Middle School - Term 2 Week 8

Middle School Newsletter: Term 2 Week 8

CONNECT WITH GRADE 3 and 4

Learning and Teaching

We Are Learning To....

READING: Synthesise after reading. Synthesising involves merging new information with existing knowledge to create an original idea, see a new perspective, or form a new line of thinking to achieve insight.

WRITING: Produce an explanation text in poster form that includes the correct features. Students will be using the knowledge they learnt last week about explanations and create an engaging format that will interest the reader.

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 explanations. The students will investigate relevant technical vocabulary, connectives and interesting openings.

MATHS: apply our knowledge of addition and subtraction to solve problems. Students will develop their understanding of a range of addition and subtraction strategies through a number of hands-on maths games. They will then apply these understandings to solve real life maths problems. This week there will be a focus on subtraction.

UNIT OF STUDY (Biological Science - 'Beneath Our Feet'): Last week students began investigating Earth and Space science in our new unit, 'Beneath Our Feet.' They will begin to understand how the Earth's surface changes over time as a result of natural processes and human activity. This week they will have a hands on look at rocks and their features, as well as how they have changed over time. 

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.

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

 Term 2 Calendar Dates

Wednesday 8th June: Maths Olympiad
Monday 13th June: Queen's Birthday Public Holiday
Tuesday 14th June: Regional Cross Country
Friday 17th June: Whole School Science Celebration Open Afternoon 1:50-3:30

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 Weeks 6 & 7
3S
Layla- for contributing excellent ideas to our discussion in our inquiry lessons and during the CERES excursion last week. 
Jake - for Using his growth mindset when tackling difficult tasks. 

3G
Adam- for consistently completing homework to a high standard.
Josh- using WOW words to discuss his ideas.

4H 
Hannah- for her efforts towards estimating, measuring and ordering the volumes of different containers
Drew- PE Award
Tyler- Performing Arts Award

4W
Baylin- for his ability to accurately estimate and measure the capacity of a range of containers in maths lessons.

_____________________________

 Celebrating our Learning
Learning about Ants and Citizen Science.

At Mentone Park the Grade 3 and 4s have been learning about ants in Science.  Ivan, our scientist from CSIRO, has taught us about invertebrates and vertebrates.  Invertebrates have no backbone and vertebrates do.  Which of these creatures would be invertebrates?  Jellyfish, snake, sea stars, bears, humans, moths, ants.  The answer is at the end of our article.

Next Monday we are going to participate in a Citizen Science activity. We are going to put down different types of food to investigate how many ants come to eat it.  Some of the food will be olive oil, glutamine, sugar, salt and shortbread biscuits. We will be doing this in different locations (variables) to see if the location makes a difference.  Once the food has been left for an hour we will then go outside and photograph the ants and count how many ants are there.  No ants will be killed for the process.  We will be writing our results on a data sheet and sending this information to scientists in America!!!!  They will use the results to learn more about ants.

We look forward to hearing more about the results from all around the world.  It will be lots of fun.

Did you know?

there are honey ants who store nectar in their abdomens and the workers are called repletes

ants' habitat can be at a picnic and they can take a sandwich and other food to their home

a bull ant is a member of the ant family  (it's not a type of cow!)

there are many ants in the world.

Bees:

worker bees get honey from nectar

the worker bees get honey and put it onto their leg on their honey sac.

 Answers to our quiz: Invertebrates-jellyfish, sea star, moth, ant.  Do you know any more invertebrates?  Let Mrs Grisdale know and you can get house points!!

From our Super Scientists:
Georgios, Oscar, Kade, Daniel, Joshua, Adam and Sonny.


STOP PRESS: You are invited to a special Science Open Afternoon and Assembly on June 17th.  See you there.

Middle School Newsletter: Term 2 Week 6

Middle School Newsletter: Term 2 Week 6

CONNECT WITH GRADE 3 and 4

Learning and Teaching

We Are Learning To....

READING: synthesise after reading. Synthesising involves merging new information with existing knowledge to create an original idea, see a new perspective, or form a new line of thinking to achieve insight.

WRITING: understand the features of and write our own explanations. Explanatory texts explain natural occurrences and we are writing them to summarise the learning in our Science unit.

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 explanations. The students will investigate relevant technical vocabulary, connectives and interesting openings.

MATHS: apply our knowledge of addition and subtraction to solve problems. Students will develop their understanding of a range of addition and subtraction strategies through a number of hands-on maths games. They will then apply these understandings to solve real life maths problems.

