By Annette Blackett | Point Pearce R-2
As Week 5 comes to a close, and we are nearly half way through Term 1 already, I’m excited to write that the Point Pearce children are all working very hard in the R-2 Class, especially with literacy and numeracy. A VERY BIG welcome to our two new students Eddie & Kyzar who joined our R-2 Point Pearce School Family in Week 4.
Jolly Phonics
The Jolly Phonics ‘Tricky Words’ are being taught now and they are becoming more and more recognised in our story books and writing, alongside the new daily ‘letter sounds’. Thank you for your ongoing support with the children’s homework, sounding out each day’s new sound. The children are beginning to blend and spell many words and are writing/copying simple sentences using mini-blackboards. This is great to see.
‘Read to Self’ (silent, uninterrupted reading), continues to be a favourite for the children, as we utilise our wonderful library each week for new reading material, linked into all of our subjects.
Daily ‘sharing time’ is also a hit, developing Oral Language presentation skills.
Maths is proving a challenge for some students, and we have spent lots of time revisiting ‘number’ work and beginning on ‘time’. Please rest assured that each individual child is being assessed and taught at their academic level, as ‘one size’ definitely does not fit all. Some children are also being extended past their year level, which is great to see.
Brain Work
We talk a lot in R-2 about our ‘brain’, and how it works, and the children are really enjoying finding out how to best use their own brain to relax, think, question and inquire into their learning. They understand that although learning can be hard at times, they are able to use their brain and make decisions about building up their own ‘learning stamina’, which in turn builds up their personal resilience to try hard and keep going.
Around the Curriculum
In Geography, the children are learning about ‘People live in Places’ and have drawn maps, constructed models of the school, used ‘questioning’ skills, learnt specific vocabulary and taken ‘action’, producing posters stating their thoughts about how to look after our beautiful school area.
They have been working with Mr. Love, finding out about plants and animals in Biological Science and thoroughly enjoy their Transition Day on Wednesday’s each week at Maitland, working with Mr. Tuck in Performing Arts where they are developing their mime and movement skills.
In Art, the children have created some excellent ‘Crazy Circle Creatures’ and have used the computers in ICT to explore Kidspix and Maths games, while learning how to log on, log off and manipulate the keyboard and mouse effectively. All in all, the group are receiving a varied and rich learning experience…and this is such a blessing to their future learning. We have some very clever little brains in our group.