Welcome back to Term 2! Neighbourhood 1 has hit the ground running with lots of exciting projects underway, many carrying on from last term. Students have returned to school with energy and enthusiasm to engage deeply in our inquiry and workshops. All homegroups have settled into their new learning spaces quite nicely and teachers are enjoying their new spaces too!
Maths
Neighbourhood 1 has begun exploring addition and subtraction in maths this term. Students have been demonstrating what they already know about these concepts and we have been working on building efficient strategies for solving problems, working towards applying these strategies to real life situations. In addition, students have been working on counting on, friends to 10, bridging to 10, doubling, splitting 10s and 1s and the vertical algorithm. Students have enjoyed solving problems in different ways and working with 1, 2, 3 and 4 digit numbers. At home, practicing friends to 10 (ie. 1+9, 2+8, 3+7 etc.) to build automaticity would be really beneficial as this concept underpins all other strategies.
Literacy
Students have shown a keen interest in advocacy for change in the future during provocations so our literacy workshops have focussed on persuasive language. We need to persuade people if we want change! This learning builds on our learning about parts of speech such as nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs from Term 1. We are also focussing particularly on refreshing students’ memories and enhancing their understanding of compound sentence structure using conjunctions like because, but and so.
Provocations
Building on last term’s provocations centered around changes in animals and their environments, students have begun to look more broadly at change in the world, and how they can share their vision for change with the community at a local level. Students are working in project groups to design new playgrounds for the school, campaign for recycling and composting at school and writing persuasive letters to promote positive changes in their school and community. All students are very excited to be visiting Shaun Tan’s ‘On My Way to Paradise’ exhibition on May 12th to see his artistic visions of a future paradise full of change. A friendly reminder – we need lots of parent helpers on this day, please email to volunteer if you are available to attend!