UNIT OF STUDY (Biological Science - 'Among the Gum Trees'): understand that living things have life cycles and living things, including plants and animals, depend on each other and the environment to survive. The Middle School students wrap-up their studies into biological science in our Among the Gum Trees unit this week after their excursion to CERES last Friday. This hands-on science unit has developed the students' scientific understanding, inquiry skills and ability to see science as a human endeavour. Next week the students will begin investigating Earth and Space science in our new unit, 'Beneath Our Feet.'

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.

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

 Term 2 Calendar Dates

Wednesday 1st June: Division Cross Country
Wednesday 8th June: Maths Olympiad 2
Monday 13th June: Queen's Birthday Public Holiday
Tuesday 14th June: Regional Cross Country
Friday 17th June: Whole School Science Celebration

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 Weeks 4 & 5
3S
Angelo - for coming up with some excellent questions based on his guided reading text and always trying his best with his reading.
Dimitri - for always helping out around the classroom without being asked and being a great friend to others.

3G
Lilliana- for being a super reader- reading regularly and offering interesting  ideas about her books
Dimitra- for writing convincing persuasive texts.

4H 
Matt- for his excellent measuring skills and producing a 'to scale' drawing of the basketball court.
Juian- for his self-editing skills while 'VCOP'ing his own work.

4W
Jemma- for her ability to create and ask worthwhile questions before reading to maximise her learning!
Sam- for his developing ability to improve his written work through the VCOP process.

_____________________________

 Celebrating our Learning
Middle School Excursion to CERES
Friday 13th May

Last Friday the grade 3 and 4 students travelled to CERES to learn about sustainability, indigenous plants and the life cycle of plants.  CERES is a centre where people can learn about environmental issues and how to look after our planet.  Did you know what was originally on the CERES site?  A rubbish tip. A group of people decided they wanted to reduce the amount of rubbish and turn the area into one where people learnt how to look after the planet.

The students all worked through three workshops which were: indigenous plants, plants and seeds and their life cycle and sustainable gardening.

Indigenous Plants: These are plants which come from a particular area and are native to that area.  Exotic plants are plants which were introduced or brought to an area. 
The aboriginal people knew a lot about indigenous plants and they used them for many things including food, shelter, weapons and medicine.  They knew it was important to look after the plants.
We were in groups and each group had a particular plant to locate when we went for our walk along Merri Creek and through CERES.  The groups referred to information sheets which explained the animals that helped the plants for example by eating the bugs.  Birds and frogs were two of the creatures. 
Here are some of the plants we learnt about:
kangaroo apple, pig face, Warragul Greens and lilly pilly.  Guess which one made us laugh a lot when we heard the name?
Kangaroo apple- the fruit can be eaten when they are yellow but they are poisonous when they are green, the fruit is the size of a grape, when the fruit dries out it becomes crinkly and the leaves a long oval shape.
Pig face- this was useful as you could break the leaves and suck the liquid out of them if you are desperate for a drink, it is a succulent, it has pretty flowers although it was not in  bloom when we visited.
Warragul Green- tasted like spinach and it was a bit peppery.  The leaves were shaped like a spade on a playing card and were floppy, they grew on a thin stem similar in size to a thin elastic which could be bent without breaking.
Lilly pilly is a bush which people sometimes use the fruit to cook and make jam. 

Plants and seeds: we looked at a range of objects and had to make a connection to determine what the connection was between them all.  They were all seeds.  The dried sunflower was shaped like a large mushroom.  The bamboo was one of the fastest growing grass and it is used for building works, bike frames and furniture and bowls. 
Do you know how seeds travel?  Some are blown by the breeze, some are eaten and digested by animals and birds and then 'deposited'.  Spiky seeds are clever because they get stuck to animal fur or our clothes and then fall off eventually. 
To understand what it was like to be a plant we acted out the life cycle of a plant. 
After that we used PVC tubing and wrapped newspaper strips around them, folding down the bottom to close one opening. We removed the tubing and had a cylinder of newspaper which we filled with soil, made a 1/2 centimetre hole to plant the rainbow chard seed which we then placed a small amount of soil over to cover.

Sustainable gardening: there were many examples of how to create sustainable gardens.  Here are some of the things we learnt:
crop rotation is useful because it means that the bugs don't know what will always be planted so they don't always go there to eat the plants.  Worms are useful because they aerate the soil so you need to remove or break up the soil so it wasn't compacted and then the worms can move around. Do you know how the moon impacts a garden?  When it is a full moon it sucks the moisture from plants so farmers like to harvest plants during a full moon if they need to dry the plants out.  Don't touch stinging nettle- it STINGS!

Our excursion was an excellent adventure in which we got to get our hands dirty. 
By our intrepid reporters- Chloe and Sarah.

