- A message from the head of campus
- Minimbah Term 3 Parent Info Evening
- Playing and growing in the Hive
- Building strong foundations in the Cocoon
- Welcome to term 3 in Foundation
- Organising ourselves in years 1 and 2
- Who we are - year 3
- Little people, big dreams in year 4
- Making thinking visible in Year 5
- Constantly questioning, always curious - Year 6
- Digital Wellbeing: how to stay focused in an age of distraction
- DISCOVER THE SENIOR CAMPUS
- Almost, Maine is almost here!
A message from the head of campus
Dear Minimbah Parents,
Christmas in July Thanks
Massive thanks to all those who were able to join us for our inaugural Christmas in July Parent Social. Postponed three times last year, we were very pleased to be able to come together to enjoy good food, great music and even better company! Thanks to everyone for so generously supporting our fundraising efforts. Money raised on Friday evening will help support the PFG in their planning and set-up for next year’s ‘Festival du Minimbah’ (Minimbah Fair). Special thanks to Jo and Jesse Ressom from The Laneway Group, Linda and Rollo Crittenden from Crittenden Wines, Kathryn Dorward, Jo Geddes, Adam Liddiard and Laura Maasburg for your wonderful support of the evening. We look forward to doing it all again in 2023.
We are very keen to receive any feedback on the evening but also suggestions for other parent social events you may like to see on the Minimbah calendar. I invite you to respond to the survey available via this link.
Parent Information Evening (ECC to Year 6) - Wednesday 3 August
I look forward to welcoming you to our Parent Information Evening on Wednesday 3 August from 7.00 pm. The evening will provide an opportunity for class and specialist teachers to outline our Semester 2 Programs.
- Staff will share our approaches to the teaching of reading and maths.
- We will outline upcoming events and activities including our whole school production, Disney's The Little Mermaid.
- There will be updates on our outdoor camps and education program.
- Get the latest information about our Nature Pedagogy Programs in ECC to Year 2, the Kitchen Garden Explore Program in Years 3 and 4, and the Activities Program in Years 5 and 6.
Parent/Teacher and PSG Thanks
Our mid-year cycle of Parent/Teacher Interviews and PSGs has concluded. I wish to express my thanks to you all for your participation in the process. The interviews, along with the end-of-semester report, form the foundation for goal-setting and aspirations for student learning for this coming semester.
We see the partnership between home and school as paramount. Please do not hesitate to reach out to class or specialist teachers or me if you ever need to clarify your child’s progress outside of our regular parent/teacher check-ins.
Aerosports Competition
Filled with excitement, the aerobics students headed off to Diamond Creek to participate in Thursday’s Aerosports competition. For many students, this was their first opportunity to compete in an aerobics event. Students from a wide variety of Victorian schools attended.
Since May, the students have attended regular rehearsals with coach Billee Ruckford as they learned routines and prepared for this big day.
Performing superbly on the day the following results were achieved:
Mini Group Level 2 including Amelia, Annabelle, Imogen, Della, Ayla and Sasica achieved 3rd place performing, 'Blame it on the Boogie’.
Mini Group Level 1 including the whole aerobics team. This included Harper, Lara, Billie, Isla, Charlotte, Amelia, Annabelle, Imogen, Della, Ayla, Sasica, Harper, Mae, Tilly, Eve, Lily and Ruby. They performed, ‘We Found Love’ and scored 1st place in this event.
The final event involved students from Year 5 & 6. Harper, Mae, Tilly, Eve, Lily and Ruby performed ‘Me’ in the Junior Group, Level 3 section. This performance resulted in 6th place. These students will be heading off the National competition at the end of this term.
Congratulations to all participants and Billee on a remarkable first season of aerobics! Thank you to all those who have supported the team, assisted with costumes, make-up and cheered for the students on the day.
We wish the Year 5 & 6 team all the best for the Nationals.
Homeless Youth Casual Clothes Day - Friday 5 August
Last Thursday year 9 Senior Campus students Milly, Lilly and Charlie presented at our assembly. As part of their Middle Years Program, they have been looking at social issues facing our local community. Their focus turned to homeless youth here on the peninsula. They have asked Minimbah students to support their fundraising efforts by wearing casual clothes and donating a gold coin (or more) on Friday 5 August. Money raised will be donated to Fusion Mornington Peninsula. Fusion is a youth and community organisation committed to empowering young people, and raising the profile of the issue of youth homelessness on the peninsula.
Pupil Free Day – Monday 8 August
Just a reminder that Monday 8 August will be a pupil-free day to enable all staff across the entire school to update their training in the new Child Safe Standards, along with other critical compliance requirements.
Year 5 Sovereign Hill Study Tour – Wednesday 10 August to Friday 12 August
We wish our Year 5 students all the best as they travel to Ballarat to turn back the clock and experience what it was like attending school and living on the Victorian Gold Fields of 1856. I will accompany the students so will be unavailable across these dates. Please reach out to my Deputy, Kate Bird, should you need to.
ROD DAVIES
Head of Minimbah Campus
Minimbah Term 3 Parent Info Evening
Join us for the Minimbah Term 3 parent information evening
All Minimbah Parents are invited to a Semester 2 Parent Information Evening on Wednesday 3 August from 7.00pm.
Come along to meet face-to-face with classroom and specialist teachers and hear about our programs for the semester.
- We will share our approaches to the teaching of reading and maths.
- We will outline upcoming events and activities including our whole school production, Disney's The Little Mermaid.
- There will be updates on our outdoor camps and education program.
- Get the latest information about our Nature Pedagogy Programs in ECC to Year 2, the Kitchen Garden Explore Program in Years 3 and 4 and the Activities Program in Years 5 and 6.
Playing and growing in the Hive
Hello Hive families!
Our first week of Term 3 was filled with excitement and activity! The children have settled back in after a long break, and it's terrific to see their confidence, resilience and concentration skills growing each day! They are showing us daily that they have a good grasp of our daily routines and rhythms.
We thank you for visiting our pop-up exhibition at the end of Term 2 to celebrate some of our inquiries as part of our unit Sharing the Planet.
Children's reflections on our Sharing the Planet exhibition
"My mum is going to love this" Noah
"We can grow things" Milla
"You need water and sun for that" Amelie
"A lot of dirt" Walter
"Can we take these home to grow? You can eat it" Oscar
"It was a seed; now look!" Tom
"The beans will grow from those flowers" Spencer
"It's growing lots now. It's bigger!" Arlo
"The roots are in the soil" Luca
"That's me!! I remember making that" Aaren
"My shield was made from recycled cardboard" Tom
"It's the recycle sign" Sebby
Term 3 Unit of Inquiry: How the World Works
This term, we have introduced our new Unit of Inquiry: How The World Works.
Our learning engagements and investigations for this unit will be hands-on, playful, and engaging! The focus will be on observing, experimenting, discovering, and learning about the world around us through active exploration.
We will be learning about:
- how we can manipulate materials for a purpose
- how forces can cause change
- how we can use our understandings to design and create
The children will be inquirers, thinkers and communicators as they encounter new materials, develop theories from their interests and design and create using a wide range of resources.
Concepts we will be exploring:
- Form – What is it like?
- Function – How does it work?
- Causation – Why is it as it is?
- Change – How is it transforming?
We began with some colour mixing exploration as an introduction to our new unit.
The story Little Blue and Little Yellow was used as a provocation to invite the children to explore colour mixing in the art studio.
"It's green" Zahli
"Yellow and blue make green" Amelie
Sensory play
The children helped set up some water balls outside on the sensory table. We added some tools to encourage exploration, manipulation and sharing. We observed the children communicating, using specific vocabulary, and learning new words. As the children scooped, poured, pushed, and pulled, we explored the forces which will enrich the interactions for our new unit of inquiry 'How the World works'.
