Grade Prep Curriculum Newsletter - Term 3 2023

This Term Newsletter will provide you with information about your child’s upcoming teaching and learning experiences in the new term. There is also plenty of additional information provided via Compass throughout the school year, so please make a point of touching base regularly.

General

Welcome back to Term 3! We hope you all had a restful and relaxing holiday and are ready to get back into another term of wonderful learning. We are now officially halfway through the year, and also halfway through Prep! Time is flying, but we still have lots of learning to focus on and events to celebrate, including making it to 100 Days of School! A special celebration day will be held to mark this occasion. We are so excited to build on the skills and knowledge students learnt in Semester 1 and continue to work alongside you in supporting your child during their first year of school.

KEY DATES:

Friday 28th July – 100 Days of School Celebration

Wednesday 23rd August – Book Week Parade (dress up as your favourite book character)

Wednesday 30th August – Curriculum Day for Parent Teacher Interviews (more details to follow later in the term)

Monday 4th September - Responsible Pet Ownership incursion (more details to follow later in the term)

Friday 15th September – LAST DAY of SCHOOL before holidays (early finish time- 2:30pm)

Home/School Partnership

Together, we have a vital partnership that supports your child to be the best they can be. By working together, learning from each other, and trusting each other, we can not only give your child their best start to school life, but their best start to their whole life.

It is vital that students continue to build their independence and self-management skills. This area of personal development is an essential life skill. By practising simple, everyday tasks themselves, students will understand how to set themselves up for life-long success. Teachers will be encouraging students to be independent in their learning and organisation, and we encourage you to also support your child in the following ways:

• having them take responsibility for their belongings, such as bringing their satchel, jumper and water bottle to school every day

• walking to and entering their classroom by themselves

• always carrying their own items, including their school bag

• correctly storing items, such as jumpers and lunchboxes when not in use

• knowing how to tie their shoelaces if wearing lace up shoes.

We are looking forward to meeting with you later in the term to discuss your child’s progress during our Parent Teacher Interviews. Of course, teachers are available to talk with you at any time during the term. We do ask that if you would like to talk with your child’s teacher, that this be arranged ahead of time by phone or email. Before and after school are busy times and teachers are not always available to meet. We kindly ask that all appointments are scheduled ahead of time, and that dates and times are adhered to. If you need to notify your child’s teacher of something after learning has commenced at 9am, please send them an email via Compass, or contact the school office who will pass along the message. If students forget an item and you drop it off at school after learning has begun, please go via the office rather than coming directly to the classroom.

Literacy

In Sounds Write, students will consolidate the code that was taught in Semester 1 and will only be introduced to a small amount of new code towards the end of Term 3. They will start to read and write longer words that use the varying word structures below:

• vcc words (vowel-consonant-consonant) e.g. ‘end’

• cvcc words (consonant-vowel-consonant-consonant) e.g. ‘sand’

• ccvc words (consonant-consonant-vowel-consonant) e.g. ‘trip’

• ccvcc (consonant-consonant-vowel-consonant-consonant) e.g. ‘swept’

• cccvc words (consonant-consonant-consonant-vowel-consonant) e.g. ‘scrub’

In Reading, students will continue to read decodable texts that align with their code knowledge. They will begin to stretch out the sounds in words, rather than saying the sounds independently, for example, ‘ffffff-lllll-iiiii-p’ rather than ‘f-l-i-p’. Once this blending skill is mastered, they will be encouraged to only stretch out the sounds that they may be stuck on, for example, ‘fl-iiiiiiii-p’. They will be encouraged to re-read portions of the text to improve fluency and phrasing. Students will also be exposed to reading comprehension – that is, thinking and talking about what is read. They will focus on visualising a ‘mental picture’ during reading, making connections between their own experiences and what they read, and inferring meaning based on the clues that the pictures and words offer. We will also be regularly exploring the features and purpose of nonfiction texts.

