Week 1 Term 4

 Welcome back to another amazingly busy term of learning and fun in 5H!  We hope you had a lovely relaxing break from alarm clocks, lunchboxes and uniforms!!

OUR LEARNING IN TERM 4

Reading: Our focus for Term 4 is the incredible story, WONDER, written by R.J. Palacio.  A big thank you to the P&F for buying our class set of novels and to Mary Lee Kemp for accessioning and covering the books ready for us to lend at the end of Term 3.  Hopefully, your child read some of the story over the holidays.   The pages they are required to read each week will be numbered on their weekly Homework Grid.  We will be rereading sections in class to continue developing our reading comprehension skills, learn new vocabulary and explore how the author uses figurative language.

Writing: This term our focus genre is Information Reports.  As the children enjoyed writing their explanations on the human body last term, we have decided to continue this theme with their research and report writing being focused on a disease or illness that can affect the human body.

Spelling: We will continue to use our Soundwaves Programme to explore and learn one phoneme a week.  Week 1’s focus is the “or” sound.  There are new homework activities to complete that will be explained in their homework book. Please encourage your child to practise their words each night.  As they are becoming older, their vocabulary is increasing to include more uncommon ways to spell each sound.  This requires a lot of focus to learn.  For example, there are 15 spelling choices (graphemes) to spell the “or” sound:  horse, core, ball. paw, sauce, sure, broad, stories, brought, quarter, course, taught, talk, mortgage, baulk

English is a very difficult language to learn so please ensure your child is making time to review and learn their words each night!

Numeracy:  We will be learning about fractions, decimals and financial planning as well as revising addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. As part of our home learning we will be Times table Ninjas this term where we will be trying to earn a certificate a week for mastering a particular times table.  Week 1s focus is the 3x table.  Again, please help your child in setting aside time to practice each night.  Fast recall of the times tables assists many other mathematical concepts.

Religion:  As part of our Homework Grid the children are encouraged to complete an 8 week “Kindness Challenge” where they complete 3 acts of kindness each week.  We look forward to spreading some joy at school, home and in our community.  Our School Value Focus for Term 4 is Excellence.  We will be looking at how our Growth Mindset can help us achieve this value.  It also lends itself to explore the children’s role of O.L.C. Leaders next year and we will be completing many activities to prepare them for this.

Health:  We will be learning about the Human Body as well as continuing our Keeping Safe and Friendology Programmes.

Visual Arts:  We will be learning to draw self-portraits, concentrating on sketching techniques of facial features.

STATIONERY RESTOCK

Please take a moment to check in with your child to make sure they have red and blue pens, a ruler, scissors and a glue stick at school.  They need these items to be organised learners.  This term they also need a black fine liner for art.  I will send home a note to those who do not have one. 

Important Term 4 Dates 

Monday 19th October: Ian Lillico Parent Workshop, 7-9pm in the school hall

Monday 16^th November: Cape Cultural Experience Year 5 Excursion

Monday 23rd November: Pupil Free Day

Friday 27th November: Year 6 Musical

Tuesday 8th December: End of Year Christmas Concert

Friday 11th December: Last Day of Term 4 - Colour Run

A big happy birthday to Mahley for celebrating his birthday during the holidays.  Congratulations also goes to Mahley for being our Term 3, week 9 award winner and Tieg for being our Week 10 Star Citizen.

Finally, to finish with, some happy snaps from our Mission Markets on the last day of Term 3.  We happily helped our little PPB buddies with their shopping!  In the afternoon rotations, Mr Torrese taught groups how to play the Italian card game “Scopa”!