We look forward to sharing this new unit with you and know that the children are curious about seeing, touching, and exploring the materials around them. You will notice that we will provide lots of open-ended provocations to encourage their questions and help them learn. Planned learning experiences for this term include magnets and tinker trays, water and ice experimentation and a variety of natural materials to be explored.
Ongoing professional learning for Early Childhood staff
Throughout this year, the Woodleigh Early Childhood team from the Penbank and Minimbah Campuses have engaged in a collaborative action research project with early childhood consultant Kirsty Liljedren. Teachers and educators from both campuses have been meeting regularly to engage in professional learning workshops, critically reflect on our practice and share our documentation of the children’s learning.
Guiding Questions and Lines of Inquiry:
- What is the role of the teacher in relation to children’s agency and assessment of learning?
- What is our image of the child? Exploring the role of the educator in supporting learner agency.
- What is worth documenting? Continuous assessment in the Early Years – exploring the content and ways we can make visible the children’s learning.
- How does documentation inform our pedagogy and practice? Exploring the monitoring, recording, and reporting of student learning
- How can we work collaboratively with families? Making learning visible to children and families
As our research develops, you may notice changes to the information and documentation you receive about our program.
Current areas we are focusing on include:
- Exploring new ways of documenting – creating posters and displays, capturing the children’s thinking over several days, using titles and questions in our documentation
- Creating documentation that makes visible the children’s learning in the context of the group
- A more focused approach to our documentation. This will mean fewer 'snapshots' of the day and more detail about specific projects or inquiries.
- A 'quality, not quantity' approach to Seesaw - this will allow us to concentrate on relationships and engage in a more reflective approach to our teaching
LISA COXON
Head of Early Childhood
Building strong foundations in the Cocoon
Hello families!
We have returned from the holidays with much excitement. The children have been eager to reconnect and resume all the wonderful rich relationships we have made with each other over the first half of the year. From this strong foundation, the children can go deeper with their learning through a playful inquiry approach.
We welcome to our team Veronica Neave from Victoria University, who is undertaking her final teaching placement. Veronica will be with us for 5 weeks so please introduce yourself if you haven’t done so already.
Thank you to our families who have participated in our recent Parent/Teacher meetings. We really value this time to share with you the progress your child has made over time, reflecting on how your child has developed, how they have engaged with increasingly complex ideas and participated in increasingly sophisticated learning experiences. Ongoing assessment processes that include a diverse array of methods, capture, and validate the different pathways that children take toward achieving the five Early Years Learning Framework outcomes. Such processes do not focus exclusively on the endpoints of children’s learning; they give equal consideration to the ‘distance-travelled’ by individual children and recognise and celebrate not only the giant leaps that children take in their learning but the small steps as well. In partnership with you, we highly value the insight you share with us to understand more about your child from your knowledge and perspective.
Inquiry
This term, we have introduced our new Unit of Inquiry: How the World Works.
Our learning engagements and investigations for this unit will be hands-on, playful, and engaging! The focus will be on observing, experimenting, discovering, and learning about the world around us through active exploration.
We will be learning about:
- how we can manipulate materials for a purpose
- how forces can cause change
- how we can use our understandings to design and create
The children will be inquirers, thinkers and communicators as they encounter new materials, develop theories from their interests and design and create using a wide range of resources.
Concepts we will be exploring:
Form – What is it like?
Function – How does it work?
Causation – Why is it as it is?
Change – How is it transforming?
We have been working on creating our classroom letterbox system to enable communication between the children and build literacy skills.
Many of the children have shared an interest in constructing buildings and ‘homes’ and we will be exploring this further using a variety of different materials. The movement of sand and water has enthralled the children and we aim to extend this concept through playful experimentation, problem-solving and thinking.
The Creek welcomed us back on a beautiful sunny Winter’s Day in week 1. We enjoyed time to be in the sunshine, collecting sticks for building homes, floating leaf boats on the creek, noticing spiderwebs in the trees covered with the morning frost and climbing our familiar trees. We look forward to the cold days ahead to enjoy the campfire and cook some delicious food to share together.
Ongoing professional learning for our Early Childhood staff
Throughout this year, the Woodleigh Early Childhood team from the Penbank and Minimbah Campuses have engaged in a collaborative action research project with early childhood consultant Kirsty Liljedren. Teachers and educators from both campuses have been meeting regularly to engage in professional learning workshops, to critically reflect on our practice and share our documentation of the children’s learning.
Guiding Questions and Lines of Inquiry:
- What is the role of the teacher in relation to children’s agency and assessment of learning?
- What is our image of the child? Exploring the role of the educator in supporting learner agency.
- What is worth documenting? Continuous assessment in the Early Years – exploring the content and ways we can make visible the children’s learning.
- How does documentation inform our pedagogy and practice? Exploring the monitoring, recording, and reporting of student learning
- How can we work collaboratively with families? Making learning visible to children and families
As our research develops, you may notice changes to the information and documentation you receive about our program.
Current areas we are focusing on include:
- Exploring new ways of documenting – creating posters and displays, capturing the children’s thinking over several days, using titles and questions in our documentation
- Creating documentation that makes visible the children’s learning in the context of the GROUP
- A more focused approach to our documentation. This will mean fewer 'snapshots' of the day and more detail about specific projects or inquiries. A 'quality, not quantity' approach to Seesaw – this is to allows us to concentrate on relationships and engage in a more reflective approach to our teaching.
LISA COXON
Head of Early Childhood
Welcome to term 3 in Foundation
Dear Families,
Welcome to Term 3! We have another busy, exciting term ahead in Foundation.
Inquiry
We have begun exploring our new central idea, ‘Products and services are created to meet the needs of a community.’
We are inquiring into:
- Roles and responsibilities within our community.
- Products and services in our community.
- Creating products and services for our community.
It has been wonderful to see the children thinking about roles and responsibilities within their families and the communities to which they belong. If you have any books about roles, services, or communities, please ask your child to bring them in for Show and Share. We would love to have more parents come to our classroom to talk to the children about your roles and responsibilities in your job, as part of your family, or in any volunteer organisations you belong to. We have had our first presentation this week which the children thoroughly enjoyed. Please let me know if you would like to come in and talk with the children.
Maths
In Maths this term, we have continued consolidating our understanding of place value, numbers to 20, and skip counting. The children have enjoyed learning to partition and skip count to 20 using their bead strings. Throughout this term, we will explore the following number concepts:
- Constructing numbers in different ways
- modelling and solving problems involving numbers
- using estimation when counting & solving problems.
Over the next few weeks, we also will begin to explore patterns, money, and time. If you are interested in trying some fun family maths activities at home, there are some great ideas in this short video.
Literacy
Our Read Write Inc program is progressing well, and the children are making great progress with their literacy. We are fortunate to have additional staff members involved in our program, allowing us to have focused, targeted lessons for 4-hours each week. The children will all be assessed again in early August.
If you would like to further support your child with their literacy at home, I would suggest:
- Helping your child remember to return their readers each Friday so that they can choose new decodable books each week.
- Finding authentic opportunities for your child to write, e.g., make a shopping list, write a letter to post to a family member, create a survey, or write instructions for somebody else to follow.
- Reading stories to your child every day. They may be interested in chapter books that you read to them or prefer picture storybooks.
I also wanted to remind you that Foundation will celebrate our 100th Day of school on the Thursday 11 August. We will host the whole school assembly that morning at 8.50am dressed as 100-year-olds, so please come along to share this special event with us.
For more information about our upcoming events please check the Woodleigh App or our calendar which is posted on Seesaw each Friday for the week ahead.
Kind regards,
JACQUI
Foundation Teacher
Organising ourselves in years 1 and 2
Welcome back to Semester 2. It’s been wonderful touching base with you all at Parent/Teacher Interviews and celebrating the progress and achievements that your children have made.
