Our time in RSA and RKS is coming to a close and I want to take the opportunity to wish everyone a safe and happy festive season.

It was a big first semester for our Reception students; learning the ropes of school, finding new friendships and navigating all the new experiences at Holy Family. It has been a pleasure to watch the children grow and learn. I look forward to seeing the amazing things that all the students get up to next year as they continue their Reception journey.

Thank you parents & carers for your help and support. It is the partnership that’s formed between us all that help the children and our school thrive!

Best Wishes,
Mrs Sharman 🙂

Hello Everyone and welcome to Week 8! We started the day with a very festive Visual Timetable to begin the countdown til the end of term and Christmas! Here is our calendar for December.

We began the day by practising our two carols songs… Light a Candle for Peace and Go Santa Go. Here is the link to Go Santa Go if anyone wants to practise at home!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwSJA3FPXe0

Then we began our Christmas investigations. From advent wreaths to reindeer ears we really go into the Christmas spirit today! After recess today we shared the book ‘Letter to Santa’. This inspired us to write our very own letters to Santa; drawing and recording all the things that we would like for Christmas. After lunch we shared in some mindfulness time; some students even decorated some Christmas baubles. Then we got to choose whether we would have indoor or outdoor play investigations to end the day.

A very Christmasy day and feeling very festive as we draw closer to the end of term.

Mrs Sharman 🙂

Good Afternoon everyone, hope you all had a lovely day enjoying the sunshine. The students noticed that our November calendar ends today and were excited to learn that tomorrow will begin a new month DECEMBER and a new season SUMMER! After completing organisation we began our literacy investigations with the following activities. Some safe and sensible collaborations for body letters too!

Then it was time for maths where we continued counting collections. Our job was to sort, name and count our collections. Well done team!

After recess Mr S took each class for carols rehearsal while Mrs Sharman took each class for our toy inquiry. Today we discussed different forces such as push, pull, spin and roll. We looked specifically at toys that roll and then had a go at making our very own toy… a marble track.

Some amazing design skills at play today and some students started to consider rules and a point system to go along with their marble track toy. Awesome creativity team!

The day ended with some much needed relaxation and indoor / outdoor play.

Keep up the creativity, team work and listening skills!

See you next week,

Mrs Sharman 🙂

*With just a couple of weeks left of school we will begin to send home some books. Today we sent home the students’ Art Journals. They’ll be able to use them at home for drawing (if there’s any room left).

The following note will be going home with all RSA and RKS students tomorrow that outlines our exciting incursion this Friday.

Hello everyone and welcome to week 7! We hope you all enjoyed your weekend and played in the glorious sunshine! This was our learning line up for today…

After our morning organisation we began play based investigations. Laptops were a favourite today and lots of children explored the program ‘Targeting Maths’ practising their number skills. Following this we practised our oral language skills. Using photo prompts our brave speakers explained what activities they participated in during play… an oral recount. This practise enables students to become familiar with the structure of a recount and the language that accompanies them such as first, then, next, after that and finally.

Up next was letter and sound practise, today our letter was Qq. This tricky letter was tackled head on by our courageous writers, with so many great examples to be shared. Then we read our text for this week ‘Ten Little Dinosaurs’ by Mike Brownlow and Simon Rickerty. Here it is if you’d like to read along at home.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7gNfVcelPE

Number books are so fun to read, they are full of problem solving and the predictability of number sequencing. Mrs Sharman showed how we could write our very own number book inspired by the authors of ‘Ten Little Dinosaurs’. Some of us tried our own while others continued on with their lift the flap books from last week.

After lunch RKS marched off to the library whilst RSA quitened our bodies and minds with reading, drawing and relaxation. Finally, our day ended with an option of indoor and outdoor play. A busy day in RSA and RKS.

See you tomorrow,

Mrs Sharman

*Reminder: There have been some nasty coughs and colds going around the classroom. A gentle reminder if your child is unwell please keep them home. Thank you 🙂

Welcome to Week 6, only a month left of school before the Christmas holidays begin. Wow the term is flying by fast.

This morning we began the day with investigations. To highlight our shared reading text this week ‘Dear Zoo’ the students had the opportunity to create animal masks and were given zoo tickets to immerse themselves in imaginative play.

Our resident zoo keepers Miraaya and Beau made sure all the animals were well fed and all the visitors had their zoo tickets. It was wonderful to see the students taking on different roles in the zoo and interacting in new and exciting ways to promote positive relationships, creativity and oral language.

After recess we practised our next letter ‘Vv’ brought to you by Vicky Violet. Vicky Violet lives in a valley with her very big, very valuable vase full of violets. Alliteration is a helpful way for children to hear and notice the beginning sounds in words. Alliteration is the occurrence of the same letter sound at the beginning of closely connected words. Helping children notice when words sound the same at the beginning — i.e. man and moon — directs their attention to the distinct sounds our language makes. Playing with alliteration helps develop learners’ awareness of similar sounds, and begin to understand individual phonemes of the English language.

For Writer’s Workshop we took a closer look at our shared text ‘Dear Zoo’ by Rod Campbell. We noticed a cool feature to the text were the liftable flaps that have the animal hidden underneath. We were eager to try this in our own books. Here is some of our lovely work.

In the afternoon we enjoyed some mindfulness time before continuing play based investigations. Many were eager to continue our imaginative zoo play.