In Writing, Preps will improve their handwriting by learning how to place letters on dotted thirds. They will respond to simple given prompts by recording spellings that match the sounds they hear in words, and by using their knowledge of basic high frequency words. They will use their many senses to think of adjectives that describe nouns, making their writing more descriptive. Students will be introduced to simple conjunctions that are used to link two separate ideas in a sentence, for example, ‘but’, ‘and’ and ‘because’. They will continue to practise the skill of using full stops and capital letters to correctly form sentences that make sense.

Numeracy

In the area of Number, students will build on their current number knowledge by working more explicitly with the ‘teen’ numbers. The focus will be fluent counting, including being able to count forwards and backwards from any starting point, comparing and ordering collections using the language of ‘more,’ ‘less,’ ‘before’ and ‘after,’ recognising numbers when written as a numeral, and making collections using a base of 10. Using this number knowledge, students will begin exploring the concepts of subtraction as splitting a whole into parts. Students will also continue learning how to correctly form (write) numbers.

In the area of Measurement and Geometry, students will explore measuring time by comparing and ordering the length of different events and connecting the days of the week to familiar events. Students will also explore how to tell time to the hour on analogue and digital clocks. They will also explore the language of position and movement, understanding terms such as ‘under,’ ‘beside,’ and ‘in front of’.

Inquiry

Our Term 3 Inquiry focus is ‘The History of Me’. Students will be exploring their personal and family histories, the make-up of families, the celebrations that are important to them, and why families are a vital part of their life. Students will understand that whilst all families are different, similarities can be found between all types of families. This Inquiry unit will involve students developing different projects about themselves and their family, so please keep an eye on communication around this.

We will continue to focus on our Respectful Relationships and Play Is The Way social and emotional curriculum. This term, students will explore the topics of ‘Problem Solving’ and ‘Stress Management’. These Respectful Relationships topics will be connected to our Play Is The Way Life Rafts, with students gaining a complete understanding of how they have a range of strategies that will help them ‘Be Their Own Boss’ and make ‘Strong Choices,’ so that they can continually ‘Pursue Their Personal Best.’

Reminders

Home Reading: Students will continue to bring home a decodable book to read throughout the week, as well as a ‘sounds review’ page in their red folder. We encourage students to read their book each night to develop their reading accuracy and fluency, as well as continually revise the sounds and words they know by utilising the ‘sounds review’ pages. Students can also access their Decodable Readers Australia account (digital books). Log in details have been sent home in Term 2, so please speak to your child’s teacher if you have any questions about this.

TheirCare: Students who attend TheirCare either before or after school have begun walking themselves to and from their classrooms. The TheriCare educators send teachers a daily list of Prep students who are attending, and students are reminded to walk directly to TheirCare in the afternoon, or go directly to their classrooms in the morning.

Canteen and Food Sharing: We encourage Prep students to only bring a GOLD COIN to spend at the canteen for over-the-counter sales. Students are NOT permitted to buy food for other students, have other students purchase food for them, or share food of any kind.

Label Clothes and Belongings: Please ensure ALL items (jumpers, hats, lunch containers, water bottles, etc) are clearly labelled with your child’s name and grade. If these items are misplaced, they are easier to return if they are named. Any unnamed items will be taken to lost property.

Hats: From September 1st, our SunSmart policy is in force and students will need to wear their hats when playing outside at recess and lunch. Your child’s hat stays safely in their classroom so they can play outside during the warmer months. If your child requires a hat for TheirCare, we encourage them to keep a second hat in their bag for this purpose, so their school hat remains safely at school for use during the day.

Each year level team has provided their families with a detailed newsletter such as this. If you are interested in reading about all the exciting things happening across the rest of the school, these can be accessed online at our school website from early next week.

Grade One Curriculum Newsletter

Dear families,

This Term Newsletter will provide you with information about your child’s upcoming teaching and learning experiences in the new term. There is also plenty of additional information provided via Compass throughout the school year, so please make a point of touching base regularly.

Welcome to Term 3! We hope that you enjoyed the winter break and managed to get away for a short holiday or you simply enjoyed some family time at home. We are now past the halfway point in the year and our Grade One students are well and truly back into their learning, familiar with their routines and keen to put their best foot forward for Semester 2.

