Term 3 2018, Volume 11, Weeks 6 & 7

Term 3 2018, Volume 11, Weeks 6 & 7

  

🎵Roll up, roll up! Bring your jazz hands, get your tickets! 🎵


There's never a dull moment in the Middle School!
After returning from our fantastic camp experience at Sovereign Hill and Log Cabin Camp, the students have hit the ground running. They have been busy jumping, spinning and twisting their way through dance rehearsals before next Tuesday's two performances of 'Under the Big Top'. 

Please see the 'Reminders' section below for costume and                                                                ticketing information.

September

Monday 3rd - District Athletics Day (rescheduled from Friday 31st August)
Tuesday 4th- Whole school production @ Kingston Arts Centre. Rehearsal in the morning followed by a Matinee performance during the day and an evening performance that night.

Friday 21st- Whole school footy day, special lunch and early dismissal 2.30pm

WEEKS  6 & 7

In READING we have been developing our ability to use the reading strategy of Determining Importance. The students looked at how to find the main ideas from their reading and how some information in what we read is only there to support the main idea or enhance the experience. 

In WRITING the students recounted their camp experience in a variety of ways. Some wrote recounts or diary entries, others wrote acrostic poems. Some students designed and wrote postcards or advertisements for Log Cabin Camp. The Middle School also continued and published their narratives from Week 5 using the extensive planning we did.

In MATHS  the students learnt about angles. We classified the different types of angles (acute, obtuse, right, straight, reflex and revolutions) and completed a range of practical activities around our classroom and the school.

For SPELLING:

Week 7
Grade 3 Focus: The graph /s/ making the sound “zh” as in treasure.
Grade 4 Focus: The digraph /or/ making the sound “eh” as in doctor. Usually at the end of words.

For the remainder of the term our new INQUIRY unit will take the students on a different Science journey. We will be looking at Earth Science and in particular Day and Night. 

COMING UP...

During READING, the students will continue to identify important information when reading. They will also complete a range of reading activities based upon fictional texts and their own novels.

In WRITING sessions, the Middle School will analyse and then write explanatory texts. An explanation is a non-fiction text which describes a process or how something works. This writing unit will have links to our Night & Day science unit.

In MATHS the students will be placed in ability based groupings based upon the results from their Fractions & Decimals pre-test. The students will then work at their point of need for the remainder of the term to develop their skills and understanding in this subject area.

SPELLING 

Week 8
Grade 3 Focus: The graph /u/ making the sound “w” as in quilt.
Grade 4 Focus: The digraph /ui/ making the sound “oo” as in fruit.

Week 9
Grade 3 Focus: The digraph /se/ making the sound “z” as in cheese.
Grade 4 Focus: The digraph /ci/ making the sound “sh” as in special.

In ICT, the students have completed their first Google Slide document. They chose an insect to research and complete a project on the lifecycle of that insect. This activity complimented our Inquiry unit nicely and finished off the students learning to show us what they understood about living things.

'Under the Big Top' School Production - Kingston Arts Centre
Tuesday 4th September - Matinee at 12:45 and Evening Show at 7:00

Our school production is rapidly approaching! The Mentone Park students have been fine tuning their dance steps and are almost ready to bring it all together for two performances next Tuesday.

Please make sure that you have purchased your tickets from the Kingston Arts Centre website!

Please read the information below regarding costume arrangements for each class

Middle McDonald & Middle Mackay

The students of Middle McDonald and Middle Mackay are performing 2 different dances in the production next Tuesday. 

For their dances, they will be playing jugglers and lion tamers. Whilst we will be adding additional accessories to the costumes, could each student please bring the following to school:

§     - A black long sleeve top or skivvy  

§     - Black leggings OR long pants

§     - A plain red t-shirt

As the concert is next Tuesday (4th) could be please have costumes ASAP (no later than Monday the 3rd)

Please make sure EVERYTHING is named and brought in a plastic bag.

Thanks,

Jess & Ingrid

Middle McCallum & Middle Wilton

The students of Middle McCallum and Middle Wilton will be performing two dances at next Tuesday’s School Production.

For our dance, we are trying to achieve the look of sleek acrobats. Each student will need to provide a long sleeve black t-shirt or skivvy and black tights or long pants. We will be adding extra accessories to complete the costumes.

If each outfit could be brought to school in a named bag as soon as possible, by next Monday at the latest.

Please come and see us if you have any questions.

