Sunday 2 December 2018




Term 4 2018, Volume 14, Weeks 7,8 &9


  
🎵It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas....🎵

and 


🎵We are the Champions, my friend🎵

I couldn't decide which song so I went with both. Your children have been amazing and it's this time of year when we start to think back to their first day of 2018...seems like yesterday!!!
    
It wasn't long ago we were watching the horses racing to win the Melbourne Cup and now we are preparing for the last few weeks of 2018.

Its been a magical year and as the teachers are busy preparing reports, the students are getting excited about everything Christmas. We are still doing lots of learning but this shared enthusiasm brings the students together in a wonderful way.


 











December
Friday 7th -  Whole School Sports Day -Wear your house colours!!!
Monday 10th - Up Day
Tuesday 11th - Middle School Incursion - FULL STEAM AHEAD 
Tuesday 11th - Christmas Carols 5.30pm-7.30pm
Monday 17th - Middle School Incursion - THE FLYING BOOKWORM (9am)
                        - Meet the teacher.
                        - Reports go home.
Tuesday 18th - Middle School Incursion -  WOODWORK INC.
Thursday 20th - Special lunch and KK
Friday 21st  - Early dismissal at 1.30pm




WEEKS  7, 8 & 9

READING sessions are a real hit as we have been enjoying the amazing work of Roald Dahl in his classic, The BFG. The students have worked through the activities relating to each chapter that we read to them and are eagerly waiting for when we can view the movie.

In WRITING the students have refined their narrative writing skills by participating in a range of different workshops. They have been refining their understanding of how to best plan and create their characters, setting and plot. We move to transactional writing where students write letters to friends, family members and members of the North Pole. They will also create cards using different applications during ICT

During  MATHS  the students have been enthusiastically exploring tessellations, symmetry and flip, slide and turn. Tetris was a big hit to complement these units.

For SPELLING the students have completed the SMART spelling sessions for the purpose of homework however, we have continued to include spelling as part of our reading sessions with reference to our class novel, The BFG.


During our  INQUIRY unit on Geography, the students have been given a project to explore one country in depth. they have a booklet of questions that they will research and then they will decide how to present their information.

In ICT, the students have been exploring POWTOON to recreate scenes from the BFG. The skills the students are presenting are amazing and it's been wonderful being able to share such a fun learning experience with them. 


Student spotlight...

Maths Olympiad 2018
Throughout this year, 14 dedicated Year 3-6 students have voluntarily given up their lunchtimes and time at home each week to represent our school in the 2018 Maths Olympiad. The Maths Olympiad is a challenging competition for high achieving maths students. It allows individuals to ‘put their talent to the test’ and compete against other students from across Australia and New Zealand.
These students have worked hard to develop their maths problem-solving skills in this challenging competition. The students are:


Middle School
Ethan G.B.
Kirby A
Sergej A

Isobel O


Coming up...


Over the next two weeks, the students will continue to be engaged in many learning opportunities. Team building activities and looking forward to the following year by reflecting on this year and hoping for things to come will feature highly. 

As we near the end of our class novel, The BFG, the students are looking forward to viewing the movie to make comparisons. No doubt a Christmas movie will be a nice way to celebrate this time of year also.

The students will also begin bringing home some work and books they've completed during the year. Sometimes a green shopping bag is a good idea to make carrying these things a bit easier. 



Have a great week,
Nikki, Nick, Jess and Nicole.











Sunday 28 October 2018




Term 4 2018, Volume 13, Weeks 1,2 & 3


  
🎵Give me a home among the gum trees, with lots of plum trees🎵

Time flies when you're having fun...

We can't believe it's already the start of Week 4! What a start to the term we have had! 

This term we have begun our studies into information reports in Writing, time and money in Maths and synthesizing and summarising in Reading. Our inquiry topic this term is Geography and we have already learned about the states, capital cities and the natural and man-made landmarks of Australia and its neighbours.  All of the students have been engaged in their learning and look forward to what awaits for the remainder of 2018. 

On the 7th of December, Mentone Park Primary School will be having their whole school athletics day. As the planning of this is underway, we ask that if there are any Middle School parents available to help out for all or some of this day, that they let one of the Middle School teacher's know.








October
Friday 26th -  Halloween Disco

November
Tuesday 6th - Melbourne Cup Day (PUBLIC HOLIDAY)
Sunday 18th- Colour Run

December
Friday 7th - Whole School Sports Day

WEEKS  1, 2 & 3

In READING we have been looking at a range of pictures and using our skills to predict what we think might happen. We have also been retelling traditional fairy tales from a different characters point of view whilst also entering different characters to see how they might affect the story line. 

