Rey in the Philippines

Laura in Brazil

​During Term 3 students will be involved in furthering our work with the Kiva Program which links in a very practical way to our studies in Geography. I'm sure everyone appreciated the jobs students completed at home to raise money to support this very worthy program. During the beginning of the term all students will present their oral presentation to the class and participate in self and peer assessment. Assessments will be sent home for participation by parents or caregivers to contribute to how well the students prepared for their talk at home. This assessment will include my assessment as well as individual students and two of their peers.

Thankyou so much for the gold coin donations which will go a long way in assisting others. With repayments from recipients assisted in previous years it's possible for our students to work in pairs to make decisions on who they would like to support. This is by no means an easy task as there are many aspects to consider however I found in past experiences, the students are remarkably empathetic and show considered and thoughtful decisions. The discussions through this process show clearly their broader thinking of others in the world along with the differences and difficulties very different to our own daily lives.

'Me on the Map' is a two term project where students look at the big picture of where they live - starting with where we are placed in the universe. This activity builds on the work from each session and works its way down to each child's home and bedroom. Linked to our work with Kiva we research where our Kiva friends live in the world and make comparisons.

In Week 9 we will be participating in a Virtual Classroom with farmers in rural Australia. This virtual excursion is made possible by the Meat and Livestock Association of Australia and will feature 'real life' farmers interacting with our students in real time. In the time leading up to this, students will formulate questions they would like to ask. From our discussions and research in class the students are aware of the drought many farmers are experiencing and the impact in makes of peoples lives.

In English students will be focussing on Reading Comprehension. The core resource is multifaceted using stories split in five parts. Each part will focus on a particular aspect of comprehension such as summarising, predicting, inferring, making connections, identifying problems and solutions, main ideas and details, vocabulary and settings. Built within each story are deeper issues to consider such as bullying, managing difficult things, differences and organisation. As each of the stories are about children in a Year 3 class, our students identify closely with the themes and engage in thoughtful conversations. These topics sit closely with our work in Health.

Students will work towards writing and publishing a story of their own to celebrate their writing. Term 3 is always a busy term working with both narratives and persuasive texts. The publishing of their work is something the students are quite excited about. The process from draft to final product is complex and time consuming with many hours of hard work in between so we look forward to sharing those with you.

Our focus in Mathematics this term includes Statistics and Probability - Graphing, Chance experiments and the recording of events, Fractions - fractions of a whole and of a group, comparisons and naming tenths and hundredths, Time - both analogue and digital and if we don't run out of time ourselves we'll finish with measurements of length. Some work and revision will carry on over into next term. Many students have set their term goals around some of these topics. Furthering individual ability for everyday problem solving is also an important part of our program.

As always Term 3 is a busy one with Swimming classes in week 2, Pupil Free Day in week 3 for staff to engage in district professional development, 'Footsteps' the dance program in weeks 3 - 7, Bookweek Assembly - Performance and buddy class activities and also Brightpath writing assessment and PAT Testing.

Hold onto your hats - Term 4 will be here before you know it!

Regards
Maggie