Term 4

Well here we are, half way through term 4! Where has the year gone?! I continue to be proud and amazed by the wonderful children in Room 13. I feel truly blessed to have been their teacher this year.

As you would be aware, we have had a very busy start to semester 2 with lots of visitors to our classroom to view our Literacy Block. We have been lucky enough to not only have visiting teachers from within our school but many other schools also.

I am very excited to also share that I have been selected as a finalist in the WA Education Awards—Beginning Teacher of the Year (I am currently in my last year to be eligible for this award). A huge thank you must go to ‘my’ lovely students for making me look so good to the judges. Fingers crossed we get to celebrate on the 30th of November when the winner is announced at the Award breakfast.

It is only 5 short weeks until the end of the year!

Mrs Kirsty Campbell

Class Teacher

 Reminders

Our Calendar

Thursday

Art

(even weeks)

Early Close each Tuesday 2:30pm

Wednesday:

Sport

Music

Thursday

Library

Friday

Italian

 Homework Reminders

Spelling words are sent home each Monday. It is important children practice these words prior to the spelling test each Friday.

Home readers

Please ensure your child returns their home reader on their nominated day as other     classes require these books also

Apples - Friday

Oranges - Thursday

Watermelons  - Tuesday

Bananas  - Monday

Your children know their groups

Literacy Update

We have had a huge focus on building our vocabulary and understanding of language through sentence building. I am sure you have heard many new words and possibly some technical terms you never knew existed. I can not explain to you how proud I am of all the children have achieved. They continue to impress me with their willingness to learn and experiment with knowledge and I am not the only one! Our principal Ms Roberts, visits our class often just to see how much more the children know from week to week. She is always as impressed as I am. I hope you have noticed the growth in your children and feel every bit as proud as me.

Some of the words you may have heard recently are:

· Onomatopoeia

· Extra terrestrial

· Enchanting

· Mesmerising

· Inquisitive

And many, many more. Just ask them.

LITERACY BLOCK

A vital part of literacy learning is our Literacy Blocks that run each day in class.

To begin our literacy block we start with a ’Warm Up’. The Warm Up is a fast paced revision of  sight words, word meanings, phonics and reading strategies. This can consist of flash cards and/or Power Point. Having these warm ups caters for all different learning abilities and is a great way to develop instant recall.

If ever you would like to come in and observe a Literacy block please let me know.

Maths Update

 

As you know, we have been completing our Mathematics program via PR1ME this year. This Mathematics program is very comprehensive and teaching children various strategies to solve problems. This term we are working on coloumn addition and subtraction with regrouping (borrowing and carrying on for us old schoolers). The children have been working very hard to develop their knowledge and understanding in this area of Mathematics. One of the strategies we have been using is called 'self talk'. 'Self talk' requires children to speak out loud when solving a problem. This method not only enables me to hear their thinking and understanding, but enables them to hear the correct strategy over and over, thereby ensuring it reaches their long term memory. Ask your children to give you a demonstration, they really are very good!

Science

Have you been asked some hard hitting questions relating to food and the ways in which they can change...why some changes are reversible and others are not?

We have had a great time experimenting with the changes we can make to food, but the most exciting day was ‘spaghetti day’.

Firstly, we looked at uncooked spaghetti, we felt it, smelt it and tasted it (much to everyone's disgust). We then put some spaghetti in boiling water and the same amount of spaghetti in cold water. We set the timer for 10 minutes, then waited. What did we find? The boiling water cooked the spaghetti and the cold water did nothing but make our spaghetti wet, in fact, it took over an hour for the cold water to break down the spaghetti and make it soft enough to bend without breaking.

What did we do with all the cooked spaghetti? We ate it! It was delicious!

Then we made spaghetti towers. What a great testament to team work. So much fun, so much strategy!