Term 3 Unit of Inquiry: How we Organise Ourselves
This term, the students are looking at the unit of inquiry How we Organise Ourselves. They will be unpacking the central idea that 'Organising events require people to develop systems & processes' through the following lines of inquiry:
- why do people organise events?
- what systems and processes required for organising events?
- how we can put systems and processes into place to organise events in our community?
They will be looking at a variety of different events and their purposes, and the type of planning and organisation that goes into them.
We had a great hands-on example of watching the 'Christmas in July' come together and were lucky enough to have Laura Maasburg, Alumni and Community Manager, come and talk to us about the planning that went into organising the event. We will be putting some of that expertise into practice in the coming weeks as we plan mini events and an expo showing our 'personal passions' at the end of the unit.
Literacy
Reading
In Term 3, the students will continue to focus on decoding as well as developing their comprehension skills. This may include;
- understanding what is not directly stated in the text
- making predictions
- vocabulary development
- deciphering the meaning from context
- reading the text aloud for fluency and expression.
- using knowledge of sound-letter relationships to decode unknown words
- using punctuation to aid in fluency when reading aloud.
They will continue to identify and develop positive and effective reading habits and increase reading for sustained periods of time.
Writing
The children will spend time breaking down sentences exploring:
- using nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs
- using their knowledge of the Read, Write Inc program to make attempts to spell unknown words
- the introduction of more complex punctuation (! , "')
- expanding their vocabulary choice to include some 'wow' words
- editing for spelling, punctuation and vocabulary
- correctly forming lower case letters, upper case letters and numerals in handwriting.
They will focus on planning and writing transactional texts such as invitations and posters. Building on their understanding of an informative text, exploring the purpose of informative texts beyond reports.
Numeracy
In Numeracy this term, the children will be looking at building on their knowledge of addition, subtraction, and various strategies to further develop their number sense and more formal operations. Students are exploring strategies such as:
- using repeated addition
- using concrete materials to make equal groups
- creating arrays
- understanding commutative properties such as 3x5 is the same as 5x3
- further developing their skip counting by 2s, 3s, 5s and 10s.
We are looking forward to another exciting term with lots on the calendar.
LIANE CLEMENTS and ALEXIS TAME
Year 1 and Year 2 Classroom Teachers
Who we are - year 3
Dear Parents,
Welcome to Term 3. The students are determined to get into their work and have started this term at full speed. It has also been impressive to see many of the students actively make the choice to utilise masks and hand sanitizer. Their efforts are appreciated, especially as we have had many absences in the class. Thank you to you all for making the difficult decisions to keep your children at home when they are unwell.
Key Dates
Note these dates in your diaries! Reminders and further information will be provided throughout the term.
WEEK 3
August 1 Imagine Me Body Safety Sessions for Students
August 5 Homeless Youth Casual Dress Day
WEEK 4
August 8 Pupil free day
WEEK 5
August 15 Imagine Me Body Safety Sessions for Students
August 18 Year 3 Assembly
August 19 Pyjama Day
WEEK 7
August 31 Minimbah production - The Little Mermaid day 1
September 1 Minimbah production - The Little Mermaid day 2
WEEK 8
September 9 Mini Olympics
WEEK 9
September 13 Grandparents' Day
September 14 to 16 Year 3 / 4 Camp at The Ranch
September 16 Term 3 Concludes
TERM 4
October 4 Term 4 commences
Term 3 Curriculum
Inquiry: Who We Are
Unit of Inquiry:Who We Are - (One of the six trans-disciplinary themes that we use to structure each year) | Learner profile attributes/dispositions: Principled, Thinkers, Reflective
|
Lines of inquiry: An inquiry into… What makes a positive role model How role models influence others How we can be positive role models
| Key Questions: Who are your role models? What makes a good role model? Are we influenced by our role models? How can you be a positive role model? |
The students are investigating these questions as part of a wider investigation into the influence of role models in our lives. As part of this journey of self-discovery the students will also learn about highly influential people from history. We will be looking at the attributes that make a good and positive role model and finding more modern examples. The units are partially shaped by the specific and individual questions developed by the student. The Year 3s will also be challenged to step up as role-models themselves and apply their new discoveries to leadership challenges throughout the term.
Beeswax Wraps
The students have started on their road to becoming role models a little early. The units of inquiry have connected wonderfully over the past few terms and the students are well on their way to change the way we manage waste at Minimbah.
As part of the Year 3 Kitchen-Garden programme the students made the decision to invest in beeswax wraps.
WE NEED YOUR HELP, AND YOUR OVEN!
If you could support their initiative by helping to create some BeesWax Wraps it would be greatly appreciated. The students have enough beeswax to create over 100 wraps, but we simply do not have the oven space at school. If you are interested in supporting the program. We have the resources and instructions, and your child will be able to get involved!
English
Role models can be a big influence on our lives. Occasionally, they can use their place in our lives to try and convince us to do things such as purchase products or support a cause. This connection works nicely with our first literacy focus for Term 3 around Visual Texts. We will be investigating how the media use a range of text and visual features to persuade their audience. Alongside our unit of investigation, we will also continue our personalised approaches to developing the reading, writing, spelling, speaking and listening skills of each individual student.
Mathematics
In Term 3, the students will look at number patterns and how they can be used to efficiently to solve multiplication and division challenge. By recognising repeating and growing patterns students will start to recognise how grouping numbers you can more quickly calculate simple expressions. We will move from patterns into arrays and see how times-tables support the solving of Multiplication, Division and more.
Other key topics this term will include a review of measurements to do with length and distance and making conversions. We will start our journey into parts of a whole (fractions, decimals and percentages), and looks the likelihood of events as part of Chance.
I look forward to seeing you all at the Parent Information Evening on Wednesday 3 August!
CRAIG KENNER
Year 3 classroom teacher
Little people, big dreams in year 4
Hello families! It’s a joy to have the students back at school after the winter break. We’ve had a busy start to term and have a lot coming up over the next short while.
Key Dates
Note these dates in your diaries! Reminders and further information will be provided throughout the term.
WEEK 3
August 5 Homeless Youth Casual Dress Day
WEEK 4
August 8 Pupil free day
WEEK 5
August 15 Imagine Me Body Safety Sessions for Students
August 18 Year 3 Assembly
August 19 Pyjama Day
WEEK 7
August 31 PFG Father's Day breakfast
August 31 Minimbah production - The Little Mermaid day 1
September 1 Minimbah production - The Little Mermaid day 2
WEEK 8
September 9 Mini Olympics
WEEK 9
September 13 Grandparents' Day
September 14 to 16 Year 3 / 4 Camp at The Ranch
September 16 Term 3 Concludes
TERM 4
October 4 Term 4 commences
Term 3 Unit of Inquiry: Role Models, thinking and behaviour
Central Idea: People’s choice of role models can influence their thinking and behaviour.
At the beginning of this term, we’ve explored people that the students look up to currently and analysed the character traits or attributes that make them positive role models. Our students have ranked the qualities according to how important they think they are at the beginning of our unit. To deepen our inquiry, we will explore a range of texts, in particular the Little People: Big Dreams book series, learning about key historical figures and the extraordinary feats of people who have faced significant challenges.
This is an opportunity for students to:
- develop reading skills
- determine the main ideas of texts
- discuss connecting themes
- how to skim and scan for key information and
- analyse the author’s purpose in writing these texts.
As the unit continues, we will explore the way role models can influence people, and how we can act as role models ourselves. Our students have become really interested in environmental issues lately, particularly in the amount of waste created as a society. Stay tuned for our young role models making a real impact.