Reading
This term, students will continue to engage in daily phonics instruction. Having now reached the halfway point of the year, students are exploring how to read longer words. We will be exploring a range of new spellings such as -ed (boxed), -es (boxes) and -ing (boxing). In the latter parts of the term, students will be learning how to read words with more than one syllable (com-pu-ter), as well as reading compound words (starfish, raincoat).

Each day, students will continue practising their decoding skills by reading aloud to a partner during our ‘Fluency Pairs’. This involves one student reading whilst their partner follows along, providing assistance and feedback before each pair switches roles. Following this, students will independently engage with a daily decodable passage which reinforces the morning’s learning.

Upon completion of our phonics lessons, students turn their attention to our daily comprehension focus. This term students are learning to develop their predicting, questioning, inferring and retelling skills to help them gain a deeper understanding of the texts they read.


Writing
Students will be exploring how to write a range of text types, including recounts, poetry, informative texts and narratives. At the beginning of a writing lesson, teachers will often use a picture story book, visual prompt or video to hook and engage students. Students will be taught how to use an existing story and make it their own by changing the characters, setting or plot, or alternatively, writing their own conclusions to known stories. They will also have the opportunity to engage in independent writing sessions where they are able to choose topics which interest them.

Each day, students will also engage in explicit grammar mini lessons that focus on developing their ability to write correctly structured sentences. Already, students have learned how nouns, pronouns and verbs are used within a sentence. Later in the term we will also be exploring the difference between statements and questions, past tense and present tense words (walk vs walked), as well as expanding simple sentences by using commas or conjunctions. Throughout the term, students will also develop their handwriting skills through daily instruction and practise.


Maths
In Maths, students will be introduced to a number of new concepts as well as consolidating their knowledge of topics covered in the first two terms of the year. This term, students have already revisited ‘place value’, where they were required to use their knowledge of hundreds, tens and ones to build numbers using a range of materials. Students have also revisited our measuring unit, ‘length’.

This term, students will also develop their abilities to skip count by 2s, 5s and 10s, explore a range of addition, subtraction and division problems through real-world examples, practise reading analogue clocks to the half hour, explore elapsed time problems as well as learn about the concept of ‘chance.’

Inquiry
This term’s Inquiry focus is ‘Seasons and Weather’. Many hands-on and engaging lessons will provide students with the opportunity to learn about how weather can change throughout the day or the year. Students will be given the opportunity to identify features of weather within different seasons, observe weather patterns, discover how different locations experience different weather patterns, as well as the impact that extreme weather can have on the way we live and our environment.

Later this term, we will be visiting Science Works. Students will enjoy an immersive experience in the planetarium, joining ‘Tycho’ as he travels to Mars, and exploring the night sky. Students will also be treated to a hands-on experience in the Lightning Room, where they will discover how water, air and heat create lightning, rainbows, clouds and rain. The show will finish with a lightning demonstration using a two-million volt Tesla coil and a discussion of safety in lighting storms. If you would like any further information around this excursion, or would like to volunteer as a parent helper, please visit Compass.

Each year level team has provided their families with a detailed newsletter such as this. If you are interested in reading about all the exciting things happening across the rest of the school, these can be accessed online at our school website from early next week.

Grade Two Curriculum Newsletter Term Three 2023

This Term Newsletter will provide you with information about your child’s upcoming teaching and learning experiences in the new term. There is also plenty of additional information provided via Compass throughout the school year, so please make a point of touching base regularly.

General
WELCOME TO TERM THREE EVERYONE! We hope you had a wonderful and safe break over the holidays. This term we will be continuing to focus on the six ‘Life Raft’ ideals of our Play is the Way program. These include – ‘Be Brave - Participate to Progress’, ‘Have Reasons for the Things You Say and Do’, ‘Treat Others as You Would Like Them to Treat You’, ‘Pursue Your Personal Best, No Matter Who You Work With’, ‘It Takes Great Strength to Be Sensible’ and ‘Be the Master Not the Victim of Your Feelings’. These Life Rafts help to guide students to continue to strive to be the best version of themselves in all aspects of schooling. Please encourage your child to continue to approach each day with positivity and wonderings about the world around them.

