A word from our Teachers...

Room 34

Kindy and Pre-Primary have begun their learning journey and have been busy expolring and engaging in various classroom tasks and getting to know their new class friends. We have had a couple of great events to start this year off with a real buzz.

The Family Engagement initiative with the water play and various activities for our families turned out to be so much fun. The kindergarten and pre-primary children all had a ball and really enjoyed the morning tea and having their families come and join with in with them to complete different tasks and activities.

We began the year with an Aboriginal incursion which gave us a great introduction to our program. Our lovely students enjoyed welcome to country, a dreamtime story, viewing Aboriginal artefacts, learning about families and participated in completing a dot painting.

Our home corner, wood work bench and block corner has been a real hit with the students who have dressed up, pretending to do wood work, make food and create roads and buildings out of blocks.

During the coming months our class will be exploring and developing their English and Maths skills, playing and having fun in the process! They will be introduced to a variety of letter sounds, and pre writing activities such as patterns eg. Zigzags, waves, lines. During individual and group math sessions the focus will be on developing a good sense of numbers, their meaning, operations and the relationship between them. Students will explore measurement through play-based and interactive hands-on activities. The focus in Technologies will include creating, designing, finding solutions and producing musical instruments out of a varity or art materials. The students will assemble components, experiment and react with the product made. As part of 'The Arts' students will be exploring sounds, objects, props, scenes, outfits, masks and images to create and enterain audiences.

During Speech students will be developing and pracitsing language skills and focusing on improving understanding and categorising items. Occupational Therapy will include following instructions and learning to 'stop','go' and 'take turns'.

Health will include Protective Behaviours during which students will learn strategies to keep themselves safe. As part of the PATHS (Promoting Alternative Thinking Strategies) students will learn emotional awareness and self-regulation skills as well as identify situations that relate to different emotions, eg. playing in the sand with toys is a happy activity. Students will pracitce fundamental movements to develop gross and fine motor skills, eg. throwing or rolling and catching a ball, moving different body parts, threading and using tongs to pick up items.

Our students will integrate and socialise with their peers at Leda Primary School and participate in various activities at lunchtime and recess play, sporting events, incursions and special occasions. Pre-primary students will learn and investigate all about their school family, their own family and other families during History. In Science the students will learn about living and non-living things and the life cycles of plants and animals, eg.'A bean''The butterfly'.

We look forward to this year being an adventurous and fun one with our students having many opportunities to shine brightly with their unique potential and abilities. 

Mrs Julie Pearson - Classroom Teacher

 

 

Room 26

This semester in room 26/27 we have settled back into school life very quickly. It has been great to see so many of our students come back to school with a mature attitude towards their learning. We have welcomed some new students into the class too.

It is an exciting time in our class, we have started weekly swimming lessons which for many of our students, is the first time that they have undertaken activities outside of the school setting. So far, the students are thoroughly enjoying their swimming lessons at the Kwinana Requatic.

This semester in English we are focusing on Fairy Tales. Our first focus fairy tale has been 'The Three Little Pigs', we have been looking at the central characters and setting of this story and exploring how the story evolves from beginning to end. We are using this knowledge to sequence the story.

In Maths we are exploring number recognition and simple addition through play-based activities auch as number addition songs, small world play objects and art. We are also exploring all the different ways of making 10 by developing our number bond knowledge.

We have also been working on developing our social skills with daily practice of how to communicate our feelings in social situations and how to play in shared experiences with each other.

The students are becoming familiar with playing and learning in a range of meaningful life experiences such as eating healthy foods, using public transport, interacting with the community and using Australian money.

 Mrs Ruby Hope

 

ROOM 33 

Room 33 is made up of year two students.  This year we have six students and our focus is not only academic success, but instilling social, emotional and independent skills.

In Literacy we are targeting phonetic knowledge, blending and reading skills, using both the Diana Rigg and Fitzroy Reader programs.  Our targets for each student is individualised and caters for their specific needs and current abilities.

Numeracy for this year has an emphasis on number recognition and ordering, subitising or grouping, simple addition and subtraction using concrete materials. 

We are teaching students social skills such as communication, manners and appropriate ways to deal with emotions in both public and private settings.  This includes our Protective Behaviours program which educates our students on how to keep themselves safe, who they can talk to about worries they may have and/or other personal matters.

Through our swimming and community access programs, we teach students how to use public transport safely, appropriate communication in varying environments and general life skills such as emotional responses and manners.

As each of our students require different therapies, we provide both in school Occupational and Speech therapies, as well as outside agencies attending during school hours, for one to one sessions with students, as approved through individual NDIS plans.

Communication with parents is something very important not only within our class, but throughout the whole centre.  In light of this we utilise both communication books and the Class Dojo program to keep parents up to date with how their child is doing in class. 

Class Dojo and 1-2-3 Magic are the behavioural programs we use in our class to help students learn to self-regulate, motivate and manage challenging behaviours.  Our centre is a Positive Behaviour Support (PBS) school, which means that we strive to create a safe and positive learning environment which in turn leads to both improved academic and behavioural outcomes as well as higher student engagement.

Ms Vanessa Katnich - Classroom Teacher

 

 

Room 32

 

The students in room 32 have settled well into the new year, getting to know their peers and staff. Our classroom theme for the semester is 'Australian Nature', which we have been integrating into our art lessoins.