Middle School Term 2 Week 4

Middle School Newsletter: Term 2 Week 4

CONNECT WITH GRADE 3 and 4

Learning and Teaching

We Are Learning To....

READING: create and ask questions of a text. Asking questions before reading stimulates interest and engages initial curiosity. This encourages students to frame their learning goals and to activate existing knowledge.

WRITING: develop then elaborate fictional ideas when writing narratives. The students are developing their ability to plan and then write descriptive and engaging fictional pieces. 

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 narrative writing. The students will investigate relevant vocabulary, narrative connectives and interesting openings.

MATHS: measure, order and compare objects using familiar metric units. The students will explore the unit of measurement completing a range of hands-on learning experiences involving length, area, capacity, volume and mass.

UNIT OF STUDY (Biological Science - 'Among the Gum Trees'): understand that living things have life cycles and living things, including plants and animals, depend on each other and the environment to survive. The Middle School students begin their studies into biological science in our Among the Gum Trees unit. This hands-on science unit will develop the students' scientific understanding, inquiry skills and ability to see science as a human endeavour.

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.

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

 Term 2 Calendar Dates

NAPLAN DAYS (tests take place in the morning)
10th- Language Conventions and Writing
11th- Reading
12th- Numeracy

Friday 13th May: Middle School Excursion to CERES
Tuesday 17th May: Italian Day
Wednesday 18th May: Maths Olympiad 1
Wednesday 18th May: Science Family Fun Night
Wednesday 1st June: Division Cross Country
Monday 13th June: Queen's Birthday Public Holiday
Tuesday 14th June: Regional Cross Country

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.  In Term One 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 Weeks 2 & 3
3S

Maya for planning and developing a detailed and impressive piece of persuasive writing.
Ben for consistently striving for excellence in the work that he does and for always doing the right thing in and out of the classroom.
3G
Talia for showing excellent understanding of grammar.
Kade for providing interesting ideas.

4H 
Tyler for his efforts towards improving his writing.

4W
Angie for her ability to create an accurate fraction wall and use it to find equivalent fractions.
Josh for his persistence when working through problems involving fractions.

_____________________________

 Celebrating our Learning
Middle School Excursion to CERES
Friday 13th May

To support our studies into environmental science, the Year 3 and 4 classes will be going on an excursion to CERES Community Environment Park (Stewart Street & Roberts Street, Brunswick East) on Friday 13^th May, 2016. Students will travel by bus to CERES, leaving school after 9am and returning before 3:30pm.

CERES have more than 30 years’ experience in providing development for learners of every age and background to acquire the knowledge, skills, attitudes and values necessary to shape a sustainable future. While at CERES, the students will participate in workshops investigating indigenous plants, sustainable gardening and seed planting.

CERES works on the RETHINK-REDUCE-REUSE-RECYCLE policy. Students will need to bring a waste free lunch to the excursion. The aim of a waste free lunch is to reduce the waste that goes into the lunch making process. CERES encourages students and teachers to experience how easy it is to make less rubbish and to positively contribute towards social and environmental sustainability.

Students are required to bring a (waste-free) packed lunch including a snack and a drink bottle. All students are expected to wear full school uniform and will need to dress appropriately for an outdoor excursion, bringing a jacket in case of rain or cold weather.

Please ensure the permission form is returned as soon as possible and that you have paid the excursion levy for the year.

Maths Olympiad

 The 2016 Mentone Park Maths Olympiad team has now been selected and are currently in training!

There will be weekly lunchtime practise sessions focussing on preparing students for the five Olympiads between May and September. These sessions will focus on developing a range of problem solving and critical thinking skills, while also giving students practise in what to expect in the actual Olympiad.

The approximate dates for the Olympiad are as follows:

Wednesday 18^th May

Wednesday 8^th June

Wednesday 27^th July

Wednesday 17^th August

Wednesday 7^th September

The Middle School students selected to represent Mentone Park are:

Year 4

Billy

Euan

Victoria

Matt

Edward

Jemma

Olivia

Indie

Sarah

Holly

Middle School - Term 2 Week 2

Middle School Newsletter: Term 2 Week 2

CONNECT WITH GRADE 3 and 4

Learning and Teaching

We Are Learning To....

READING: determine importance. In narrative genres, determining importance requires the reader to identify main ideas and infer themes of the story. In nonfiction, however, determining importance is more about retaining important information and learning from the text; readers must be able to sift through information and decide what is most important.WRITING: identify the features of persuasive texts and focus on the language of persuasive writing. The students will continue their unit on persuasive writing, focusing on, amongst other things, using different planning tools and graphic organisers to develop ideas.    