A few reminders: There continues to be an issue in the schoolyard with litter. We encourage ‘Nude Food’ wherever possible, with an extra focus on Wednesday’s, to limit the amount of rubbish going back into our environment.

Please ensure your child’s name is on each of their belongings.

Reading
Within Reading this term, students will continue to use their phonics knowledge from our UFLI lessons to decode words. We encourage all students to look at the spellings/letters within the word and then say the sounds that they represent when working out tricky words. Students then blend the sounds together to read the word. We will encourage them to read out loud to ensure they notice when they make mistakes. We encourage students to read aloud at home regularly and change their readers on Mondays.

Writing
In Writing, students have established excellent writing routines and have continued to show enthusiasm as authors. It has been wonderful watching our students increase the volume of writing produced as they work through planning, drafting, revising, editing and publishing their texts.

This term, we are working to develop a detailed plan, consider the purpose for writing and add detail to each piece we draft to engage our reader. We will also explore a variety of different text types as well as investigate new vocabulary and spelling strategies. Students will have a strong focus on writing informative and persuasive texts throughout the term.

We are looking forward to celebrating the wonderful writing that will be produced throughout the term!

Maths
Term Three promises to be a busy, but exciting time in Maths! Students are working on their understanding of 2D and 3D shapes through hands-on learning, by building shapes and describing their properties. We will be exploring the relationship between multiplication and division, and how they differ from addition and subtraction. They will be asked to solve a variety of number problems using strategies, such as drawing or building arrays and number lines.

In the latter part of the term, students will also be exploring measurement learning about mass, area, volume and capacity .
Finally, students will read and develop simple maps. They will also learn to give simple directions using language such as ‘left’ and ‘right.’

Inquiry
This term’s Inquiry unit is called ‘Where Am I?’ Students will learn to identify significant places around Victoria and understand what makes them special. We will be exploring Victorian landmarks of cultural and spiritual significance, both manmade and naturally formed.

Students will learn to understand why people have become connected to these special places around Victoria and why visitors come from different places around the country to see them. We will explore these landmarks in detail and engage in rich discussions about places we have seen or visited. We will look at various common Victorian surroundings.

By the end of the unit, students will be able to describe and explain where various Victorian landmarks are located, from our close surroundings like Lara, to further down the Great Ocean Road. They will also enjoy learning how to read and construct labelled maps (linking with Maths), as well as interpret data and information to describe the direction and location of places.

Each year level team has provided their families with a detailed newsletter such as this. If you are interested in reading about all the exciting things happening across the rest of the school, these can be accessed online at our school website from early next week.

Grade 3 Newsletter - Term 3

Dear Parents,

This Term Newsletter will provide you with information about your child’s upcoming teaching and learning experiences in the new term. There is also plenty of additional information provided via Compass throughout the school year, so please make a point of touching base regularly.

GENERAL

Wow! Halfway through the year already. The Grade 3 team would like to share their appreciation for all your support and hard work for the year so far. A friendly reminder that if your child is displaying cold and flu symptoms, that they will need to stay at home until feeling better.

LITERACY

This term, we will continue to link reading with writing by analysing different author’s texts (Roald Dahl being a favourite) to see what skills they use to influence their readers. We will also continue to emphasise the importance of selecting ‘Just Right’ books to enable them to practise the comprehension strategies as well as their personal reading goals. Student Reading Journals will continue to serve as a tool to track their individual goals and daily reading, while the Reading Response section will enable students to provide evidence of how they are working on our class learning focus.

DID YOU KNOW that a child who reads for 67.3 minutes a day will read a total of 4,733,000 words a year? This puts them in the 98th percentile rank! This includes any form of reading such as signs, books, notes etc. Whilst we do not expect Grade Three students to read for this amount of time, clearly the more they read, the better they will get!