Language
This term we’ll be exploring language through several lenses: how it can support and deepen our inquiry, as discussed above, and by inquiring into the idea that visual texts have the power to influence our thinking and behaviour. Once again, we see the concept of influence appear; a wonderful transdisciplinary which connects our language learning and our unit of inquiry. Throughout this unit, students will study visual texts, in particular advertising, to analyse and interpret the techniques used to influence us. We’ll look at how advertisers target different emotions, learn the language of visual texts (logo, symbol, foreground, background, and so on), and engage in the creation of our own visual texts.
We see a great opportunity to link this to our unit of inquiry, too, as students continue to think about how they may use visual texts to help make an impact in our school community. Alongside this, we will continue to engage in structured word inquiry; learning about how words work, utilising speaking and listening skills to discuss ideas and concepts and engaging in real opportunities for writing to further both our language and transdisciplinary inquiries.
Maths
To begin our term, we will be exploring the idea that by analysing and making rules for patterns, it is possible to make predictions. Patterns underpin all learning in mathematics and enable the development of fluency and understanding, which has the flow-on effect of deepening students' ability to problem solve.
Throughout this unit we’ll learn how we can express rules, create complex patterns, learn about the patterns we can find in multiplication and division and how these patterns can help us with multiplication and division. Once upon a time, learning the times tables was the ultimate goal of multiplication in primary school. Now, we have higher aspirations for students as mathematical thinkers!
That said, the recall of these multiplication facts continues to be important to develop fluency and understanding, and to enable progression towards more complex mathematical thinking and processes. Students are setting goals for their own learning of the ‘multiplication facts’ – developing accuracy and speed – whilst learning tips and tricks to help remember them, such as that the ‘4s’ are just double the ‘2s’, and the ‘8s’ are double the ‘4s’!
JAMES CLAPHAM
Year 4 classroom teacher
Making thinking visible in Year 5
We have made a smooth start to Term 3 with happy and enthusiastic children. While Mr Hicks is enjoying his time in France, Mrs Murdoch has made a seamless transition into year 5 and we are all enjoying working together. We are strongly encouraging each child to contribute regularly to class discussions and activities as we are attempting to make our thinking visible.
Unit of Inquiry: Where We Are in Time and Place
We have kicked off our Unit of Inquiry ‘Where We Are in Place and Time’. We are looking at historical evidence through the lenses of perspective and connection.
We will be going on a Study Tour to Sovereign Hill from 10 to 12 August, where we will travel back to the 1850’s as we embark on our inquiry into Australian history during the Gold Rush.
Throughout this unit we focus on four main lines of inquiry:
- How historical evidence provides insight into the past
- Whose stories are told through historical evidence
- The role of validity in historical sources
- How we curate historical sources to give a perspective on history
Literacy
In preparation for our Study Tour to Sovereign Hill, we have begun investigating the perspectives of those involved through our historical fiction literacy sessions. The students are creatively preparing character profiles and will be writing an application to attend one of two schools. As part of the inquiry process, students must work cooperatively with others to access, read, interpret, and evaluate a range of source materials. Through the process of planning, drafting, editing and revising their writing students must consider the perspective of the person whose story is being told. It will be a consistent focus for the students to use correct grammar and punctuation as they work towards a polished product.
Maths
Our Numeracy unit will also support our inquiry into Australian history at Sovereign Hill as we use directional language and grid reference systems to describe locations and landmarks. Our Numeracy throughout Term 3 will also focus on expanding the students’ knowledge of problem-solving using multiplication and division and algorithms that involve branching and repetition. We are also investigating appropriate units of measurement for perimeter, area, volume, capacity and mass of a variety of shapes. This knowledge will culminate in Week 9 with an Expo of student work, in particular their application of knowledge in the Minimbah Maths Talent Quest.
Minimbah Production - The Little Mermaid
We are all excited and working hard towards the whole school musical production of The Little Mermaid in Week 7. The matinee and first evening performance will be held on Wednesday 31 August, followed by another evening performance on Thursday 1 September.
Please put the dates in your calendar. More details will follow shortly.
ZARA LOVE-DAVIES and NICCI MURDOCH
Year 5 Classroom Teachers
Constantly questioning, always curious - Year 6
Please see below for an outline of our curriculum for Term 3. We approach everything through inquiry; we are constantly questioning, always curious.
Inquiry
For our current Unit of Inquiry, ‘Where We Are in Place and Time’, we are immersing ourselves in various migration stories.
Our central idea is: Sharing stories of immigration builds compassion and understanding.
Lines of inquiry:
This unit is an inquiry into:
- the reasons that people migrate
- the impact of migration on people and places
- how telling stories of migration can build compassion and understanding.
Through the learning experiences within this unit of inquiry, we are learning to empathise with people and their stories, both known and unknown. We are learning to take notes and synthesise ideas. We respond to written and visual texts, identify keywords and phrases and convey our ideas succinctly. We are learning about the many different internal and external reasons people migrate. We are discovering the impact of migration on people, communities, and the environment. We are learning that it is essential to listen to other people’s stories before making judgements.
Later in the term, we begin a very hands-on inquiry under the trans-disciplinary theme of ‘How the World Works’.
The central idea is that: Design of structures is influenced by a variety of factors.
Lines of inquiry:
This unit is an inquiry into:
- principles that underpin the design of structures
- the influence of the environment on the design & construction of structures
- how technology influences design and construction.
We will be learning about different materials and how they are suited to different environments and how types of environments might influence design. We will research design principles and put them into practice. We will examine how technology has greatly influenced how the design process has changed. During the unit, we will be hypothesising, planning, and testing. We’ll collaborate and work in teams throughout the design process, becoming designers, scientists, and engineers.
Literacy
Reading remains our priority throughout this term. We have an incredible, healthy culture of reading for pleasure, relaxation and inspiration established in Year 6. We are currently sharing in the class novel A Long Walk to Water and tapping back into the sequel to Pax whenever we can find the time. Students can read non-fiction articles each week, which become the focus of analysis and comprehension practice. In our differentiated reading groups, we hone in on the main idea of a text, the author’s purpose, and various concepts such as sub-text, bias and intent.
Our focus this term will be on two main writing genres: Narrative and Procedural, which integrate well with our inquiry units. The creative piece will take the form of a first-person narrative written from the perspective of an immigrant. Procedural texts will be written and tested through our design unit, where we will have the opportunity to write instructions for a construction project. We will focus on building vocabulary through glossaries linked to our inquiries and used within writing tasks. Spelling and grammar programs continue to evolve based on individual student needs identified through ongoing review and assessment of work.
This term will provide plenty of opportunities for listening as we enjoy hearing stories of migration via different forms of media. We use various thinking routines to scaffold notetaking and to sort out information and our ideas. Speaking and listening are crucial throughout the Production process; we are listening to direction, to castmates for cues, and we are speaking through the lens of our characters. We recognise that how we speak allows us to connect with our audience.
Mathematics
Throughout this term, we will explore the following areas:
- Fractions, decimals, and percentages are connected and can be used to represent whole-part relationships. We will build knowledge in…
- Ordering and comparing fractions, decimals, percentages
- Operations involving fractions, decimals, percentages
- Data analysis, including range, mode, median and mean about global statistics and migration
- Describing relationships between units of measurement (perimeter, area, and volume) and the connection between angles and lines (perpendicular and parallel). During our inquiry unit into design and construction, we will test the theory that the accuracy of the measurement depends on the situation and the precision of the tool
To cement knowledge, we will…
- revisit the properties of numbers (prime, composite, factors, and multiples)
- continue to represent numbers, including fractions, decimals and percentages on number lines
- apply our understanding of the base 10 system when multiplying and dividing decimals
- convert between metric units of measurement
- revisit the order of operations
Individual Maths Goals are a regular part of our Maths routine where students have time at school and home to work on areas of focus and need.
We will hold the MMTQ – the Minimbah Maths Talent Quest - this term across the Homestead. Students will investigate a topic of interest and develop a maths-related question that will drive their investigation. The entire process will be documented, from brainstorming ideas to questioning, hypothesising, testing and presenting their findings. At the end of the term, we will hold a Homestead MMTQ expo to allow the students to share their learning with the school community.
