Browsed by
Category: Literacy Posts

Book Week

Book Week

After many weeks of anticipation the wait was finally over as HT & St. Mary’s celebrated Book Week for 2022. We celebrated with many fantastic events including teachers reading sessions in the library during recess, an exciting scavenger hunt based on characters in classic stories that we all know and the students writing a book of their own based on the major milestones of their life.

One of the major highlights of Book Week was on Thursday when everyone dressed up as their favourite characters. Everyone paraded around the assembly area and the colours of all the costumes along with the cheers of the community was amazing. The parade concluded with each student getting to read their milestone book to a student from another year level.

Another highlight of the week was when the students participated in an exciting scavenger hunt. Posters with clues about main characters in popular books were displayed around the school for everyone to find. Everyone who completed the scavenger hunt had their name put into the draw for a Dymocks book voucher. Kyan from year one was the lucky winner.

Overall, Book Week was a massive hit at HT and St. Mary’s and a big thank you must go out to our amazing literacy leader, Mrs. Dowling, who organized this exciting week.

Here is a video created by Seniora of the Book Week parade.

23
Narrative Writing Groups

Narrative Writing Groups

In Year 6 this term we have been focussing on developing our narrative writing skills. As we wrap up our narrative writing unit this week we had the opportunity to showcase our skills by writing a narrative as a group. Each group got a prompt and a story starter then as a group we worked together to compose a detailed narrative. Some of the topics we wrote about include a boot in a forest that miraculously took a step forward, a girl named Astrid who was holding an imaginary light and four friends who got stuck in a jungle with a portkey.

Overall, everyone has had lots of fun working in their groups and enjoyed the opportunity to combine our great ideas together.

Check out some year 6’s working in their groups.

9
Prep P day

Prep P day

Last Monday (March 7) the preps celebrated P day. P day is where all the preps get to talk and learn about the letter P. In the morning the preps came to school dressed in all sorts of costumes starting with the letter p. Some students wore pjs whilst others dressed up as pirates, princesses and the police. They had a big parade to show off their amazing costumes and  made crafts starting with P such as a pig. The preps were lucky enough to watch The penguins of Madagascar and Mr Popper’s Penguins.

Overall, P day was not just a fun day but a PERFECT day enjoyed by all.

24
Give me some space!

Give me some space!

On Wednesday the 19th of May each class at Holy Trinity stopped to enjoy a short story read by an astronaut in outer space! It was really cool how people from all around the world joined in this amazing experience.

Here is a link to the world wide simultaneous reading session.

Everyone enjoyed the experience and the story was quite cool too!

Here is the Year 4’s in action (thanks to Mrs C for sharing this great poster) …..

25
Year 3 and 5 Naplan

Year 3 and 5 Naplan

Last week the students in year 3 and 5 participated in Naplan beginning on the 11th of May and ending on 13th of May. Naplan stands for National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy is a combination of four tests ranging from language conventions to mathematics. Tuesday is the day when everyone did two tests (writing and language conventions which is testing our understanding of spelling, punctuation and grammar). On Wednesday the students participated in a reading test and on Thursday we did a numeracy test. The aim of Naplan is to help students to understand where they are up to with their learning and and where they need help. Sometimes students can get a bit ‘stressed out’ about Naplan but my advice to all people who are doing Naplan now or in the future is to not to get worried by the whole Naplan business. You can just remind yourself that Naplan is just like any other normal test we do in class. I also highly recommend that you don’t talk to your classmates during the tests as this may look like you are talking about the test questions.

After Naplan was completed we all felt much better and look forward to doing lots of other fun learning in class.

9
Narratives in 5 Blue

Narratives in 5 Blue

This term in 5 Blue has been learning about narrative writing and how to make it interesting for audiences of different ages.  Some of us are even publishing our stories for kinder kids and preps!

Mr B has taught us about using an engaging start, having a dramatic problem and a cracking ending to leave the reader wanting more.

Some of the topics we have written about so far include a big fight in a high school, a magic pool, kids that get sent to Jupiter and a Magic Tree that has a wormhole to a whole new land.

The following chart helps to keep everyone on track during our writing sessions and well as to inform Mr. B where each student in up to.

Overall, we are very excited to publish our narratives and we are hoping to put some of our narratives on the school blog in the coming weeks.

Here are some photo of us at work!