In Writing, the students will continue to explore the Writer’s Workshop and emphasise the importance of using our Writer’s Notebooks to develop and stretch our ideas. Recently the Grade 3s have explored how to use a variety of vocabulary, including verbs, adjectives and adverbs, to improve their word choice and make their writing more descriptive and engaging. This term will be building on our knowledge of vocabulary and using it to create fluent sentences of a variety of lengths. We will continue to encourage students to find authentic purposes for their writing and would appreciate parents supporting these endeavours at home as well.

A reminder that the following resources are available for home reading support:

Epic: https://www.getepic.com/

Sunshine online: https://www.sunshineonline.com.au/

Contact your child’s teacher if you require logins to be sent home again.

NUMERACY

In Mathematics this term, the children will learn about a range of concepts, skills and strategies with a specific focus on Multiplication, Division and Fractions. They will be encouraged to use their problem-solving strategies to build a toolbelt of skills to help them solve a range of mathematical problems. Students will also continue to focus on recalling basic number facts quickly and accurately (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division). It would be appreciated if you could help your child to practise these facts at home as well as playing games which involve counting and number facts.

A reminder that the following resource is available for home support:

Hit the Button: https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/hit-the-button

INQUIRY

During Term 3, students in Grade 3 will be working collaboratively on our topic, ‘The Great Safari’. As part of this unit, students will develop the following understandings:

• Continents and countries below the equator are part of the Southern Hemisphere

• Vegetation can look different and have important roles within environments – habitats, collect rainfall, etc

• There are a range of different climates within the Southern Hemisphere (4 main types: tropical, Arid, temperate, polar)

• Types of vegetation and animals are native to those environments and rely on the climate to survive

• Natural environments are made up of flora, fauna and major natural features/landmarks

At the end of this topic, students will make an informative resource to educate Grade 3/4 students about climates, environments and animals in the Southern Hemisphere.

DEVICES

A reminder that Department of Education policy stipulates that phones, watches or other devices with communicative ability cannot be carried by students while on the school premises during school hours, without Principal approval. For further details please refer to the policy documents on Compass and the Lara Lake PS website.

We look forward to continuing the connection between school and home. Should you have any queries, please do not hesitate to contact your child’s teacher. Compass continues to be our main form of communication. Alternatively, you can contact the office directly for more urgent matters. We ask that if you need to speak with your child’s teacher, that you organise a phone call at a mutually appropriate time. The team will endeavour to reply to any queries as soon as possible.

The Grade Three Team.

Each year level team has provided their families with a detailed newsletter such as this. If you are interested in reading about all the exciting things happening across the rest of the school, these can be accessed online at our school website from early next week.

Grade 4 Term 3 Newsletter

This Term Newsletter will provide you with information about your children’s upcoming teaching and learning experiences in the new term. There is also plenty of additional information provided via Compass throughout the school year, so please make a point of touching base regularly.

WELCOME TO TERM 3, 2023!
We hope you enjoyed the school holidays and are staying warm. With half the year behind us, the Grade 4 team is looking forward to another fantastic term of learning! We would like to thank you all for supporting us through a great first semester. We are sure you would have been able to celebrate your child's achievements recorded in their first semesters reports and know that you will encourage their continued efforts in striving for their best.

As always, Term 3 is an exciting time of the year. Not only are students well-versed in classroom routines and expectations, but several exciting activities await students in the weeks ahead! Healthy Heroes Geelong Cats, Life Education Van and a crowd favourite Book Week. Book Week commences on August 21st and runs until to 23rd of August. There will be a num exciting opportunities where we can celebrate authors, illustrators and the love of books and reading. Our Book Week parade will be on Wednesday August 23rd at 9am - 11am, we would love to see as many of our special people attend this assembly as possible. So it’s time to start thinking about those costumes!

READING:
Students have been setting up their new Classroom Libraries for Semester 2 with a new range of books early this term and we will continue to work on their individual reading goals. As teachers, it is always incredibly rewarding to see our students reading independently for a sustained period of 30 minutes or more each day! As always, we encourage students to borrow frequently from both the school and classroom libraries so that they can enjoy a variety of rich literature when completing their reading at home.