Thank you to everyone who participated in the recent Parent/Teacher/Student conferences. They are a valuable experience for us all and allow us to be on the same page and set goals for the remainder of the year.
Please see below for some photos from the classroom and the Production workshops over recent weeks.
We look forward to sharing the juggernaut that is Production with you in the coming weeks. Chookas to everyone!
JACQUI AND JONNO
Year 6 classroom teachers
Digital Wellbeing: how to stay focused in an age of distraction
Digital Wellbeing is something we all grapple with, no matter whether you're a student or a parent. When it comes to screens, few of us are sitting in the driver's seat. Our term 3 Parent Education Program (PEP) talk is the pep talk we all need: how to stay focused in an age of distraction.
Our PEP talk presenter, Dr Joanne Orlando (PhD, MEd, BEd), is a leading international expert on how to create a healthy relationship with technology. Based on her ground-breaking research, Joanne speaks to communities about how to balance the 24/7 nature of technology without losing the many opportunities it provides. She believes we can live well and stay focused with technology even with the ever-present possibility of distraction. In this term 3 PEP Talk, she'll share with us some simple tips on how to reign in our digital habits and create a relationship with technology that doesn't tax our wellbeing.
Joanne is the creator of the digital literacy and wellbeing education program TechClever, which helps schools and parents to frame conversations around technology away from one that focuses on fear to one that focuses on creating healthy relationships with our devices. Her most recent book Life Mode On, was released worldwide in 2021.
BOOK TICKETSDISCOVER THE SENIOR CAMPUS
The Head of Senior Campus, Nat McLennan, invites you to join her and the Principal, David Baker, for an introduction to Senior Campus life and a student-led tour of the Campus.
The transition from Minimbah and Penbank to the Senior Campus is a significant step in the lives of Woodleigh students and their families – one we hope to ease by building a sense of comfort and belonging prior to the start of Year 7.
Morning tea will be served before the tours, and while this event is intended for parents, not students, young children are more than welcome to attend with you.
We hope to see you at Senior Campus on August 4!
BOOK NOWAlmost, Maine is almost here!
There's less than a month before opening night for our 2022 production of Almost, Maine, the first Woodleigh senior school production to make it to the stage in three years. This is a fantastic milestone and great example of what creative Woodleigh students can do. Students have written and arranged the music; created animations and projections; crafted the set and costumes, and will be running the show. Come along and show your support!
Almost, Maine is rated PG and suitable for the whole family. Seating is limited, so don’t miss out!
Experience the life-altering power of the human heart and have your heart touched and warmed in the process.
BOOK NOW
Join us for the Minimbah Term 3 parent information evening
All Minimbah Parents are invited to a Semester 2 Parent Information Evening on Wednesday 3 August from 7.00pm.
Come along to meet face-to-face with classroom and specialist teachers and hear about our programs for the semester.
- We will share our approaches to the teaching of reading and maths.
- We will outline upcoming events and activities including our whole school production, Disney's The Little Mermaid.
- There will be updates on our outdoor camps and education program.
- Get the latest information about our Nature Pedagogy Programs in ECC to Year 2, the Kitchen Garden Explore Program in Years 3 and 4 and the Activities Program in Years 5 and 6.
Hello Hive families!
Our first week of Term 3 was filled with excitement and activity! The children have settled back in after a long break, and it's terrific to see their confidence, resilience and concentration skills growing each day! They are showing us daily that they have a good grasp of our daily routines and rhythms.
We thank you for visiting our pop-up exhibition at the end of Term 2 to celebrate some of our inquiries as part of our unit Sharing the Planet.
Children's reflections on our Sharing the Planet exhibition
"My mum is going to love this" Noah
"We can grow things" Milla
"You need water and sun for that" Amelie
"A lot of dirt" Walter
"Can we take these home to grow? You can eat it" Oscar
"It was a seed; now look!" Tom
"The beans will grow from those flowers" Spencer
"It's growing lots now. It's bigger!" Arlo
"The roots are in the soil" Luca
"That's me!! I remember making that" Aaren
"My shield was made from recycled cardboard" Tom
"It's the recycle sign" Sebby
Term 3 Unit of Inquiry: How the World Works
This term, we have introduced our new Unit of Inquiry: How The World Works.
Our learning engagements and investigations for this unit will be hands-on, playful, and engaging! The focus will be on observing, experimenting, discovering, and learning about the world around us through active exploration.
We will be learning about:
- how we can manipulate materials for a purpose
- how forces can cause change
- how we can use our understandings to design and create
The children will be inquirers, thinkers and communicators as they encounter new materials, develop theories from their interests and design and create using a wide range of resources.
Concepts we will be exploring:
- Form – What is it like?
- Function – How does it work?
- Causation – Why is it as it is?
- Change – How is it transforming?
We began with some colour mixing exploration as an introduction to our new unit.
The story Little Blue and Little Yellow was used as a provocation to invite the children to explore colour mixing in the art studio.
"It's green" Zahli
"Yellow and blue make green" Amelie
Sensory play
The children helped set up some water balls outside on the sensory table. We added some tools to encourage exploration, manipulation and sharing. We observed the children communicating, using specific vocabulary, and learning new words. As the children scooped, poured, pushed, and pulled, we explored the forces which will enrich the interactions for our new unit of inquiry 'How the World works'.
We look forward to sharing this new unit with you and know that the children are curious about seeing, touching, and exploring the materials around them. You will notice that we will provide lots of open-ended provocations to encourage their questions and help them learn. Planned learning experiences for this term include magnets and tinker trays, water and ice experimentation and a variety of natural materials to be explored.
Ongoing professional learning for Early Childhood staff
Throughout this year, the Woodleigh Early Childhood team from the Penbank and Minimbah Campuses have engaged in a collaborative action research project with early childhood consultant Kirsty Liljedren. Teachers and educators from both campuses have been meeting regularly to engage in professional learning workshops, critically reflect on our practice and share our documentation of the children’s learning.
Guiding Questions and Lines of Inquiry:
- What is the role of the teacher in relation to children’s agency and assessment of learning?
- What is our image of the child? Exploring the role of the educator in supporting learner agency.
- What is worth documenting? Continuous assessment in the Early Years – exploring the content and ways we can make visible the children’s learning.
- How does documentation inform our pedagogy and practice? Exploring the monitoring, recording, and reporting of student learning
- How can we work collaboratively with families? Making learning visible to children and families
As our research develops, you may notice changes to the information and documentation you receive about our program.
Current areas we are focusing on include:
- Exploring new ways of documenting – creating posters and displays, capturing the children’s thinking over several days, using titles and questions in our documentation
- Creating documentation that makes visible the children’s learning in the context of the group
- A more focused approach to our documentation. This will mean fewer 'snapshots' of the day and more detail about specific projects or inquiries.
- A 'quality, not quantity' approach to Seesaw - this will allow us to concentrate on relationships and engage in a more reflective approach to our teaching
LISA COXON
Head of Early Childhood
Hello families!
We have returned from the holidays with much excitement. The children have been eager to reconnect and resume all the wonderful rich relationships we have made with each other over the first half of the year. From this strong foundation, the children can go deeper with their learning through a playful inquiry approach.
We welcome to our team Veronica Neave from Victoria University, who is undertaking her final teaching placement. Veronica will be with us for 5 weeks so please introduce yourself if you haven’t done so already.
