Highlights of our learning in Week 5

Here we are having fun with our spelling words using THRASS. We like to incorporate a little drama with our THRASS lessons.



Here we are working out the shortest flight path from Sydney to Santiago and Sydney to Cape Town.



Having fun in STEM building a micro controller.

Premiers Reading Challenge launch and Book Fair - 6 March!

It Here! The NSW Premiers Reading Challenge (PRC) starts on Monday 5 March and to launch the reading initiative the school is holding a Book Fair.

The Scholastic Book Fair will be open in the Learning Hub Tuesday - Thursday 6-8^th March from 8.00-830 and 2.30-3.00.

Your children will be enrolled on the PRC website and your child will be able to log in and start recording books read from 6 March.

K-2 students – you can read the books on your own, read them with someone, or someone can read them to you. If your child is reading simple chapter books they can attempt the 3-4 challenge – please let Mrs Duffy know if this is your child.

3-6 students – you must read the books on your own, but someone can help you choose them.

Book lists are found here: https://online.det.nsw.edu.au/prc/booklist/home.html 

Complete rules are found here: https://online.det.nsw.edu.au/prc/rules.html

The Learning Hub team is gathering all the PRC books we hold so you will easily find some titles with us but a visit to your local library will be required to access the vast majority of books – there are over 1500 book titles for each age group!

     

Logging-on is easy from the 6 March at:                                           https://online.det.nsw.edu.au/prc/home.html 

Students will receive a Certificate for each year they complete the Challenge:

                                             

The online Student Reading Record must be completed by 31 August 2018 (11.59) to complete the Challenge.

If your child meets the challenge target, their certificate will have their name and school printed on it and the Honour Roll has names listed by alphabetical order but does not mention your school name. 

If you do not want your child to receive a certificate or be on the Honour Roll, you must not enter any books in your online Student Reading Record.

By entering this challenge, your child is declaring that they have read the books entered in accordance with their school year rules.

I look forward to encouraging your children to take up the challenge and 

share new books with them.

4MB Week 4

We had another busy week of learning this week in 4MB. Here are the amazing work we did this week:

English:

• We started our Guided Reading groups and worked on our comprehension after we've read a text.
• We worked on correct punctuation for contraction words.
• We wrote some interesting sentences making sure we included adjectives and a variety of punctuation other than the full stop.
• We practised writing similes to help us with our narrative writing.
• We integrated our Geography unit on the Earth's Environment by writing a narrative about a Dinosaur Ant, which is an insect that is considered endangered.

Maths:

• We focussed on addition this week using a variety of strategies: split, jump and columns addition.
• We completed a speed addition test today.

Science:

• We experimented with primary and secondary heat sources. We went on a hunt to find areas around the school that were considered secondary heat sources. We learned that concrete would be a secondary heat source because it was warm from the sun.
• We learned about electric, kinetic and chemical energy.

Geography:

• We discovered and located Australia's neighbours on a world map.
• We learned about the importance of vegetation to our ecosystem.

Health:

• We focused on our own positive traits and the positive traits of others.

Drama:

• We played a fun game of Chirades/Chinese Whispers using words from the THRASS chart. The class enjoyed this game!

Stay tuned for next week! Have a lovely weekend.

Mrs Michelle Brixen

Ice cream Day!

Addition and Subtraction

Dear Parents of 4MB,

We are focussing on addition and subtraction in Maths this week. We had a discussion in class today about where you would see addition and subtraction in real life. The class had a task of bringing in an example of where they found addition or subtraction from home. I thought I'd post this on the class blog so parents can also get involved in helping them find examples.

If you can have your son/daughter bring in either a photo or just simply an example of where you would see addition or subtraction in real life, that would be greatly appreciated!

Kind regards,
Michelle Brixen

MakerSpace Years 3-6 Monday's 2nd half lunch

Year 3-6 Makerspace 

Week 3 saw the start of the Bayview Clubs and these delightful students challenged their listening and verbal skills. 

Students had to engineer an 'item' that they couldn't see and had to rely on the expert description provided by their buddy.

Well done these students!

Year 3, 4 , 5 & 6 - Come and join us!

Where: in the Flexi Room

When: Monday's 2nd half lunch 

What for? fun, creation, designing, challenging!

The Benefits of Music

Music enriches a child’s life. Research has found that music enhances other areas by facilitating learning. It’s more than the voice singing or the fingers playing an instrument. Music taps into multiple skills sets, often simultaneously eg. using eyes and ears as well as large and small muscles. Musical training physically develops the part of the left side of the brain involved with processing language. Linking familiar songs to new information can also help imprint information on young minds. As teachers we often sing times tables, or the Thrass rap, to enhance learning. Research indicates the brain of music students works differently to that of non-music students. Apparently children involved in music have larger growth of neural activity because more of the brain is used when playing an instrument or singing. Research has also found a causal link between music and spatial intelligence. This means understanding music can help children visualise various elements which should go together, like they would do when solving a maths problem. These skills are used when solving multistep problems in engineering, maths, art, gaming, IT and architecture. It doesn’t end there: along with better performance results on concentration-based tasks, music training can help with basic memory recall. Music is also associated with other cognitive strengths such as verbal recall proficiency. People who have had formal musical training tend to be better at remembering verbal information stored in memory. So, get very excited when your child tells you they enjoy music! The benefits are greater than you imagine!

Music Time

Who knew that warming up our voices and bodies before our weekly music lesson could be so much fun?

Parenting Workshop

Home Learning Term 1 Week 3

Dear Parents,
Here is the Home Learning Grid for Week 3. I accidentally sent home the incorrect spelling words. The following document has the correct Spelling words for your reference. I will also send home a hard copy with the correct words tomorrow.
Thanks for your understanding!
Kind regards
Michelle

Week 3 Term 1 Activities

Dear Parents,
Thank you to all the parents who came out to the Parent Information Session on Monday night.

We had a great swimming carnival and it was fantastic to see the enthusiasm and participation from the students. Well done!

Here are some pictures of some of the activities we did this week. You will see the students working on some maths challenge activities with partners.

Here we are doing some investigations about heat and making a prediction about what would happen when you add food colouring to warm water versus cold water. 

Here we are with Nexgen doing some coding on our laptops.