Over the next few weeks, we will be working with students to develop their ability to identify the main idea of a text and summarise the key points. Our next focus will then be on analysing and critiquing a text by making judgements about authors intentions, word choice, structure and thinking about how these can effect the reader.

WRITING:
We are incredibly proud of the writing pieces that the students in grade 4 are producing. For the first three weeks the students are learning the key skills to create an information report. Students are working on skills such as note taking, paragraphing, and drafting using the structures and features of an information text. Further into the Term we are then going to continue focusing on the 6 + 1 Traits (Word Choice, Sentence Fluency, Organisation, Conventions, Ideas, Voice and Presentation) of writing through the lens of poetry.

MATHS:
The Term 3 Mathematics topics for Grade 4 are - Fractions including: Decimals, Percentages, Time, problem solving and patterns through shape and numbers. A major focus of our Mathematics program is to involve students in ‘real life’ numeracy problems where they are able to apply their skills and knowledge to discover solutions. An important yearly focus for Grade 4 students is for them to know their times tables. All classes will spend time on a variety of activities and games to allow students to develop an understanding of multiplication and number facts.

INQUIRY:
This term our students will continue exploring inquiry throughout all curriculum areas. Our topic is ‘What a Wonderful World’. The key understandings we will explore relate to the following - The earth is divided into large areas of land that are called continents. There are natural and human characteristics of continents, climate and weather, habitats, flora and fauna, population, geographical features, natural resources, and industry.

A friendly reminder that coming up to Term 4 we have our Grade 4 camp. Camp Wilkin is Wednesday 11th October until Friday 13th October. Please make sure you have those dates in your calendar! Details about Camp Wilkin can be found as an Event on Compass. There will be lots of information to come, so keep an eye out.

Each year level team has provided their families with a detailed newsletter such as this. If you are interested in reading about all the exciting things happening across the rest of the school these can be accessed online at our school website from early next week.

Kind Regards,
Milli Gardiner, Justin Rae, Blake Freeman, Mel Tinkler, Greg Quirk and Kerry Barnwell

Grade 5 TERM 3 CURRICULUM NEWSLETTER

This Term Newsletter will provide you with information about your child’s upcoming teaching and learning experiences in the new term. There is also plenty of additional information provided via Compass throughout the school year, so please make a point of touching base regularly.

WELCOME BACK!
Welcome to Term 3! We can't believe how fast the school holidays went but it was great to see the students arrive at school organised and ready to learn. They quickly settled back into their school routine after sharing their holiday adventures with each other. We have reminded our students of the high expectations we have of them and we know that they will once again rise to the occasion.

READING
In Reading, students will continue to focus on strengthening their use of comprehension strategies to interpret and understand texts. They are learning about making meaningful connections with the text they read, summarising and synthesising. They will continue to work on their personal reading goals and be supported through independent conferencing and focus groups. Students will analyse picture story books on a deeper level by inferring, identifying the author's writing styles and point of view. This process will assist students when they create their own stories this term.

WRITING
In Writing, students will continue to participate in daily Writing Workshops, ensuring they are challenging themselves to write across the different genres. They will continue to celebrate their writing through classroom Author’s Chair and read alouds and give and receive quality feedback. There will be a focus on revising this term, students will learn how to add & remove sentences, substitute words and to move sentences around to improve their writing. As author’s themselves, the students will focus on particular skills in depth. These include exploring writing point of view (POV), using ‘Show Don’t Tell’, complex sentence use and descriptive language.

MATHS
The focus area for the beginning of Term 3 will be on fractions, decimals and percentages. Students will develop their understanding of the different constructs (area, distance, collection) of fractions, enabling them to order fractions by size and find equivalent fractions. Students will then investigate ways to convert fractions to decimals and percentages, this will prompt students to make connections with how fractions, decimals and percentages are used in real-life situations. They will investigate the likelihood of events occurring by using their understanding of fractions, decimals and percentages, and will support their findings using data and graphing their results.