V.C.O.P. (Vocabulary Connectives Openers Punctuation): continue to upgrade our writing pieces through the V.C.O.P. process. The Middle School students are now all familiar with the V.C.O.P. process and are developing their ability upgrade their written work.

MATHS: explore the concepts of fractions and decimal fractions. The students will represent common fractions, locate fractions on a number line, investigate equivalent fractions and make links back to our place value system. The learning within the unit will be supported by hands-on materials and a range of learning experiences and games for the students!

UNIT OF STUDY (Biological Science - 'Among the Gum Trees'): understand that living things have life cycles and living things, including plants and animals, depend on each other and the environment to survive. The Middle School students begin their studies into biological science in our Among the Gum Trees unit. This hands-on science unit will develop the students' scientific understanding, inquiry skills and ability to see science as a human endeavour.

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.

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

 Term 2 Calendar Dates

Friday 22nd April: Passionate Pursuits program commences
Friday 22nd April: ANZAC Assembly 2:45-3:30
Monday 25th April: ANZAC Day Public Holiday
Monday 2nd May: District Cross Country
Tuesday 10th - Thursday 12th May: NAPLAN (Year 3 & 5)
Friday 13th May: Middle School Excursion to CERES
Tuesday 17th May: Italian Day
Wednesday 18th May: Maths Olympiad 1
Wednesday 18th May: Science Family Fun Night
Wednesday 1st June: Division Cross Country
Monday 13th June: Queen's Birthday Public Holiday
Tuesday 14th June: Regional Cross Country

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.  In Term One 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 Week 1
3S

Isabella Basile for working towards achieving her classroom goal of keeping on task and trying her hardest.  

3G
Giann Pike for writing a wonderful persuasive opening paragraph.

4H 
Anna Hampson for her use of Powerful Persuasive Language in her writing tasks.

4W
Euan Walker for his positive attitude towards his school work and his growth mindset.

_____________________________

 Celebrating our Learning
Citizen Science and Scientist in Schools
This term we are excited to work in partnership with CSIRO for the Scientist in Schools program. This program enhances and extends the learning opportunities for students through our Science inquiry unit.

In our first session this week, Ivan, our visiting scientist talked to the students about Citizen Science projects. 

What is Citizen Science?
Citizen Science (CS) (also known as crowd science, crowd sourced science, civic science, volunteer monitoring or networked science) is scientific research conducted, in whole or in part, by amateur or non professional scientists.

It includes the participation of non-scientists in the process of gathering data according to specific scientific protocols and in the process of using and interpreting that data.

Citizen Science is a movement in which volunteers are helping professional scientists collect and analyse data.

Here are some of the comments from the students: 
I learnt that there are cat radars which show where their cat goes and measures how far it travels.   Sonny
We learnt about a program which teaches you about ants and that you need to count them.  Dimitra
There are different types of ants and those ants like different types of food.  Mia
I learnt that Citizen Science lets everyone join in.  Jasmine
Ivan showed us a website that we could visit to help other scientists!!  Olivia
You can take pictures of animals that haven't been found before and let other people know about them.  Giaan


Calling all scientists!!
Over the coming weeks we will invite students to extend their scientific knowledge and thinking by electing to participate in the Citizen Science project
www.schoolofants.net.au

Satellite Club

We are pleased to announce that the Satellite Club will continue in 2016 beginning in Term 2 for selected Year 3 to 6 students.  The Satellite Club is Mentone Park’s Extension and Enrichment in-school program which has been developed to extend our high achieving students through explicitly teaching thinking skills and presenting activities which promote higher order thinking.

Students have been selected to participate in this program based on teacher observation and their results from the Assessment of General Ability test which they completed in Term 1.

Our aim is to develop intrepid learners - learners who embrace challenges and are adventurous thinkers.  Students will be provided with opportunities to think deeply and comprehensively across a range of tasks. 
In Term 2 our focus will be on developing:

•    critical and creative thinking, understanding of thinking processes and an ability to manage and apply these intentionally
•    skills and learning dispositions that support logical, strategic, flexible and adventurous thinking
•    confidence in evaluating thinking and thinking processes across a range of familiar and unfamiliar contexts

Mrs Grisdale is continuing to coordinate the program in 2016 and for Term 2, we are excited to announce that Mr Wilton will be leading the weekly Satellite Club sessions with the students.

Congratulations to...

Year 3
Anton Zois
Mia Lafasanidis
Kate Ovenden
Oscar Carter
Chloe Penson-Noble

Year 4
Victoria Chen
Billy Jackson
Euan Walker
Indie-Mai Carter
Olivia Price
Anna Hampson
Sarah Whitehead
Ethan Nancarrow