We have had a very busy last few weeks with swimming lessons, dancing lessons and preparations for the end of year! 

  Swimming Lessons 

We would like to thank all the parents for your organisation and preparation in ensuring the children were ready for swimming each day. There is a lot involved in getting ready for swimming, traveling on the bus and participating in the lessons. The students’ behaviour has been exceptional so far. It is great to see the students’ confidence in the water and their swimming skills developing over the two weeks.

  Sharing a Hills Christmas

Thank you to all the parents who have donated to the Hills Christmas Appeal. It is wonderful that we are able to help those less fortunate than ourselves. There are many activities planned for the last few weeks of 2020. 

  Dancing and Presentation Party 

The students have been having a wonderful time, practising their dance steps for the numerous dances we will be performing at the dance and presentation party next week. Our Dance and Presentation Party is on Tuesday the 15th of December. The students may wear party clothes, but please ensure they wear school appropriate shoes. We look forward to celebrating the year by shuffling our feet and tapping our toes. It is unfortunate this year, due to COVID-19 restrictions on the number of adults in an enclosed space, we are unable to have parents attend. Keep an eye on the blog for the photos following the event.

  Class End of Year Picnic 

We will be having a Class End of Year Picnic on Tuesday 15th of December. The student have had the opportunity to order Subway. For those who haven’t ordered please provide lunch as usual. This is a student only event. 

  Ringing of the Bell 

Thursday 17th of December is the last day of school for all students. Wattle Grove Primary School has a wonderful tradition to farewell the graduating students with the Ringing of the Bell. At 2pm the students and staff gather near the undercover area to say goodbye. The staff and students from Kindergarten to Year 5 make an arch in which the graduates descend through. Once at the end, each Year 6 student rings the old school bell to signify the end of their primary school years. 

  Final Farewell

As the final term of 2020 comes to a close, we would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for your support and cooperation throughout the year. The journey that each child partakes in is enriched by the collaboration of both home and school. Your ongoing support with home readers, library books, sight words files, spelling folders, fundraising events and much more, all adds to the learning experience. We greatly appreciate your efforts and hope that you are as proud as we are, with the progress your child has made this year. 

 It has been a year that was very different to any other year and the students have shown their resiliency in coping with the many changes. Again, I would like to thank all the parents for their support in a year which has had unprecedented events. Despite the uncertainty at times, it has been a wonderful year filled with many memories of exciting learning opportunities. 

I would like to acknowledge the hard work of our DOTT provider Mrs Moulin for the enthusiasm, passion and knowledge she shares with us. And an enormous thank you to Mrs Johnson for her hard work, organisation and thoughtfulness around the classroom. 

 Six weeks of holidays is a considerably long time for our littlies and we encourage you to help them retain the knowledge they have acquired this year by practising the essentials. Revision of the sight words, blends and number facts will help your child be prepared for Year One. Please encourage your child to write regularly and read every day for enjoyment and to maintain their skills. 

 Term One for 2021 begins Monday 1st of February. We wish you and your family a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Stay safe and enjoy your time together!

Mrs Nair 

Term 4

Welcome to Term 4.

I am really enjoying getting to know all of the students in Room 6. I would like to thank all parents for attending the parent interviews and for their support in joining Room 6 in this busy time of year.

News

We have started a news program this week. Please bring in photos or special items instead of toys. It would really benefit your child if you could help them prepare something to say and practise answering questions about their topic. Every child will have the opportunity to present news one day in the week. You can choose a day that suits you to have their news prepared for the week.

Dancing

We have begun learning several dances and are very excited for our end of year dance party to show you all of our new moves!

Sight word folders

 Please return your child’s sight word folder on their allocated day so that we can see their progress and assign new sight words. We have begun to focus on spelling sight words. Practice spelling the Golden and Red words by using the Look Say Cover Write Check process. Please ask me any questions about this that you might have.

Home reading books

Please return Home Readers every Thursday so a new book can be sent home. If you have a blue or red folder, can you please keep Home Readers in the folder so books are not damaged.

Thanks for your support. I look forward to a busy and fun Term in Room 6.

Mrs Nair

Welcome to the World Reuben James

Reuben James Govan was born this morning (Saturday 26th September 2020) at 7:13am. 4.5 hours labour, we are already home and settled in. 

Not as big as they all predicted, weighing in at 3.49kg, however, we didn't make the full 40 weeks.

Have a great holidays, stay safe and rest up. We will see you all in Term 4! rested and ready to go! 

One proud Dad. 3 boys...we must be crazy! 

Thanks for our beanie @littlesisters beanies.

Elijah and Jacob got to meet their brother at 1:30 when we got home.

As Term 3 comes to an end, I would like to take this opportunity to thank all parents for your continued support and well wishes for both myself and my family.