In WRITING the students have refined their narrative writing skills by participating in a range of different workshops. They have been refining their understanding of how to best plan and create their characters, setting and plot.

During  MATHS  the students have been focusing on telling the time whilst also creating and interpreting timetables. During week three we also began our unit on money by having students count a range of different amounts of coins and calculate change.

For SPELLING:
WEEK 1
Grade 3 Focus: ‘se’ as in cheese
Grade 4 Focus: r, rr, wr common errors

Week 2
Grade 3 Focus: the digraph /aw/ making the sound or as in saw
Grade 4 Focus: The graph /n/ as in net. The digraph /nn/ as in dinner. The digraph /kn/ as in knee.

Week 3
Grade 3 Focus: ‘our’ as in colour
Grade 4 Focus: m, mm, mb common errors

During our new INQUIRY unit on Geography, the students have been investigating the difference between a state and capital. They have also been exploring Australian neighbors such as New Zealand, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea.

In ICT, the students have been exploring Kahoot which is a website where students can create and complete a range of Quizzes to test their knowledge on a range of topics.


Coming up...

WEEKS  4 & 5

In READING we will be learning how to identify key points within a block of information in order to write a summary about the information



In WRITING the students will continue their information reports on a state of their choosing. During Writing in week three, the students researched a state and some of the famous landmarks, festivals and local fauna or flora which they will use to write up their report.

During  MATHS  the students will continue their money investigations. They will be using their knowledge and skills they gained in week 3 to complete real life tasks such as shopping.

For SPELLING:
Week 4
Grade 3: ‘eigh’ as in eight and “a-e” in tape

Grade 4: ‘e’ as in garden

Week 5
Grade 3: ending in y plurals

Grade 4: dis- prefix

During our INQUIRY unit on Geography, the students will be looking at what it would be like to live in one of our neighboring countries.

In ICT, the students will learn how to use Google Sheets (Also known as Excel) to create graphs and publish tables of information. They will also begin their Term 4 ICT project which requires them to either plan a party of research the significance of the Australian Coins. 




Middle School Learning








Tuesday 18 September 2018

Term 3 Volume 12 Weeks 8,9,10




Term 3 2018, Volume 12, Weeks 8, 9 & 10


  
🎵Spring in the air, everywhere I look around🎵




Before we know it Summer will be here, but isn't it lovely to be able to get out and about in this beautiful weather.


We have had a wonderful term with our excursion, camp, science magic, athletics, father's day celebration, yo-yos, stomp, pole painting, footy day and we cannot forget the amazing CONCERT....and of course we are now busy preparing for next term as I write!!!!




Image result for spring meme















September

Thursday 20th - Wonder movie and Teacher V Students netball game
Friday 21st- Whole school footy day, special lunch and early dismissal 2.30pm


October

Monday 8th - School resumes
Friday 26th -  Halloween Disco








WEEKS  8&9&10

In READING we have been confidently using the reading strategy of Determining Importance. The students further explored this strategy by using a T chart to record important and interesting information from their reading. We also used this to assist in researching our writing topics.



In WRITING the students explored Explanation writing. During this process, the students have been exposed to various topics such as - Do stars twinkle?, How rainbows are formed, How do we hear?, What is wind? and How bees make honey. The students were very enthusiastic during this learning. This week, the students researched topics and created their own Explanation reports. We will endeavour to publish these and then present them in a large book format.

During  MATHS  sessions, we looked at the properties of 2D shapes and 3D shapes. We also began our fractions unit. The students were put into ability based groupings based upon the results from their Fractions & Decimals pre-test. The students worked at their point of need to develop their skills and understanding in this subject area. A whole post test will also follow.

For SPELLING:
Week 8 - no spelling due to concert
Week 9
Grade 3 Focus: The digraph /ti/ making the sound “sh” as in station.
Grade 4 Focus: The digraphs /ui/ and /ew/ making the sound “oo” as in screw.

Week 10
Grade 3 Focus: The graph /u/ making the sound “w” as in quilt.
Grade 4 Focus: The digraph /ci/ making the sound “sh” as in special.



During our new INQUIRY unit, Night and Day, we have had fun exploring shadows and in particular where we are in relation to the Sun depending on the time of day. We performed a shadow stick investigation and answered questions with the findings. We realised that having the sun out is a necessity as some days we could not carry out our investigations so our findings were incomplete.



In ICT, the students continued with their Google Slide presentations and some students explored a coding website. We look forward to more of this next term.



next term...


Of course Term 4 will be jam packed. We look forward to a focussed group of Middle School students ready to give their best efforts to ensure they grow in all areas of their learning.

We hope you all have safe and happy holidays!



From all the Middle School teachers.









Middle School Learning
































Wednesday 29 August 2018

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 READINGthe 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