Thank you,

Nick & Nikki

Log Cabin Camp, 2018

Term 3 2018, Volume 10, Weeks 4 & 5

  

🎵Give me a home among the gum trees 🎵





We have 88 very excited students and teachers ready and rearing to go on camp next week! Everything is looking good at this end with the teachers putting in lots of extra time and effort, to ensure this camp is a wonderful experience for all our campers.



Please ensure you read the information regarding details for Wednesday 22nd August.

 

August
Monday 20th- Book Week - Dress up as your favourite book character parade
Tuesday 21st - STOMP

Wednesday 22nd- Friday 24th Log Cabin Camp WOOHOO!!!!!

Wednesday 29th - Father's Day Breakfast

Thursday 30th - Fathers Day Stall

Friday 31st -  District Athletics Day

September

Tuesday 4th- Whole school production @ Kingston Arts Centre. Rehearsal in the morning followed by a Matinee performance during the day and an evening performance that night.

Friday 21st- Whole school footy day, special lunch and early dismissal 2.30pm

 

WEEKS  4&5

During READING, the students have been learning how to make visual connections from their reading. The students have enjoyed producing pictures matching to a paragraph from their books in reading sessions. They also made predictions on how the story will continue from a piece of writing given to them.

In WRITING sessions, we have been exploring narratives, looking at each area thoroughly. The students used pictures and words to create their characters and the settings their story will take place. We then looked at various plots the story could have and finally created some interesting openers and lists of WOW words to include in the stories. The students will now being writing their stories and then the editing and publishing process will take place.

In MATHS the students have become familiar with different types of maps. They have had to give their friends directions and work out how to explain how to get somewhere. The students learnt how to copy a picture but on a bigger scale from the original and they also used grid references to find things and draw things on maps.

Our first INQUIRY unit for the term has come to an end. The students really enjoyed becoming biological science experts by investigating living and non-living things and the . They were pretty impressed to be able to grow their own plants and they were very good and making observations.


SPELLING 

Week 4

Grade 3 Focus: The graph /a/ making the sound 'ar' as in banana

Grade 4 Focus: The graph /v/ making the sound “v” as in voice.

 Week 5
Grade 3 Focus: The graph /g/ as in giant.
Grade 4 Focus: The graph /y/ making the sound “y” as in yawn. The graph /i/ making the sound “y’ as in onion.

In ICT, the students have completed their first Google Slide document. They chose an insect to research and complete a project on the lifecycle of that insect. This activity complimented our Inquiry unit nicely and finished off the students learning to show us what they understood about living things.


COMING UP...

WEEK 6
As we have camp in Week 6 our learning program for Monday and Tuesday will accommodate for this. We have activities planned for Book Week and we will continue our mapping in Maths. We will also do some Gold Rush reading in preparation for our visit to Sovereign Hill and the students will tell us what their expectations of camp are in our writing session.


WEEK 7

In READING we will be focussing on Determining Importance. The students will look at how to find the main ideas from their reading and how some information in what we read is only there to support the main idea or enhance the experience. 

In WRITING the students will be asked to recount their camp experience in a variety of ways. They will also continue their narratives from Week 5 using the extensive planning we did and publish these over the next few weeks.

In MATHS  the students will begin a new unit on Fractions. They will do a pre test in Week 7 to determine where their learning is at. The students will then work in ability based groups to further this learning over the next 3 weeks.



For SPELLING we will have a week off  due to camp:
Week 7
Grade 3 Focus: The graph /s/ making the sound “zh” as in treasure.
Grade 4 Focus: The digraph /or/ making the sound “eh” as in doctor. Usually at the end of words.


For the remainder of the term our new INQUIRY unit will take the students on a different Science journey. We will be looking at Earth Science and in particular Day and Night. This will begin after camp.

On Wednesday, please remember to be at school at 7.30am. The bus leaves at 7.50am. All you need for the bus, is a small backpack with your drink bottle, a piece of fruit and a small savoury snack. Maybe pack a book and some pencils as you will receive your special camp book on the bus. You will not need any other food. You will be given lunch at Sovereign Hill.

Science Week - The Silly Scientist In-visit was fantastic. Our students really enjoyed this whole school event and were very keen to participate. Here are some photos.

 

 

 

Term 3 2018, Volume 9, Weeks 1, 2 & 3

  

'I'm so excited"
"I just can't hide it"

What a term we have ahead of us! Not only have we begun our Friday morning athletics rotations but there's Book Week, Camp, Production and Footy Day!