12
Learning in Prep Yellow!

Learning in Prep Yellow!

This term the students in Prep have been learning lots of new skills both during home learning and since they have been back at school.

Some of the areas that the Preps have been learning about since returning to school include …..

Literacy – writing recounts. The Preps were using bubbles when they were writing recounts and it looked like a lot of fun. They have also been learning how to write their work on dotted lines.        Here are some pictures of the Preps hard at work …..

In Maths, Prep Yellow have been learning how to order numbers both from smallest to largest and largest to smallest. One of the activities they did for Maths included looking through LEGO catalogs and ordering the items from the ones they wanted the most through to the one they wanted the least.

Here are some pictures of this activity …..

Overall, I think the Preps have had a great job with their learning and have earned a nice long break over the school holidays.

We look forward to hearing about what the Preps will learn about next term.

9
Persuasive Writing in Year 5

Persuasive Writing in Year 5

In year five we have been learning about persuasive writing. Some of the topics that students in our class have been writing about include deforestation, pollution and smoking. We have been trying do develop how we structure our arguments so that each paragraph does not just begin with firstly, secondly, finally, etc.

Our group wrote about smoking and why it is not good for our health.

Here is our persuasive pieces ……

By Amelia and Blake    🚭🚭🚭🚭🚭🚭🚭

Literacy

Literacy

Literacy News

Classroom Helpers 

Many thanks to the parents who attended the Classroom Helpers Information Session. If you have nominated a time that you are available to help in your child’s classroom, your child’s teacher will contact you to confirm if that time is an appropriate time for them.

 

Prep Reading Information Workshops 

Thank you to the Prep parents who attended the Reading Information Session. You play a most important part in the development of your child’s reading. The time you share with your children, enjoying picture stories or hearing them read their first take home books is precious valuable time that can instil a love for reading and give them a positive start to their literacy learning journey. Please ensure you help them engage in the text and use the picture clues along with the text to help them read.

 

Our Amazing Preps

It is wonderful to see how our new preps have settled in so comfortably to school. They are all working very well and are already reading texts and writing!!!

LOOK at these wonderful wizkids at work!!!  Fantastic work PREPS!!!!

 

 

Topic Talks 4 Yellow

Topic Talks 4 Yellow

This year in year 4 we have been doing Topic Talks (a lot like show and tell). At the beginning of each term we are given a list of topics to prepare and research so we have enough information to tell the class about the topic. Some of the topics we have presented this term include researching and presenting a poem that we enjoy (limerick, haiku or Australian), researching an African country and telling the class about a time in our life where we were filled with multiple feelings.

I really enjoyed when we got to tell the class about an African country particularly when other students presented their African country research.

Overall, topic talks are really helpful for learning about different topics as well as learning to speak in front of an audience. I always look forward to seeing these what other students are going to talk about.

Here is a couple of our topic talk presentations about an African country …..

Lit Circles in Year 4

Lit Circles in Year 4

During the last three Fridays students from 4 Blue and 4 Yellow have been participating in Literature Group Circles.  The students were put into groups of 4 and each group chose a book to read. Two of the groups chose a book called Whipper Snapper and the other group chose a book called Savvy. Each group also needed to organise themselves so that we knew what page to read up to ready for our next Lit Circles discussion. We also needed to complete a sheet at home that had different questions about what we were reading.

After each session we would fill out a sheet with a self evaluation and a group evaluation. We shared our answers and ideas with a group and kept questioning each other while we were sharing. Some of the questions included …. Why did you choose this question? and What made you think about your answer? During our discussions we would add to what other students thoughts by saying… I agree, I disagree, I would like to add on or I would like to mention.

Overall, the Lit Circles groups did really well and we gave feedback to Mrs Dell’Orso in what she did well in teaching and what she needs to improve on. Mrs Dell’Orso did really well in teaching us about Lit circles and every group did really well with their learning, participating, preparing and co-operating with each other. Lit circles will continue in term 4 and we hope it is as good as it was in term 3!

Here is some of the Year 4 Lit Circles in action …..

3
Book Week Fun

Book Week Fun

Yesterday morning, 2 Yellow was lucky enough to get a visit from 5 Blue for some brainfood and bookweek reading!

” It was so much fun- can we do it every week?- Tyler G

” I really liked reading with my year 5 buddy, she was so nice!” Siana S

” That was a nice surprise from the teachers”-  Sean C

1