Thank you to our families who have participated in our recent Parent/Teacher meetings. We really value this time to share with you the progress your child has made over time, reflecting on how your child has developed, how they have engaged with increasingly complex ideas and participated in increasingly sophisticated learning experiences. Ongoing assessment processes that include a diverse array of methods, capture, and validate the different pathways that children take toward achieving the five Early Years Learning Framework outcomes. Such processes do not focus exclusively on the endpoints of children’s learning; they give equal consideration to the ‘distance-travelled’ by individual children and recognise and celebrate not only the giant leaps that children take in their learning but the small steps as well. In partnership with you, we highly value the insight you share with us to understand more about your child from your knowledge and perspective.
Inquiry
This term, we have introduced our new Unit of Inquiry: How the World Works.
Our learning engagements and investigations for this unit will be hands-on, playful, and engaging! The focus will be on observing, experimenting, discovering, and learning about the world around us through active exploration.
We will be learning about:
- how we can manipulate materials for a purpose
- how forces can cause change
- how we can use our understandings to design and create
The children will be inquirers, thinkers and communicators as they encounter new materials, develop theories from their interests and design and create using a wide range of resources.
Concepts we will be exploring:
Form – What is it like?
Function – How does it work?
Causation – Why is it as it is?
Change – How is it transforming?
We have been working on creating our classroom letterbox system to enable communication between the children and build literacy skills.
Many of the children have shared an interest in constructing buildings and ‘homes’ and we will be exploring this further using a variety of different materials. The movement of sand and water has enthralled the children and we aim to extend this concept through playful experimentation, problem-solving and thinking.
The Creek welcomed us back on a beautiful sunny Winter’s Day in week 1. We enjoyed time to be in the sunshine, collecting sticks for building homes, floating leaf boats on the creek, noticing spiderwebs in the trees covered with the morning frost and climbing our familiar trees. We look forward to the cold days ahead to enjoy the campfire and cook some delicious food to share together.
Ongoing professional learning for our Early Childhood staff
Throughout this year, the Woodleigh Early Childhood team from the Penbank and Minimbah Campuses have engaged in a collaborative action research project with early childhood consultant Kirsty Liljedren. Teachers and educators from both campuses have been meeting regularly to engage in professional learning workshops, to critically reflect on our practice and share our documentation of the children’s learning.
Guiding Questions and Lines of Inquiry:
- What is the role of the teacher in relation to children’s agency and assessment of learning?
- What is our image of the child? Exploring the role of the educator in supporting learner agency.
- What is worth documenting? Continuous assessment in the Early Years – exploring the content and ways we can make visible the children’s learning.
- How does documentation inform our pedagogy and practice? Exploring the monitoring, recording, and reporting of student learning
- How can we work collaboratively with families? Making learning visible to children and families
As our research develops, you may notice changes to the information and documentation you receive about our program.
Current areas we are focusing on include:
- Exploring new ways of documenting – creating posters and displays, capturing the children’s thinking over several days, using titles and questions in our documentation
- Creating documentation that makes visible the children’s learning in the context of the GROUP
- A more focused approach to our documentation. This will mean fewer 'snapshots' of the day and more detail about specific projects or inquiries. A 'quality, not quantity' approach to Seesaw – this is to allows us to concentrate on relationships and engage in a more reflective approach to our teaching.
LISA COXON
Head of Early Childhood
Dear Families,
Welcome to Term 3! We have another busy, exciting term ahead in Foundation.
Inquiry
We have begun exploring our new central idea, ‘Products and services are created to meet the needs of a community.’
We are inquiring into:
- Roles and responsibilities within our community.
- Products and services in our community.
- Creating products and services for our community.
It has been wonderful to see the children thinking about roles and responsibilities within their families and the communities to which they belong. If you have any books about roles, services, or communities, please ask your child to bring them in for Show and Share. We would love to have more parents come to our classroom to talk to the children about your roles and responsibilities in your job, as part of your family, or in any volunteer organisations you belong to. We have had our first presentation this week which the children thoroughly enjoyed. Please let me know if you would like to come in and talk with the children.
Maths
In Maths this term, we have continued consolidating our understanding of place value, numbers to 20, and skip counting. The children have enjoyed learning to partition and skip count to 20 using their bead strings. Throughout this term, we will explore the following number concepts:
- Constructing numbers in different ways
- modelling and solving problems involving numbers
- using estimation when counting & solving problems.
Over the next few weeks, we also will begin to explore patterns, money, and time. If you are interested in trying some fun family maths activities at home, there are some great ideas in this short video.
Literacy
Our Read Write Inc program is progressing well, and the children are making great progress with their literacy. We are fortunate to have additional staff members involved in our program, allowing us to have focused, targeted lessons for 4-hours each week. The children will all be assessed again in early August.
If you would like to further support your child with their literacy at home, I would suggest:
- Helping your child remember to return their readers each Friday so that they can choose new decodable books each week.
- Finding authentic opportunities for your child to write, e.g., make a shopping list, write a letter to post to a family member, create a survey, or write instructions for somebody else to follow.
- Reading stories to your child every day. They may be interested in chapter books that you read to them or prefer picture storybooks.
I also wanted to remind you that Foundation will celebrate our 100th Day of school on the Thursday 11 August. We will host the whole school assembly that morning at 8.50am dressed as 100-year-olds, so please come along to share this special event with us.
For more information about our upcoming events please check the Woodleigh App or our calendar which is posted on Seesaw each Friday for the week ahead.
Kind regards,
JACQUI
Foundation Teacher
Welcome back to Semester 2. It’s been wonderful touching base with you all at Parent/Teacher Interviews and celebrating the progress and achievements that your children have made.
Term 3 Unit of Inquiry: How we Organise Ourselves
This term, the students are looking at the unit of inquiry How we Organise Ourselves. They will be unpacking the central idea that 'Organising events require people to develop systems & processes' through the following lines of inquiry:
- why do people organise events?
- what systems and processes required for organising events?
- how we can put systems and processes into place to organise events in our community?
They will be looking at a variety of different events and their purposes, and the type of planning and organisation that goes into them.
We had a great hands-on example of watching the 'Christmas in July' come together and were lucky enough to have Laura Maasburg, Alumni and Community Manager, come and talk to us about the planning that went into organising the event. We will be putting some of that expertise into practice in the coming weeks as we plan mini events and an expo showing our 'personal passions' at the end of the unit.
Literacy
Reading
In Term 3, the students will continue to focus on decoding as well as developing their comprehension skills. This may include;
- understanding what is not directly stated in the text
- making predictions
- vocabulary development
- deciphering the meaning from context
- reading the text aloud for fluency and expression.
- using knowledge of sound-letter relationships to decode unknown words
- using punctuation to aid in fluency when reading aloud.
They will continue to identify and develop positive and effective reading habits and increase reading for sustained periods of time.
Writing
The children will spend time breaking down sentences exploring:
- using nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs
- using their knowledge of the Read, Write Inc program to make attempts to spell unknown words
- the introduction of more complex punctuation (! , "')
- expanding their vocabulary choice to include some 'wow' words
- editing for spelling, punctuation and vocabulary
- correctly forming lower case letters, upper case letters and numerals in handwriting.
They will focus on planning and writing transactional texts such as invitations and posters. Building on their understanding of an informative text, exploring the purpose of informative texts beyond reports.
Numeracy
In Numeracy this term, the children will be looking at building on their knowledge of addition, subtraction, and various strategies to further develop their number sense and more formal operations. Students are exploring strategies such as:
- using repeated addition
- using concrete materials to make equal groups
- creating arrays
- understanding commutative properties such as 3x5 is the same as 5x3
- further developing their skip counting by 2s, 3s, 5s and 10s.
We are looking forward to another exciting term with lots on the calendar.
LIANE CLEMENTS and ALEXIS TAME
Year 1 and Year 2 Classroom Teachers
Dear Parents,
Welcome to Term 3. The students are determined to get into their work and have started this term at full speed. It has also been impressive to see many of the students actively make the choice to utilise masks and hand sanitizer. Their efforts are appreciated, especially as we have had many absences in the class. Thank you to you all for making the difficult decisions to keep your children at home when they are unwell.
