward to observing their growth over the coming weeks.

In technologies we:

-learnt how to use iPads safely and explored the different ways that we can use them to collect and represent data.

In Health we:

-Discussed our likes and dislikes, acknowledging that we all have a voice and say in our learning and interactions. We shared ideas through our drawings.

We look forwards to another week of learning and connecting next week.

Some information for week 4:

-The letters and sounds of the week will be I & N. You can encourage your child to find  things that start or have these sounds in them to share in our word detective activity.

-just a reminder that library bags can be kept at at home and returned each Monday or Tuesday morning.

Dear Families,

Library

Just a reminder that our library day is tomorrow. Please place library bag in our library box in the morning.

Students will be invited to borrow 3 readers and 2 picture books each week. It is in no way expected that children are able to read these books at this stage, however engaging with them is very helpful in laying foundations for successful readers.

Some helpful tips when reading at home:

• Enjoy reading with me- we are building a love of literature
• Give me lots of encouragement to engage with books
• Ask questions about the story line through looking at the illustrations (pictures). A big part of learning to read is learning to read through the picture.
• Check for understanding- ask me questions about the book when finished reading
• Explore the conventions of a book- reading front to back, components of a front cover (author, title, illustration).

Word Detectives

This week we are focussing on the letter and sound A and P. We have been very engaged in the activity ‘word detectives’.If you find the time and your child shows interest, please support them to find words that begin or have these sounds and letters (such as pot, lip, apple, tap). They will be invited to share throughout the week.

Thanks everyone,

Elle

Another amazing week has been shared together in REB, full of lots of learning, connecting and much needed moments of mindfulness.

There has been noticeable progress in each child’s sense of interdependence as they organise their belongings and participate in our daily rhythm. Thank you for your encouragement and support in preparing them for their day

Maths learning this week involved:

-Recognising and writing numerals

-counting and categorising collections

-counting games

-puzzles

-box construction

-play dough activity:  5 fat sausages

-number songs

English learning this week involved:

-book making

-exploring the letter and sound S

-mark making (water painting and drawing)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwupro4AVsY

Health

We continued discussions around feelings and how to overcome them. A part of of our daily routine is mindfulness (After lunch) where children have the opportunity to share a peaceful moment in our rather fast paced days. We decided together that the outdoors is one place that makes us feel happy and enjoyed an afternoon engaging in nature play.

Religion

We continued to focus on our uniqueness, fostering an appreciation for each other and an understanding that we are each valued.  Our family portraits are now displayed proudly in our room.

Science

The MUDLA provided a perfect learning space to observe and collect data about living beings. Discussion were held about what makes something living vs non-living and we represented our data through drawings.