Jess and Susan’s Class: Term 2 Week 9

Dear Parents,

This week we have really dug into division and learning about the division bar as a way to symbolise division. We also practised dividing numbers with remainders and using the strategy of dividing into our tens first before carrying over into the ones column. I was super pleased with how the children managed this leap, as it was a great demonstration of the fundamentals really supporting more sophisticated processes.

On Thursday, we completed our topic on area in our maths textbooks and will be applying our learning through some interesting integrated activities over the coming weeks.

We also continued working on our PIPs, with children organising information, developing their presentations, conducting interviews, or practising their delivery. We reinforced our reading comprehension and handwriting skills while exploring how earthquakes and volcanoes shape our landscapes, both on land and beneath the ocean. The children learned that the Earth’s crust forms part of the lithosphere and is made up of a giant puzzle of tectonic plates. We discovered that these plates are constantly moving, creating powerful forces that can build mountains, form deep ocean trenches, create islands, and shape many of the landforms we see around us.

In English, the children wrote from the first perspective again, imagining themselves as a convict on one of the boats of the First Fleet. They also examined Arthur Bowes Smyth Journal from 1787, to extract facts about the passengers on board the Lady Penrhyn. The children were very amused by the penmanship and the extravagant cursive writing on display.

Handball continues to be a very popular game during free times and there has been much discussion both at class and school meetings about rules and ways of playing fairly, kindly and without bias. On Friday, some of the children who spend more of their time playing the game, negotiated firmer rules around reserves and sportsmanship. These will be available for the whole school to to refer to if there are any future
problems.

Tennis continued on Tuesday and we have our last session next week to conclude our sport for the term.

Warm wishes,
Jess and Susan