Key Dates
Note these dates in your diaries! Reminders and further information will be provided throughout the term.
WEEK 3
August 1 Imagine Me Body Safety Sessions for Students
August 5 Homeless Youth Casual Dress Day
WEEK 4
August 8 Pupil free day
WEEK 5
August 15 Imagine Me Body Safety Sessions for Students
August 18 Year 3 Assembly
August 19 Pyjama Day
WEEK 7
August 31 Minimbah production - The Little Mermaid day 1
September 1 Minimbah production - The Little Mermaid day 2
WEEK 8
September 9 Mini Olympics
WEEK 9
September 13 Grandparents' Day
September 14 to 16 Year 3 / 4 Camp at The Ranch
September 16 Term 3 Concludes
TERM 4
October 4 Term 4 commences
Term 3 Curriculum
Inquiry: Who We Are
Unit of Inquiry:Who We Are - (One of the six trans-disciplinary themes that we use to structure each year) | Learner profile attributes/dispositions: Principled, Thinkers, Reflective
|
Lines of inquiry: An inquiry into… What makes a positive role model How role models influence others How we can be positive role models
| Key Questions: Who are your role models? What makes a good role model? Are we influenced by our role models? How can you be a positive role model? |
The students are investigating these questions as part of a wider investigation into the influence of role models in our lives. As part of this journey of self-discovery the students will also learn about highly influential people from history. We will be looking at the attributes that make a good and positive role model and finding more modern examples. The units are partially shaped by the specific and individual questions developed by the student. The Year 3s will also be challenged to step up as role-models themselves and apply their new discoveries to leadership challenges throughout the term.
Beeswax Wraps
The students have started on their road to becoming role models a little early. The units of inquiry have connected wonderfully over the past few terms and the students are well on their way to change the way we manage waste at Minimbah.
As part of the Year 3 Kitchen-Garden programme the students made the decision to invest in beeswax wraps.
WE NEED YOUR HELP, AND YOUR OVEN!
If you could support their initiative by helping to create some BeesWax Wraps it would be greatly appreciated. The students have enough beeswax to create over 100 wraps, but we simply do not have the oven space at school. If you are interested in supporting the program. We have the resources and instructions, and your child will be able to get involved!
English
Role models can be a big influence on our lives. Occasionally, they can use their place in our lives to try and convince us to do things such as purchase products or support a cause. This connection works nicely with our first literacy focus for Term 3 around Visual Texts. We will be investigating how the media use a range of text and visual features to persuade their audience. Alongside our unit of investigation, we will also continue our personalised approaches to developing the reading, writing, spelling, speaking and listening skills of each individual student.
Mathematics
In Term 3, the students will look at number patterns and how they can be used to efficiently to solve multiplication and division challenge. By recognising repeating and growing patterns students will start to recognise how grouping numbers you can more quickly calculate simple expressions. We will move from patterns into arrays and see how times-tables support the solving of Multiplication, Division and more.
Other key topics this term will include a review of measurements to do with length and distance and making conversions. We will start our journey into parts of a whole (fractions, decimals and percentages), and looks the likelihood of events as part of Chance.
I look forward to seeing you all at the Parent Information Evening on Wednesday 3 August!
CRAIG KENNER
Year 3 classroom teacher
Hello families! It’s a joy to have the students back at school after the winter break. We’ve had a busy start to term and have a lot coming up over the next short while.
Key Dates
Note these dates in your diaries! Reminders and further information will be provided throughout the term.
WEEK 3
August 5 Homeless Youth Casual Dress Day
WEEK 4
August 8 Pupil free day
WEEK 5
August 15 Imagine Me Body Safety Sessions for Students
August 18 Year 3 Assembly
August 19 Pyjama Day
WEEK 7
August 31 PFG Father's Day breakfast
August 31 Minimbah production - The Little Mermaid day 1
September 1 Minimbah production - The Little Mermaid day 2
WEEK 8
September 9 Mini Olympics
WEEK 9
September 13 Grandparents' Day
September 14 to 16 Year 3 / 4 Camp at The Ranch
September 16 Term 3 Concludes
TERM 4
October 4 Term 4 commences
Term 3 Unit of Inquiry: Role Models, thinking and behaviour
Central Idea: People’s choice of role models can influence their thinking and behaviour.
At the beginning of this term, we’ve explored people that the students look up to currently and analysed the character traits or attributes that make them positive role models. Our students have ranked the qualities according to how important they think they are at the beginning of our unit. To deepen our inquiry, we will explore a range of texts, in particular the Little People: Big Dreams book series, learning about key historical figures and the extraordinary feats of people who have faced significant challenges.
This is an opportunity for students to:
- develop reading skills
- determine the main ideas of texts
- discuss connecting themes
- how to skim and scan for key information and
- analyse the author’s purpose in writing these texts.
As the unit continues, we will explore the way role models can influence people, and how we can act as role models ourselves. Our students have become really interested in environmental issues lately, particularly in the amount of waste created as a society. Stay tuned for our young role models making a real impact.
Language
This term we’ll be exploring language through several lenses: how it can support and deepen our inquiry, as discussed above, and by inquiring into the idea that visual texts have the power to influence our thinking and behaviour. Once again, we see the concept of influence appear; a wonderful transdisciplinary which connects our language learning and our unit of inquiry. Throughout this unit, students will study visual texts, in particular advertising, to analyse and interpret the techniques used to influence us. We’ll look at how advertisers target different emotions, learn the language of visual texts (logo, symbol, foreground, background, and so on), and engage in the creation of our own visual texts.
We see a great opportunity to link this to our unit of inquiry, too, as students continue to think about how they may use visual texts to help make an impact in our school community. Alongside this, we will continue to engage in structured word inquiry; learning about how words work, utilising speaking and listening skills to discuss ideas and concepts and engaging in real opportunities for writing to further both our language and transdisciplinary inquiries.
Maths
To begin our term, we will be exploring the idea that by analysing and making rules for patterns, it is possible to make predictions. Patterns underpin all learning in mathematics and enable the development of fluency and understanding, which has the flow-on effect of deepening students' ability to problem solve.
Throughout this unit we’ll learn how we can express rules, create complex patterns, learn about the patterns we can find in multiplication and division and how these patterns can help us with multiplication and division. Once upon a time, learning the times tables was the ultimate goal of multiplication in primary school. Now, we have higher aspirations for students as mathematical thinkers!
That said, the recall of these multiplication facts continues to be important to develop fluency and understanding, and to enable progression towards more complex mathematical thinking and processes. Students are setting goals for their own learning of the ‘multiplication facts’ – developing accuracy and speed – whilst learning tips and tricks to help remember them, such as that the ‘4s’ are just double the ‘2s’, and the ‘8s’ are double the ‘4s’!
JAMES CLAPHAM
Year 4 classroom teacher
We have made a smooth start to Term 3 with happy and enthusiastic children. While Mr Hicks is enjoying his time in France, Mrs Murdoch has made a seamless transition into year 5 and we are all enjoying working together. We are strongly encouraging each child to contribute regularly to class discussions and activities as we are attempting to make our thinking visible.
Unit of Inquiry: Where We Are in Time and Place
We have kicked off our Unit of Inquiry ‘Where We Are in Place and Time’. We are looking at historical evidence through the lenses of perspective and connection.
We will be going on a Study Tour to Sovereign Hill from 10 to 12 August, where we will travel back to the 1850’s as we embark on our inquiry into Australian history during the Gold Rush.