INQUIRY
In Term 3, we will be starting our new unit, ‘Our Place in the World’. This is an engaging inquiry that explores the history of immigration to Australia and how these events have shaped the culture of Australia today.

Each year level team has provided their families with a detailed newsletter such as this. If you are interested in reading about all the exciting things happening across the rest of the school, these can be accessed online at our school website from early next week.

Term 3 Specialist Curriculum Newsletter
This post will provide you with information about your children’s upcoming teaching and learning experiences for all Specialist subjects in Term 3.
There is also plenty of additional information provided via Compass throughout the school year, so please make a point of touching base regularly.

Visual Art
We are back for term three! After a two-week break, it is great to see all of the students again in Art. We are very excited about the artwork that will be produced this term. This term our student’s artwork is on display throughout the corridors. It would be wonderful for you to have a conversation with your child about their artwork.
It is really important that all Grade’s 1 – 4 students have an art smock or a large old T-shirt that goes over their school uniform as we are using various paints and glues, print making and creating constructions.

Grade Six students start the term off big by being part of the International Peace Poster Competition, run through the Lions Club of Lara. Students will be creating posters based on the theme “Dare to Dream”. What a great way to give our students a chance to express their visions of peace and inspire the world through art. This Art competition happens each year and students design their own poster. We will keep you informed through Compass with photos of their work. We are sure you will agree that our school has very talented students.

Grade Five students will be learning about graphic design as a functional art form. Graphic designers use words and pictures in such a way to produce a message. We look forward to seeing some inventive ideas using everyday foods. They will be tapping into sustainability and creating art around questions such as ‘what environmental issues are present in your community?’ and ‘what environmental issues are important to you?’ We will also finish off the term with construction. Many creative pieces of Art will be on their way!

The Grade Three and Four students are learning to use textile techniques to create different soft sculptures. There will be a few sculptures coming home ready for a special place. Students will also learn the art of weaving.

Grade One and Two students will also be moving onto learning about textiles – fabrics and threads. Activities for Grades 1 and 2 will focus on learning to weave, thread and tie needles, sew, and the art of wrapping wool to create patterns.

In term 3, Preps will be focussing on Indigenous Art, print making and construction. They will explore a few different ways to do this, including threading, texture rubbings and using different printing tools for stamping. Preps will also learn ways to join different materials as well as developing their understanding that glues can be used for different purposes.

Your Art teachers,
Ms. Torriero, Mr. Turner, Mrs. McKenzie, Mr. Sullivan, Mrs. Venn, Mrs. Millard

STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics)
Students have begun Term 3 with a high level of engagement and enthusiasm in STEM, not to mention the wonderful behaviour and excellent level of respect demonstrated for teachers, equipment and each other.

Prep students are focusing on using a range of equipment to facilitate design and construction activities. Equipment students are using includes Linking Cubes (connecting blocks), Duplo Early Structures, Marble Race, Connector Shapes and also exploratory activities involving magnets. Students will have the opportunity to complete commercial design activities and also to come up with their own designs before attempting to construct them. Students will attempt to address design parameters including aspects such as length and height of their proposed construction as well as constraints involving the amount of shapes / blocks etc they are able to use in order to grow their problem-solving abilities.

Students in Grades One and Two are undertaking the challenge of designing and constructing ‘2D Shape Robots’. Utilising our ‘Makedo’ equipment – which are tools used to cut, join and build things out of cardboard, students must build a robot made entirely out of 2D shapes. The focus and challenge for these students is to follow their design plan. Once robots are constructed, we will analyse them against the original designs, as well as create graphs which depict the amount of each shape contained in the robots. Particularly proficient robot builders will also receive time to decorate their robots!

