Wednesday 13 July 2016

Middle School - Term 3 Week 1

Middle School Newsletter: Term 3 Week 1

CONNECT WITH GRADE 3 and 4

Welcome back! We hope that each of you have had a fun and relaxing school holidays and that you are ready for a productive Term 3!

Learning and Teaching

We Are Learning To....

READING:
 revise and reintroduce the reading strategies we investigated last semester. We will revisit 'what does a good reader do?' to make sure we get the most out of what we read.


WRITING: understand the structure of procedural text. Students will examine a range of procedural texts, from recipes to instructions, and will learn about the way they are set out while identifying the interesting language within them.

V.C.O.P. (Vocabulary Connectives Openers Punctuation): continue to develop our knowledge of the V.C.O.P. process by linking it to our unit on procedural texts. The students will investigate relevant vocabulary, connectives and interesting openings.

SPELLING: use SMART spelling strategies including breaking words into sounds and syllables, identifying the 'tricky' parts of the words and writing the words and sentences from a dictation passage.  Emphasis will also be placed on understanding the meaning of the words with students encouraged to include the words in their writing and oral language.

MATHS: 
solve multiplication problems using a range of efficient mental and written strategies. The students will explore and experience a range of learning tasks centered around multiplicative thinking.

UNIT OF STUDY: (Location, Location, Location / The Olympic Games): This term the Middle School students will use the upcoming Rio Olympic Games as a springboard to study geography and the culture of countries competing. They will also investigate the different athletic events, the history of the Games and the team work and camaraderie they provide.

eLEARNING: use the iPads and Netbooks to support and extend learning through Mathletics and Reading Eggs and for research and publishing purposes.


 Term 3 Calendar Dates

July 23 - Trivia Night
July 27 - Maths Olympiad 3
August 16 - Maths Olympiad 4
August 17-19 - 3/4 Camp to Log Cabin Camp, Creswick
August 29 - Swimming Program commences
September 2 - District Athletics Carnival
September 7 - Maths Olympiad 5
September 14 & 15 - School Production


Current notices

Homework: 
Homework in the Middle School is sent home on a Friday and due back the following Thursday. The homework consists of reading (minimum of 4 nights), Mathletics activities and SMART spelling-look, say, sound, spell, write, check.
We would appreciate if parents could record and sign in the student diary when students complete their homework tasks.

Reading Eggs and Mathletics:
All students have individual passwords to access both of these programs.  We encourage students to explore activities to revise and extend their learning.  These programs are online tools which students use to enhance their learning. 

Students are given set Mathletics tasks to be completed for homework.  This week the focus is on Numeration and Place Value.


Making News
Achievement Awards from the last two weeks of Term 2
3S
Carla - for the scientific understanding she demonstrated during our 'Beneath Our Feet' unit of study. 
Elizabeth - for consistently showing kindness towards the members of her class. She is a caring member of 3S.
3G
Georgios - for showing excellent science skills and understandings.
Ella - for showing great improvement with her reading.
4H 
Faye - for her science inquiry skills while completing science experiments based on our our science unit, 'Beneath Our Feet'.
Eden - for her excellent efforts all semester in all areas of learning.
4W
Charlie - for his detailed scientific flow chart of the life cycle of a eucalyptus tree.
Ben - for all he has achieved during his time at Mentone Park. Best of luck for the future!



Meet and Greet Our New Principal
Parents are welcome to join us in the school hall for tea and coffee on Friday afternoon at 2.15pm to meet our new Principal Renée Kennedy.
We will have assembly in the hall following this at 3pm. Renée is looking forward to meeting our parent community so we hope to see lots of you there!  

New Morning Bell Times

An adjustment has been made to the morning bell times, effective from next Monday. Students are welcome to enter their classrooms to prepare for their school day from 8:50 each morning. A first bell will sound at 8:55 which is a reminder for all students to enter their classrooms. A second bell will sound at 9 o'clock which will signal the start of the day's learning. Thank you.

Middle School Camp - Log Cabin Camp, Creswick - August 17-19, 2016
The Grade 3 and 4 Camp has been booked from Wednesday the 17th to Friday the 19th of August, and this year we are off to Log Cabin Camp in Creswick. This is the second time camp has been offered to both Year 3 and 4 students and is also the first time Mentone Park Primary School has attended Log Cabin Camp. This camp links with our Units of Study for Term 3 and 4 (Location, Location, Location and History), and will be run during the even years with the Angahook Adventure Camp in odd years.

As a part of the camp, students will have the opportunity to visit Sovereign Hill in Ballarat. Here, they will have a tour of the ‘Open-air Museum’, completing different historical activities and attending the Sound and Light show Blood on the Southern Cross.

The cost of the camp is $300. A deposit of $100 will be required by Friday July the 15th (week 1, Term 3). Following this, you can either pay in two installments or one final payment. Final payment will be required by Friday 12th August. If you have trouble meeting the financial payments, please see Anne in the office for further information regarding a payment plan/options.

Payments for Camp are now available on the Qkr app.



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