Dear Families,
Neighbourhood 1 has participated in many exciting experiences over the last two weeks! In celebration of Harmony Week, student have had the opportunity to explore and express what ‘harmony’ means to them during Provocations. These thoughts will be shared with the whole school during the Harmony Week assembly on Friday. Ride to School Day is also taking place on Friday, with children encouraged to ride, walk or scoot to school. In doing so, they increase their levels of activity and decrease their environmental footprint. Finally, Neighbourhood 1 has been lucky enough to secure an extra weekly music session with Deb where we are practicing the alternative version of Advance Australia Fair as well as learning a new song – Believer by Imagine Dragons.
Wellbeing
During teaching targets, students have been focussing on improving their wellbeing. We have been exploring self-regulation and strategies that can be used to ensure we are ready to learn. We have also been looking at following instructions, respectful behaviour and who and how we can ask for help. Furthermore, we are learning how to solve social problems using the WIN statement – W (When you…) I (I felt…) N (Next time…).
Inquiry
The students have continued to explore their curiosities about animals during Provocations time and various workshops. We have observed a clear passion for learning, recording and sharing facts about many different species that live – or have lived – on this planet. Students have been thirsting for content knowledge so we’ve been incorporating documentary and fact file video sessions into Provocations so students can find out the answers to their questions. These explorations have prompted some thinking about change. How has the world changed since humans came along? How do animals change in their lifetimes? What changes might come in the future?
Literacy
In literacy, we have been learning more about how to construct sentences using nouns, verbs and adjectives. Students worked through the writing cycle of planning, drafting, editing and publishing to produce a descriptive sentence about animals or the environment. Some of these sentences included “The yellow sun was shining.” and “The soft leaves were waving.” Additionally, we have been learning about open and closed questions in order to ask questions and seek answers during inquiry times. We have also been putting our writing skills to good use by creating animal life cycles. Finally, we have been exploring the features of non-fiction texts in the hope that students will create their own text about a chosen animal or environmental topic.
Numeracy
As students continue showing such keen interest in the past and future of animals and environments (and keep asking questions like “How long until home time?”) it seemed the perfect opportunity to teach students how to tell time. Whilst most students can read digital time, teaching how to read analogue time to the hour, half hour and quarter hour using analogue clocks helps students visualise the passing of time and understand duration. Built into this teaching we have been refreshing their knowledge of skip counting by fives and tens and will begin introducing fractions, timelines and ordering of events next week.