And that’s a wrap, what a fantastic eventful term it has been, filled with loads of excellent learning, swimming, Student Led Conferences, Book Week and lots more! Before we get stuck into some well deserved holidays let's look at our great learning from the past 2 weeks.
 
MATHS
In Maths, we have been working on place value, learning how to read, write and order numbers. Students have been working hard on ordering numbers from the smallest to the largest number, adding and subtracting 10 and 100, and representing Just Right numbers in different ways. Some of the ways we explored were: writing it in words, expanded form (e.g. 123-100+20+3) and making it with materials such as MAB blocks. Students also worked on estimating where numbers would land on blank number lines.
 
How many numbers can you find at home that you can order?
How many numbers can you make with a 2 in it?
 
READING
In Reading, we have been working on improving our reading fluency. The 4 keys to reading fluently are accuracy, rate, expression and punctuation. When reading accurately we are reading our words correctly. To read with good rate we need to make sure we are not reading too fast and not too slow. To make our reading interesting and add more meaning we need to use expression. A big part of expression is changing our voice when reading things that characters are saying. When reading it is very important to follow all punctuation as this helps to understand what we are reading by linking and separating different ideas within our stories. A good way to develop reading fluency is with a familiar book that you know well and find easy to read because then your main focus is not on decoding the words and allowing you to focus on the 4 keys of fluency instead.
Remember fluency helps us to understand what we are reading and makes our stories come to life.
 
WRITING
In Writing, we have continued exploring letter writing and completed a second Writing Cycle. One letter has been hand written and one has been published on the iPad using a program called PicCollage. We have been working hard to ensure we make our letters expressive and interesting with good word choice. Our first letters were written on a personal level to someone we know. In the second cycle students were encouraged to use what they have learnt to write a different type of letter. Ideas that were suggested to the students were:

• Write to a fictional character
• Writing to the weather
• Writing to persuade someone
• Write a postcard
• Write to someone in a different country
• Write to an Olympian

INQUIRY
In Inquiry we have continued to explore our topic, ‘Weather impacts upon our lives’. We have undertaken further research into the four seasons and extreme weather. Whilst researching students have been listing questions they have and recording the interesting things they have learnt from their research.
 
1/2B, 1/2P and 1/2R have had a successful couple of weeks at swimming and all Grade 1/2s that participated have further developed their swimming skills which is fantastic as we get closer to the summer months when we are likely to be in and around water more.
 
 
*Please don’t forget we have our 1/2 BBQ/sleepover on the second week back in term 4. It’s going to a fun night and a great stepping stone into overnight camps.


Have a safe holiday and we look forward to seeing you in term 4.

Mrs Marinelli and the 1/2 Team.

Ciao,
Wow! What an amazing fortnight it has been. The students were very busy last week preparing and implementing their Student Led Conferences. It was so wonderful to watch all the students share their learning with their special person. We also had Book Week in week 7 and we were fortunate enough to have grade 6 students come into our class and read a story to us at eating time each day for the week. All the student looked incredible in their costumes!
 
MATHS
In Maths, we continued our exploration of addition and subtraction, using different and new strategies to work out maths problems. We learnt about equivalence, where two different equations balanced and equalled the same answer. E.g. 10-4 = 3+3
This week we have revisited two dimensional and three dimensional shapes, specifically learning how to transform them to make patterns and tessellations. We have explored the different tessellations that are around our school, including bricks and soccer ball pattern. We have created different tessellations with wooden shapes using the methods of flip, slide or turn.
Do you have any tessellations in or around your house? 
 
READING
What do you think we have been learning in Reader’s Workshop this week?
Well, we have been learning how to ask deeper questions. Questioning helps by deepening our understanding of a text. There are so many ways to question, but here are a few that the students have used this fortnight; 4 levels of questioning (Robot, Detective, Judge and Inventor), reverse questions where you have an answer and think of all the questions and questioning before, during and after a text. This week the students used the ‘menu’ for questioning again. They love the independence and choice it enables them to have in their learning.
 
WRITING
In Writing, we have been moving through the writing cycle learning how to publish a letter. Last week we explored many different types of letter styles. Thanks to Australia Post we now have a great understanding of how to write a personal letter and what to we can add including; interesting things that have happened at school, sports team, friends, a holiday, birthday, achievements and questions. http://auspost.com.au/education/letterwriting/students/personal-letters.html.
With Father’s Day coming up this week maybe you could write a letter to your Dad or Grandpa?
 
INQUIRY
We have started unpacking our new inquiry topic on ‘Weather impacts upon our lives’. We are looking into the all different types of weather we have not only in Australia, but the world. We are also exploring the different seasons in Australia which ties in nicely to the start of spring.
Don’t forget week 9 is the start of swimming lessons for 1/2B, 1/2P and 1/2R at Bellarine Aquatic and Sports Centre.

Ciao,
Miss Ritchie and the 1/2 Team