Grade Three and Four students are engaged this term in a range of STEM related activities including:
-Coding on the platform ‘Scratch’, whereby they program sprites to move around against a backdrop, talking to other sprites, changing their appearance, telling stories, as well as performing a multitude of other coding-based functions.
-Construction with Meccano. In these sessions students at first attempt to complete commercial design challenges in order to learn how the resource operates. As students master the skills required they become free to design their own constructions before analysing the feasibility of their designs.
-Coding via the use of Spheros and the ‘Sphero Edu’ application. Students play ‘Sphero Bowling’, where they compete against a partner to knock over the skittles through proficient, skilful coding – an activity where ‘good sports-person-ship can be exercised.

In Grades Five and Six, students are using the coding platform ‘Scratch’ to complete the challenging task of creating a ‘Digital Storybook’. These students must first storyboard an engaging narrative which is based on either one of their own pieces of writing, a well-known fairytale, or a simple children’s story, before recreating that story through code on Scratch. They will employ backdrops, sprites, dialogue and voice overs as well as a range of other high-level coding skills to bring their stories to life. Stories will be shared at the conclusion of the unit. Particularly proficient coders may even gain the opportunity to create an interactive game late in the term!

Your STEM Teachers,
Mr. Hill, Mr. Sullivan, Ms. Lamont, Mrs. Millard

Physical Education
Term 3 is shaping up to be a very active time for your child! Life Education will begin on Tuesday August 1^st for all students from Prep to Grade 4 in the school library and the following programs will be taught at each level:

Prep – Grade 1 - Harold’s Friendships
After building a model spaceship at school, Harold and his friends Boots and Red, venture into an imaginary world in outer space.

Grade 2 – Growing Good Friends
Harold tries to figure out what to give his grandma for her birthday. His friends Boots and Red step in and offer some good ideas.

Grade 3 - Grade 4 – BE CYBERWISE
This module focuses on cybersafety, cyber ethics and building positive relationships with friends online and offline. The students explore how technology and the online world can be positive, but also the risks that can be involved.

This term, Grade Prep to Twos will continue to work on different fundamental motor skills and be introduced to the basic skills of gymnastics, such as balancing and rolling. Grade Three to Six students will develop their skills in the areas of ultimate frisbee, rugby, tennis and gymnastics. All students at each year level will continue to further learn, develop and consolidate team-work and sportsmanship when participating and co-operating in PE. Please continue encouraging your child to participate in Physical Activity and to do their personal best at school and at home.

A ‘Softball Clinic’ and a ‘Healthy Heroes Clinic’ will be conducted with the Grade Threes and Fours in the gym and on the school oval.

District Athletics will be happening on Tuesday August 9^th for selected students from Grades Three to Six at Goldsworthy Reserve Corio. We wish all the athletes the best of luck!
Keep an eye on Mr Moylan’s Weekly Wrap for a report on some of the clinics which will be happening over Term 3.
It will be a term full of your child learning new skills while having fun and enjoying themselves.

STAY FIT AND HEALTHY
Please if you have any concerns or questions don’t hesitate to contact Mrs. Dowling.

Your P.E Teachers,
Mrs Dowling, Ms. Lamont, Mr. Turner & Mrs. Millard

Music
This term in Music we will be exploring our voices as instruments.

In Prep we encourage joining in, moving to the music, and learning some funny songs such as “On Top of Spaghetti” and “Lemonade, Crunchy Ice”. We are also learning to listen and sing with the tune, as well as learning and remembering lyrics.

Grades One and Two are also learning correct voice production, and some songs such as “Black Socks” and “We are children of the World” which celebrate diversity.

All grades are enjoying expanding their song repertoires and are learning to play tunes and rhythms on chimes, bells, xylophones and marimbas.
Older grades have had fun playing and singing Aussie rock classic “Beds are Burning” on classroom instruments and learning the basics of Rap music. Students will compose and perform their own rhythms using plastic bags as instruments in a ‘junk band’ (also known as ‘stomp’) inspired assignment later in the term.

Every Friday at lunchtime in the music room Mrs. McKenzie runs a multi-age ‘Sing Club’ which all are welcome to attend.

Performances at assembly are fun and exciting, we will see a number of them this term!

Your Music Teachers,
Mrs. McKenzie, Mr. Turner & Mrs. Venn