A lovely start to the week. See you all tomorrow.

Mrs Sharman

Today our day began with Literacy Investigations where we explored letters, sounds and words in various ways. Many students also recorded some of their learning in their literacy journals.

Following a fitness break we switched our brains to mathematical thinking. We were reminded of our maths language of more and less before beginning to count a collection of pop sticks with a partner. Our job was to firstly sort, then classify the groupings with a name (colour) and finally count how many in each groups. Some groups were even able to order the groups from most to least.

Here is a fun game to practise the idea of more and less

https://pbskids.org/curiousgeorge/busyday/bugs/

After recess Mr S took the students for dance and drama whilst Mrs Sharman began our Toy Inquiry. We began by looking at different pictures of toys and thinking about whether they are from the past or the present. We sorted our pictures and discussed what materials we thought they were made from. Then we recorded our favourite toys in our learning journals and thought about how they work.

Following lunch it was mindfulness time and then a choice of indoor and outdoor play. Some great thinking and creativity shown today. Keep up the great work for the rest of the week.

Mrs Sharman 🙂

Hello everyone and welcome to week 5. There was a lot of discussion about the stormy weather over the weekend; discussing power outages and lightning flashes. The students were eager to add our weather symbols to our November calendar. Then it was on to play based investigations. Lots of students were interested in dominoes this morning attempting to make a long chain reaction.

Following recess it was time to learn our new letter brought to you by ZigZag Zebra. You guessed it we learned the letter ‘z’. After practising our handwriting we read our new shared reading text ‘Where is the Green Sheep’ and then had a go at writing our own books inspired by the text. Students are now beginning to add words and sentences to their books which is very exciting. A lot of brave writers today.

Then it was time to relax after lunch with mindful reading, drawing and colouring. We practised our Maths Mini songs and enjoyed some indoor / outdoor play.

Welcome to wonderful Wednesday. Another busy day in RSA and RKS! We began the day by checking the weather. Our weather watchers Ekam and Matilda noticed it was sunny but with some clouds too. Here is what our November weather calendar is looking like…

We noticed there have been THREE partly cloudy days so far this month. After practising our letter sounds through song, it was then on to Literacy Investigations. Here were the activities for today…

It was lovely to see groups supporting each other when they got stuck sounding out a word and the enjoyment of creating their names with matchsticks in play dough. Supporting students with writing their names through different mediums is an exciting way to develop pencil grip and letter formation. Here we are at work…

After a Fitness break it was on to Maths Mini where we are exploring the mathematical vocabulary of more, most, same, equal, less and least. The students had to sort coloured paper into groups and work out which group had the most and which group had the least. Some students then counted and recorded their findings.

After recess Mrs Iolanda took the students for our Weather Inquiry. The students shared some of their new knowledge and Mrs Iolanda scribed their findings into their learning journals.

Meanwhile, Mrs Sharman took the students for Dance and Drama. We practised the dance ‘Jump, Jump Star’ and performed different stories such as ‘The Three Billygoats Gruff’ and ‘The Gingerbread Man’. You may like to practise the actions to ‘The Gingerbread Man’ at home.

After lunch we needed to quieten our bodies and minds with mindfulness. We were able to choose quiet read, drawing and relaxation. Then we finished the day with play based investigations and outdoor play to let our creativity and imaginations run free.

What a wonderful Wednesday! See you next week.

Mrs Sharman

Welcome to Week 4 everyone, we hope you had a lovely weekend enjoying the beautiful sunshine.

Today began with talking about our feelings and that it is ok to feel different ways. We also referred to the 5 point scale and talked about ‘Counting Slowly from Ten to One’ as a strategy to help us down from a three.

Then it was on to play based investigations. With kite making, emotion dolls, role playing, weather watching and box construction all on offer.

After recess it was time to explore our new letter… Bb. Our handwriting and pencil grip is steadily improving in class and the effort students are putting into their work has been amazing today!

Our shared reading text was up next ‘Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See’. Today we planted a seed for writer’s workshop to see if anyone would be brave enough to create their own Brown Bear story; having a go at recording their own colours and animals by using their imagination and helpful charts.

After lunch RKS ventured to library while RSA enjoyed mindfulness time. Then it was off to log park for creative play, using the dress ups as a tool to deepen play and enrich language communication.

*Pretend play (also known as dramatic play or role play) is critical for developing oral language. Researchers discovered that children engaged in pretend play often use higher forms of language than they would use in normal situations.

In addition, children learn emergent literacy skills during pretend play, specifically learning about the different situations in which reading and writing may be needed. For instance, during pretend doctor play, kids learn that in order to make the patient feel better they must be able to determine what is causing the pain – reading a patient’s chart will help in that regard. Eventually this type of reading gives children authentic motivation to learn reading and writing for age-appropriate purposes. It will be a lot more relevant to write the sign “OPEN” if they pretend they are in a grocery store than if they are asked to write the same word without the context of grocery store. The elements of “fun” and “meaning” are important to unfold the intrinsic learning motivation of children.

* Excerpt from Han, M., Moore, N., Vukelich, C., & Buell, M. (2010) Does Play Make a Difference? and Howes, C., & Wishard, A. (2004). The Roots of reading

Another day full of investigation, wonder and inquiry. See you all tomorrow.

Mrs Sharman