We have implemented morning routines to establish conmsistency and continuity when entering the classroom and incorporated spelling and reading into the regular activities. We use Magic 100+ words daily to improve the students spelling and sight words, along with one to one guided reading to develop reading skills.

We have established station rotations where the students focus on English, Mathematics, Speech and Occupational Therapy on a one to one basis. This enables them to work on their individual goals based on their IEP goals and personal needs.

In English we are focusing on identifying sounds and word blends, specifically in CVC (consonant, vowel, consonant) words such as cat/dog/.sit. and CCVC (consonant, consonant, vowel, consonant) words such as trim/step/that. We will also be focusing on handwriting and beginning to write simple sentences. In Mathematics we are expanding the students' knowledge and understanding of 'time' and 'money'.

We have been enjoying our science lessons as the students learn about life cycles of both plants and animals and investigating the difference between living and non-living things.

We hope to re-establish weekly swimming lessons, which enables the students to develop their swimming skills and watrer safety while reinforcing transport training skills including road safety and tagging on and off the bus.

We are looking forward to a fun and productive year.

 

Miss Karlee Munro —Classroom Teacher

 

Room 31

The students and staff have settled nicely into the 2020 school year where our focus has not only been on academicsuccess, but instilling social, emotional and independent skills.

This term our classroom theme is 'under the sea' where we have been learning about different sea creatures and their habitats. We have also been creating wonderful pieces of artwork taking our inspiration from the sea creatures.

In room 31 our focus in English will be on reading, writing and comprehensionskills where we will be using both the Dianna Rigg and Fitzroy Reader Programs to support student learning.

The students will also be participating in a range of fina and gross motor activities designed to provide skill snecessary for them to participate in every day activities. These could include preparing meals, riding a bike, playing football etc.

During our Science lessons in semester one we will be focusing on biological sciences. The students will learn about living things, their basic needs and the language used when learning about this topic. Room 31 has thoroughly enjoyed participating in the experiments and learning experiences we have conducted so fas and have shown a keen interest in this topic.

Our community access program is scheduled to commence in Term 2 and we will be travelling via bus and train to the Kwinana Adventure Park/Kwinana Marketplace, Rockingham Shopping Centre anfd other places in the community. We will be practicing how to catch these modes of transport correctly, learning about road safety and protective behaviours whilst also implementing elements of maths into our outings by using shopping lists and money to buy the correct ingredients for cooking.

We have a busy and fun year ahead and I can't wait to see how much the students can learn through out the year.

Miss Nicole Lazzaro - Classroom Teacher

 

 

Room 28

Room 28 has settled well in into the new year, getting to know the news class members and staff. Our classroom theme for the semester is 'Plant and Animal Lifecycles', which we have been integrating into our science and art lessons.

We have implemented our morning routine to assist with the improvement of the students spelling and reading skills. We are using Magic 100+ words daily to improce the students spelling and sight words. ALong with one to one guided reading to develop their reading skills.

In English we are focusing on word blends, specifically in our CVCC and CCVC words and our sentence structure, including the use of punctuation. Whilst in Mathematics we are expanding the students' knowledge and understanding of 'number', 'place value', 'time' and 'money'.

We have begun science lessons and the students are learning about the life cycle of a Monarch butterfly. Our class was lucky enough to experience five caterpillars transform into butterflies.

We have also established weekly Drumbeat sessions and have also enjoyed participating in senior sport, where we are learning soccer skills. The class had the pleasure of meeting the West Coast Eagles this term, which was a very special occasion for many of our students. They enjoyed being taught how to handball and kick the ball by 'real' football players.

We are looking forward to a very productive year.

Miss Anna Clay - Classroom Teacher

 

 

Room 29

We have had a very busy and productive start to the year in the Seniors' room. Students and staff have participated in numerous games and activities designed to build friendships and working relationships. The students settled extremely well into their new routines, devised collaborative and respectful classroom rules, and created a 'kindness corner' where ideas and information on kindness is shared with other members in our school community. We have also been learning a 'Welcome to Country' finger rhyme that we will be teaching to all of the other classes in the Education Support Centre.

We have participated in weekly Community Access travel to attend swimming lessons and have focused heavily on safety when crossing the road and when using public transport. A tag on/tag off system has also been implemented into our classroom to reinforce this, and we have an incursion and an excursion schedules with Transperth later in the year as it has unfortunately had to be postponed from Term One. Students will be provided with opportunities to learn about the different safety features available on public transport such as calling the driver on the trainif they feel unsafe, strategies around what to do if they accidently disembark at the wrong stop, and using the Journey Planner to plan timetables and routines.

Numeracy and literacy lessons are embedded within our learning environment  and students have been engaged in group and individual tasks and activities that are designed to support their individualised needs and learning outcomes. We also provide an integrated Science, Physical Education and Senioe Sport program with Leda Primary School, as well as opportunities to participate in the Schools Alive Choir. Our wonderful student, Ariella, has also represented the ESC as the Student Councillor this term and has fulfilled her role with dedication, enthusiasm and competence. Ariella will be continuing in this role until the end of Semester One.

We look forward to resuming onsite learning again soon and will continue to support the learning and well-being of all our students and families the best we can in these new and challenging times.

Mrs Belinda Cox and Mrs Elizabeth Morrison