Unfortunately due to medical reasons, I have not managed to achieve my goal of working up until the end of Term 3. Please know that even though I am away, I am doing whatever i can to support your children and keep their learning as seamless as possible for the remainder of term from home whilst I still can. 

Thankyou to everyone for your well wishes. Thankyou to everyone involved for putting together my beautiful card and gift. I've heard there may be a few more gifts waiting for me at school. I will be in to pick them up once I am able. 

I am so very proud of each child's progress this year. They have all come a very long way. I hope to continue to follow their learning Journey into Term 4. 

I hope you all enjoy a happy and safe holidays. Hopefully I will have an update for everyone very soon! 

Kind Regards,

Katy Govan 

Room 6 and 7 Assembly

Rooms 6 and 7 will be hosting our assembly in Week 6 this term. As it falls in book week, we have decided to narrate a well known, and popular story..."The Gruffalo" by Julia Donaldson. 

We will be using this book in class as our "shared reading"text over the next few weeks. Our goal is to memorise the story before the day. We will also be covering our curriculum learning goals in Literacy using this book. If you could help your children by reading the text (if you have it at home) to them regularly between now and then that will be great! 

If you do not have the book, not a problem! if you click on the image of the book above, it should link you to a powerpoint slideshow with the words from the text and visual prompts to support when narrating the story (open in Google Slides). An alternative is to look for a read aloud story online. 

More information regarding our assembly will be given to you in the coming weeks. Parents and family members are invited to attend our assembly, although, please be mindful to adhere to the current social distancing rules. 

Term 3: Technology Project

This term in Design and Technologies, the children will be working on a very exciting project. They will be required to design and build a bird home. This will be completed in class.

We are looking for donations of materials that the children can choose from to make their bird house. Such as offcuts of timber, plywood, mdf, pine etc. We would also appreciate donations of nails and screws. All donations need to be sent into school over the next week or 2. Please be assured that we will be following safety procedures when working with the wood/materials. Closer to the building of the bird houses, we will be asking interested parents to come and assist.

Thank you for your support, and we look forward to sharing our wonderful creations with you.

Pre-primary Teachers.

Term 2 Learning

Well done to the Room 6 merit award recipients for Term 2. 

 

Literacy

We have introduced vowels, double consonants, and initial blend sounds this term. Students are expected to recognise the sound, identify and generate words orally that contain them, and read decodable words containing them. As a form of extension, when ready, students will begin spelling words containing blends. 

Here are our new phonics rules;

Short Vowels: Say the letter sound.

Long Vowels: Say the letter name.

Double consonants: Can be found in the middle or at the end of a word. They are found after a short vowel sound. 

Blends: Two consonant letters blended together, you hear both sounds.

We have now started our guided reading program. You may have noticed that your child is bringing home a reader on a Thursday afternoon. Please take the time over the weekend to share the book with your child. They have been practising their reading skills during the week using the book. Reading to you is reinforcing these skills whilst sharing their new skills with you. Please return these readers on Mondays. Each week we will swap between a decodable reader and a non-decodable reader. The skills we are practising are different each week. Decodables are teaching your child blending and segmenting skills (sounding out) and fluency. The non-decodable readers focus on their comprehension skills (understanding what they read). 

Students are continually developing confidence in their ability to write. Most students are now attempting independent writing and using their sounds to represent words. Our whole class goals in writing are;

1. Capital letters to begin a sentence

2. Spaces between words

3. A full stop at the end of a sentence

Students also have individual writing goals to develop their own writing. 

Mathematics

We have now covered numbers to 20. Students are expected to recognise the number, write the numbers, and make collections to represent the amount in different ways. 

We have also covered breaking numbers into parts and using this understanding to complete simple addition and subtraction within 10. 

In measurement, students have been learning the mathematical language of longer, shorter, taller, heavier and lighter and comparing objects by size and weight. They have started to measure an objects length using informal units (blocks, paperclips etc). 

Science 

This term we are covering Physical Science. We have been investigating how the properties of objects affect the way they move. We have looked at;

1. Bouncing

2. Rolling

3. Sliding

4. Spinning

We have introduced the term friction. Students know that this is a force that acts upon all objects while they move, trying to stop or slow down the object. We have learnt that smooth surfaces create less friction than rough surfaces and therefore smooth objects can travel further. 

DID YOU KNOW?

When your hands are feeling cold you rub them together. When you rub them together, you create friction between your hands. This force produces heat that helps to warm your hands. 

...We learnt this! 

Technology

Now we know all about objects, we have demonstrated our understanding by designing and building a ramp in teams that will allow a car to travel the furthest possible. We have just finished designing and making a car. Our goal: to have the car that travels the furthest.