What a fantastic two weeks it has been!
 
MATHS
The 1/2 students have been busy undertaking the Maths Online Interview (MOI) assessment and the teachers have been so impressed with the growth our students have shown. So well done all the brilliant learners of the 1/2 cohort! We have worked really hard to improve our knowledge of multiplication and division and all students have developed their knowledge of efficient strategies. Who can make an array and use skip counting to solve the problem:
I picked 6 flowers. Each flower has 4 petals. How many petals are there altogether?

READING
In Reading, we finished off our Inferring unit by becoming detectives. We walked into a crime scene in our classrooms.  The crime was that someone broke the moneybox. Each student was given a sheet with 4 suspects. There was a description of each suspect that had clues to help the detectives solve the crime. Everyone did a remarkable job and we discovered that there was no crime only an accident by a clumsy Little Fox. We also had a blast playing a C.S.P.S version of the Amazing Race. Students were in teams and had to read clues to go to the next location. Some clues we used were ‘row, row, row your ______’ and ‘Rapunzel, Rapunzel let down your golden hair, from where?’

WRITING 
In Writing, we are well on our way with persuasive writing. We looked at lots of different texts and participated in line debating where we shared our arguments about why dogs are better than cats or why we should only have school for two days a week. Each student picked something they felt very strongly about and then thought about who they were trying to persuade. Get ready to check these out as we are up to drafting and revising these pieces now. 

INQUIRY
In Inquiry, the grade 1/2 students became weather reporters. They did an exceptional job and the teachers discovered some budding journalists. The students enjoyed this Inquiry and were very excited to watch each others reports and celebrate in the learning of others!
 
SCHOOL BBQ and SLEEPOVER
All year 1/2 students and teachers had a wonderful night! We got to play some exciting games and have a boogie at the disco. The year 2s had a fun night walk and watched Miss McKinley’s favourite childhood movie ‘The Land Before Time’. Everyone went to bed straight away but there were snores galore. We learned that Mr. Richards could cook a great BBQ, Miss Ricthie and Mr. Pidd have awesome dance moves, Miss Murray is a DJ extraordinaire and Mrs. Marinelli can plan a great sleepover.
 
 From, 
Miss McKinley and the 1/2 Team. 

Welcome back all of our superb 1/2 families and friends, we hope you had a restful break!
 
MATHS
Jumping right into Term 4, we have been busy practising our skip counting patterns and delving into the wonderful world of Money in Maths. Students have been working hard to skip count by 2s, 5s, 10s and all that’s in between! We have looked at the rules for each number pattern and explored the value of Australian Money. We have played many learning and warm up games such as ‘Buzz’ and ‘Skip Counting Maze’. Students in all classes have done an outstanding job of showing their understanding of number pattern on register rolls, and showing off their shopping and money skills in pop up classroom shops!

READING
In Reading, we have being investigating how to Infer. The 1/2 students are confident using their schema and the clues in texts to infer what the characters in books are thinking or feeling. Student have also had success at finding out the meaning of unfamiliar words through making inferences. Over the past two weeks we have read some inquisitive entertaining texts such as ‘Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus’ and ‘The Lost Thing’ to support us with our inferring.


WRITING 
In Writing, we have started the term with lots of Entries! All students are showing that they are nearly ready for year 2 and year 3, showing excellent use of the Traits in the first week back! Students have been putting their own stamp and originality into their zoomed-in Entries. Students have also moved into a new writing cycle of Persuasive writing.  All 1/2s have currently been immersing in a variety of Persuasive text types, and have identified their features, and what makes them a Persuasive text!



INQUIRY
In Inquiry, we are getting ready to create our own weather report!  After viewing television weather reports from the news, and conducting our own research on extreme weather using the ipads, the 1/2s are becoming expert weather reporters! The 1/2s are now thinking about what extreme weather they would like to report on and have started to plan their own weather report video! All the 1/2s have been showing Innovation and Excellence as our reports begin to take shape.

Well done 1/2 students on a very successful fortnight's worth of learning and a great start to 4th Term!
 
Arriveaderci,
 
Miss Murray and the 1/2 Team.