Throughout this unit we focus on four main lines of inquiry:
- How historical evidence provides insight into the past
- Whose stories are told through historical evidence
- The role of validity in historical sources
- How we curate historical sources to give a perspective on history
Literacy
In preparation for our Study Tour to Sovereign Hill, we have begun investigating the perspectives of those involved through our historical fiction literacy sessions. The students are creatively preparing character profiles and will be writing an application to attend one of two schools. As part of the inquiry process, students must work cooperatively with others to access, read, interpret, and evaluate a range of source materials. Through the process of planning, drafting, editing and revising their writing students must consider the perspective of the person whose story is being told. It will be a consistent focus for the students to use correct grammar and punctuation as they work towards a polished product.
Maths
Our Numeracy unit will also support our inquiry into Australian history at Sovereign Hill as we use directional language and grid reference systems to describe locations and landmarks. Our Numeracy throughout Term 3 will also focus on expanding the students’ knowledge of problem-solving using multiplication and division and algorithms that involve branching and repetition. We are also investigating appropriate units of measurement for perimeter, area, volume, capacity and mass of a variety of shapes. This knowledge will culminate in Week 9 with an Expo of student work, in particular their application of knowledge in the Minimbah Maths Talent Quest.
Minimbah Production - The Little Mermaid
We are all excited and working hard towards the whole school musical production of The Little Mermaid in Week 7. The matinee and first evening performance will be held on Wednesday 31 August, followed by another evening performance on Thursday 1 September.
Please put the dates in your calendar. More details will follow shortly.
ZARA LOVE-DAVIES and NICCI MURDOCH
Year 5 Classroom Teachers
Please see below for an outline of our curriculum for Term 3. We approach everything through inquiry; we are constantly questioning, always curious.
Inquiry
For our current Unit of Inquiry, ‘Where We Are in Place and Time’, we are immersing ourselves in various migration stories.
Our central idea is: Sharing stories of immigration builds compassion and understanding.
Lines of inquiry:
This unit is an inquiry into:
- the reasons that people migrate
- the impact of migration on people and places
- how telling stories of migration can build compassion and understanding.
Through the learning experiences within this unit of inquiry, we are learning to empathise with people and their stories, both known and unknown. We are learning to take notes and synthesise ideas. We respond to written and visual texts, identify keywords and phrases and convey our ideas succinctly. We are learning about the many different internal and external reasons people migrate. We are discovering the impact of migration on people, communities, and the environment. We are learning that it is essential to listen to other people’s stories before making judgements.
Later in the term, we begin a very hands-on inquiry under the trans-disciplinary theme of ‘How the World Works’.
The central idea is that: Design of structures is influenced by a variety of factors.
Lines of inquiry:
This unit is an inquiry into:
- principles that underpin the design of structures
- the influence of the environment on the design & construction of structures
- how technology influences design and construction.
We will be learning about different materials and how they are suited to different environments and how types of environments might influence design. We will research design principles and put them into practice. We will examine how technology has greatly influenced how the design process has changed. During the unit, we will be hypothesising, planning, and testing. We’ll collaborate and work in teams throughout the design process, becoming designers, scientists, and engineers.
Literacy
Reading remains our priority throughout this term. We have an incredible, healthy culture of reading for pleasure, relaxation and inspiration established in Year 6. We are currently sharing in the class novel A Long Walk to Water and tapping back into the sequel to Pax whenever we can find the time. Students can read non-fiction articles each week, which become the focus of analysis and comprehension practice. In our differentiated reading groups, we hone in on the main idea of a text, the author’s purpose, and various concepts such as sub-text, bias and intent.
Our focus this term will be on two main writing genres: Narrative and Procedural, which integrate well with our inquiry units. The creative piece will take the form of a first-person narrative written from the perspective of an immigrant. Procedural texts will be written and tested through our design unit, where we will have the opportunity to write instructions for a construction project. We will focus on building vocabulary through glossaries linked to our inquiries and used within writing tasks. Spelling and grammar programs continue to evolve based on individual student needs identified through ongoing review and assessment of work.
This term will provide plenty of opportunities for listening as we enjoy hearing stories of migration via different forms of media. We use various thinking routines to scaffold notetaking and to sort out information and our ideas. Speaking and listening are crucial throughout the Production process; we are listening to direction, to castmates for cues, and we are speaking through the lens of our characters. We recognise that how we speak allows us to connect with our audience.
Mathematics
Throughout this term, we will explore the following areas:
- Fractions, decimals, and percentages are connected and can be used to represent whole-part relationships. We will build knowledge in…
- Ordering and comparing fractions, decimals, percentages
- Operations involving fractions, decimals, percentages
- Data analysis, including range, mode, median and mean about global statistics and migration
- Describing relationships between units of measurement (perimeter, area, and volume) and the connection between angles and lines (perpendicular and parallel). During our inquiry unit into design and construction, we will test the theory that the accuracy of the measurement depends on the situation and the precision of the tool
To cement knowledge, we will…
- revisit the properties of numbers (prime, composite, factors, and multiples)
- continue to represent numbers, including fractions, decimals and percentages on number lines
- apply our understanding of the base 10 system when multiplying and dividing decimals
- convert between metric units of measurement
- revisit the order of operations
Individual Maths Goals are a regular part of our Maths routine where students have time at school and home to work on areas of focus and need.
We will hold the MMTQ – the Minimbah Maths Talent Quest - this term across the Homestead. Students will investigate a topic of interest and develop a maths-related question that will drive their investigation. The entire process will be documented, from brainstorming ideas to questioning, hypothesising, testing and presenting their findings. At the end of the term, we will hold a Homestead MMTQ expo to allow the students to share their learning with the school community.
Thank you to everyone who participated in the recent Parent/Teacher/Student conferences. They are a valuable experience for us all and allow us to be on the same page and set goals for the remainder of the year.
Please see below for some photos from the classroom and the Production workshops over recent weeks.
We look forward to sharing the juggernaut that is Production with you in the coming weeks. Chookas to everyone!
JACQUI AND JONNO
Year 6 classroom teachers
Digital Wellbeing is something we all grapple with, no matter whether you're a student or a parent. When it comes to screens, few of us are sitting in the driver's seat. Our term 3 Parent Education Program (PEP) talk is the pep talk we all need: how to stay focused in an age of distraction.
Our PEP talk presenter, Dr Joanne Orlando (PhD, MEd, BEd), is a leading international expert on how to create a healthy relationship with technology. Based on her ground-breaking research, Joanne speaks to communities about how to balance the 24/7 nature of technology without losing the many opportunities it provides. She believes we can live well and stay focused with technology even with the ever-present possibility of distraction. In this term 3 PEP Talk, she'll share with us some simple tips on how to reign in our digital habits and create a relationship with technology that doesn't tax our wellbeing.
Joanne is the creator of the digital literacy and wellbeing education program TechClever, which helps schools and parents to frame conversations around technology away from one that focuses on fear to one that focuses on creating healthy relationships with our devices. Her most recent book Life Mode On, was released worldwide in 2021.
BOOK TICKETSThe Head of Senior Campus, Nat McLennan, invites you to join her and the Principal, David Baker, for an introduction to Senior Campus life and a student-led tour of the Campus.
The transition from Minimbah and Penbank to the Senior Campus is a significant step in the lives of Woodleigh students and their families – one we hope to ease by building a sense of comfort and belonging prior to the start of Year 7.
Morning tea will be served before the tours, and while this event is intended for parents, not students, young children are more than welcome to attend with you.
We hope to see you at Senior Campus on August 4!
BOOK NOWThere's less than a month before opening night for our 2022 production of Almost, Maine, the first Woodleigh senior school production to make it to the stage in three years. This is a fantastic milestone and great example of what creative Woodleigh students can do. Students have written and arranged the music; created animations and projections; crafted the set and costumes, and will be running the show. Come along and show your support!
Almost, Maine is rated PG and suitable for the whole family. Seating is limited, so don’t miss out!
Experience the life-altering power of the human heart and have your heart touched and warmed in the process.
BOOK NOW