For Weeks 2,3,4 and 5 the students will be participating in athletics events, both track and field and trying to get their best results. If there are any parents free on a Friday morning from 9:20-11:00 any help would be greatly appreciated.

Production is coming along nicely with the students practising very hard every Monday with Ange from STOMP. For those of you who have not had a chance to read the whole school newsletter published last week, out production will be at Kingston Arts Centre on the 4th of September with the theme being 'Under the Circus Top'.

Over the past two weeks the students have been participating in a Maths program known as Scaffolding Numeracy for the Middle Years (SMMY). This program provides students with authentic, real world problems which require students to use all of their mathematical skills to reach a reasonable solution. Their focus over the last few weeks has been pocket money and working out how much they could earn doing different jobs around the house and how long it would take them to reach a certain budget. We had students purchasing a range of objects ranging from bikes to new furniture for their bedrooms.

 

August

Friday 10th August- Medical Forms due back
Tuesday 14th- Whole school Silly Scientist in-visit
Wednesday 15th- Final Payment for School Camp due
Monday 20th- Book Week
Wednesday 22nd- Friday 24th Log Cabin Camp

September
Tuesday 4th- Whole school production @ Kingston Arts Centre. Rehearsal in the morning followed by a Matinee performance during the day and an evening performance afterwards.
Friday 21st- Final day of school & whole school footy day
 

WEEKS  1,2 & 3

In READING the students have been learning how to make stronger connections between what they read, their lives, other texts and the world around them so they can create a stronger understanding of what they have read. They have also been developing their understanding of visualising and how the words they write can have a strong influence on the images created in our minds.

For the past three weeks in WRITING a range of different procedures. They have been looking at the structures we use for writing procedure and the different types of procedures that we use and follow in our everyday lives.

In MATHS the students have been revisiting their understanding of place value and have applied their understanding in order to solve a range of different patterns presented to them. Last week (Week 2) we also began our ability based division groupings. The students have been working very hard developing their strategies for division and we look forward to seeing how they have progressed.

Students continue to be engaged in our INQUIRY unit by investigating both living and non-living things around the school. Last week the students had the opportunity to plant a range of seeds such as radish, broccoli, beans and tomatoes.

Our focus in SPELLING:

Week 1

Grade 3 Focus: The digraph /oy/ making the sound “oy” as in toy.

Grade 4 Focus: The digraph /ie/ making the sound E as in chief. “I before e except after c Week 2

Grade 3 Focus: The graph /q/ making the sound “k” as in queen

Grade 4 Focus: The trigraph /ure/ making the sound “eh” as in measure. “When a word ends in e, drop the e and add  Week 3
Grade 3 Focus: the graph /a/ making the sound as in baby.
Grade 4 Focus: words ending in the consonant suffix ness

In ICT the students have began there very first project using Google Classroom. They have created a PowerPoint document, chosen an insect to research and have began using Google or Encarta Kids to gather some information on their life cycle.


COMING UP...

WEEK 4 & 5

Next week in READING we will continue our focus on Visualising and how different people see things differently based on their experiences. In Week 5, we will revisit predicting and how we can use the clues in a book to predict what might happen.

In WRITING the students will be investigating a number of different types of procedures that we use in our everyday lives. They will select one of their choice, write their own and then publish it.

In MATHS next week, the students will finish off their division groups and will complete a post assessment to identify any gaps in their knowledge. They will also continue with our scaffolding numeracy unit. In Week 5 they will begin looking at maps and angles in preparation for our orienteering at camp.

For SPELLING we will be focusing on:
Week 4:

Grade 3 Focus: a banana and al half

Grade 4 Focus: V as in voice

Week 5
Grade 3 Focus: g as in giant
Grade 4 Focus: Y as in yawn and i as in onion
Over the next two weeks in INQUIRY the students will be observing their plants and identifying some of the factors that may affect the growth and life of living things.

In ICT next week, the students will continue their Life Cycle PowerPoint and will begin to develop their skills of editing text to change the colour, font, font size and alignment on the page.

• We have began our Friday morning athletic rotations so students need to ensure they are wearing appropriate footwear
• Please remember to bring back medical forms and make the final camp payments.
• If there are any parents free on a Friday morning, we would appreciate any help running our athletics events

INQUIRY PHOTOS