Posts By Simone McKenzie
Welcome Back To Term 3!
We have had a busy start to the term learning more about Indigenous culture through dreamtime stories and artwork. We have gained a deeper understanding of how special the land is to our First Nations people.
Year One Gold looked at different types of Australian flora and fauna. We researched the plants and discovered that these plants are native to Australia and have a special meaning for our Indigenous people. We created art pieces of the Red Bottle Brush plants and the Yellow Wattle plants. The wattle plant is used as a symbol of the ‘spirit of the Australian people’. We had so much fun creating these art pieces.
Did you know….
- Boab trees are sometimes called ‘upside down trees’ because their branches look like roots.
- Boab trees have swollen trunks.
- Boab trees have nuts and you can eat them! They taste sour.
- Boab trees originated from Africa. We find Boab trees in the Kimberley.
Year One Blue enjoyed reading the dreamtime story The Echidna and the Shade Tree. We learnt some interesting facts about the Boab tree as well as creating our own mini Boab tree artworks.
James even brought in some Boab tree powder for us to have a look at! We learnt that the Indigenous mums would mix the Boab powder with water to make milk for their babies. We discovered that Boab powder smells very strong! We have loved spending time with our friends playing and learning at school!
Welcome Back To Term 3!
Protective Behaviour-Being Safe
We read the stories I Can Be Safe, Franklin In the Dark and Franklin Gets Lost. We brainstormed how the characters were feeling when they were feeling safe and unsafe.
We then discussed all the emotions we feel when we feel safe or unsafe and talked about the places we feel the most safe. We used the iPads in pairs and took photos of our friends showing the different feelings with our facial expressions. We had so much fun!
This was a great opportunity for us to incorporate technology into our learning. We have learnt;
- How to hold the iPad to take photos-to remove the cover before taking photos 🙂
- Using the zoom function
- How to delete photos
And, of course.. How to take selfies!
Helpful Hints Week 7
- Parent Teacher Interviews continue in Week 7. It would be greatly appreciated if you could please be on time as each interview is scheduled for 10-12 minutes.
- Please make sure the sight word book and readers remain in your child’s blue note folder. Folders are checked daily so make sure the note folder is brought to school everyday.
Fang Fang’s Chinese New Year!
Every week we have a book focus where we learn new vocabulary words and discuss the meaning of each word.
Teaching vocabulary skills is important to help children express themselves clearly and meaningfully in written and spoken formats.
We were so impressed that our story matched the current celebration of Chinese New Year! We enjoyed listening to our class mates talk about how they celebrated Chinese New Year with their families.
We wrote sentences using the new vocabulary words we have learnt from the story and then created our very own ferocious dragons.
Here are some of our sentences using the vocabulary words ferocious, groan and sprinkle.
I made a ferocious face to scare my dad.
Evan
I had fairy floss and my sister groaned because she had none.
Eva
I sprinkled hundreds and thousands on a chocolate cupcake at home and it was delicious!
Archie
The lion was very ferocious. It has ferocious teeth and it has a loud roar.
Grace
The fox is very ferocious and it is white and red. It lives in the bush.
Karla
The volcano is very ferocious. There is hot, red lava in it. It is dark and steamy black.
Jessica
We followed many instructions to make our ferocious dragons…they turned out great!
Helpful Hints for Week 5
- Look out for your child’s reading book, spelling list and sight word book. These will be sent home on Tuesday.
- Please return the Parent Teacher Meeting Questionnaire before Thursday 4th March. We are looking forward to meeting you during this time.
Year One Helpful Hints!
Helpful Hints of the Week!
- Please encourage your child to complete their morning jobs independently, for example bringing in their own note folder, water bottles and Crunch n Sip containers.
- A keyring or name tag on your child’s school bag will help them identify their bag much easier.
- A separate container for Crunch and Sip would be wonderful!
- We are looking forward to seeing families making use of the drive through in the morning and afternoon.
- If your child arrives before 8:30am without parental supervision they are to wait in the undercover area outside the Library until the morning bell goes. A teacher is on duty in this area from 8:20am.
- Children are not permitted to run around or use equipment before school, thank you!
Our First Week of Year One!
Thank you, thank you to all our Year One families for a seamless transition to the start of the school year. This has helped the children settle in, feel more comfortable with their routines and classroom environment. We greatly appreciate your understanding of the health guidelines this week and we look forward to welcoming you into our rooms when it is safe to do so.
Look out for our ‘helpful hints’ on the school website as they may answer some of your questions.
Here are some fun photos of our first week!
Parent Information Booklet-2021
Year One Fremantle Literature Incursion!
We had an exciting visitor from the Fremantle Literature centre come to visit our school. The incursion was to nurture young people’s interest in reading and writing.
This term we have been learning about narratives, we have been listening to narratives being read and also learning the different parts of a narrative. We will be writing our very own narrative this term!
The incursion focused on the story Who’s Afraid of the Quite Nice Wolf?
We first looked at the cover of the story and then looked at each page to see what the story will be about. We discussed how the wolf looked in the story and looked at other stories that had wolf characters. We discussed the main character of the story and the setting.
The author of the story drew the wolf for the students, and they added capes and masks to create their own superhero wolves.
We had such fun!