Forbes Street, Woolloomooloo 2011 Telephone: 9358 5335/6 | Fax: 93571831 plunketstr-p.school@det.nsw.edu.au

Plunkett Street News

Term 2 Week 7,

2020

Dear Families, Thank you to all of the families and students that have helped our school to comply with the COVID – 19 safety restrictions. To help keep everybody safe, we have attempted to limit the pedestrian traffic in and out of the school. Parents have been asked to say goodbye and drop their kids off at the gate in the morning, and wait for their kids at the gate at home time. Preschool parents must come into Preschool to sign their children in, however we ask that you maintain social distancing while on site. We ask that you continue to do this over the next couple of weeks. Since the return to school three weeks ago, the teachers have been spending time assessing the literacy and numeracy levels of each student so we know what level the student is working at, and where we want the student to go next in their learning. This data is used to inform the next teaching and learning program. As it is close to the end of semester one, we will also use this data to complete our individual student reports. Families can expect to receive their child/rens reports in Week 9 or 10 of this term. A cover letter will accompany the report explaining the changes that have been made due to the extended period of time that students were working from home. If you have any questions about this, please contact the office. Reminder – please make sure your child/ren arrive at school after 8:30. There is no Breakfast Club this term. Thank you, Juliet Sonter

Our school rules • Be Safe • Be Respectful • Be an Active Learner

Note to Parents – please help us all to stay safe:

News from Kakadu Class

The highlight of the fortnight has been the opening of the playground equipment! The children have been thrilled to spend the last 15minutes of their day zooming, swinging, climbing and sliding, while testing their own personal strength and stamina (and self-control!). Thursdays have been another highlight with a visit from Daan and Go-Go Healthy kids. The children have been putting their fitness skills to the test and have had fun balancing, jumping, running and this week planking! Back in class we have been learning about patterns in maths and explored many different patterns, from patterns in nature to increasing and decreasing number patterns. In Literacy we are busy learning our letter sounds and practising how to write letters using correct letter formation. We have been listening out for the sounds heard in words & have been practising sounding out words independently. We are now starting to identify the first, middle and last sounds we hear in everyday words. Thank you to all the parents who helped their child organise bringing a toy to school for the day. The children all delivered a short speech about their toy and began to learn those important speaking and listening skills that are required when presenting.

News from Uluru Class

Over the past 2 weeks in class, Uluru kids have been busy in all areas of their learning. We have been looking at different Aboriginal stories and basing our writing around these. The kids writing is becoming more interesting and descriptive. We have been working hard on extending our writing and getting better at writing longer sentences. During mathematics we have been looking at patterns and 2D shapes. We learnt about growing patterns and how we can complete these. Uluru kids explored different 2d shapes and looked at vertical, horizontal, diagonal and parallel lines. The kids were getting very good at identifying these different lines in everyday shapes. GO GO Healthy kids have been keeping us fit and healthy on a Thursday morning. The kids have enjoyed the different activities that Darn has delivered and everyone gets involved with a big smile on their face. WE LOVE OUR NEW PLAYGROUND!! Uluru kids have been super excited that the playground is ready to use. The kids have been having fun testing out all the sections and the big challenge in our class is the monkey bars!

News from Jenolan Class We have had a productive fortnight of learning. In English, we have been reading the book Fox by Margaret Wild and practising drama techniques to discover the emotions of the characters and inferred meaning in the text. Students have been looking at character development in writing and created interesting characters during Story Factory lessons. In Mathematics, students have been practising number and addition facts through shared games like Race to 100 and Speedy Doubles. Our focus this week was 2D shapes and we learnt how when shapes fit together it is called tessellations but not all shapes can tessellate.

For Personal Development, we have been learning about the topic of “the values of good character”. We discussed what values are and brainstormed what values that are important to us including: caring, doing your best, a fair go, honesty, doing the right thing, being responsible and accepting others. Students were able to identify example of behaviours that demonstrate these values.

The students enjoyed their fitness sessions with GoGo Healthy Kids. The instructor Daan kept the students on their toes with ball skills and cardio activities.

News from Coraki Class Our class has been having a great time with our learning this previous fortnight, with many students stretching their brains and showing improved attention to the quality of their work. Our recent mathematics focus has been on algebra, patterns and 2D shapes. In ability based groups, the students are learning to recognize and continue increasingly complex patterns that use a combination of mathematical operations. We have also been learning how to calculate the area of quadrilaterals and triangles. The students all enjoy being challenged in their mathematical learning which is great to see! Some of our Year 6 students have also been learning about more complex mathematical ideas including Pi and Pythagoras’ Theorem. We have continue reading Storm Boy as our novel study, but have extended our learning to other areas. All students have been developing an information report on pelicans that they have made on Powerpoint. This has required internet research skills as well as technological skills. Coraki students also have been using pencil and water colours to draw realistic pelicans that we have now added to our vocabulary wall.

In writing, the students have been learning to effectively use direct speech with appropriate punctuation to enhance their work. This is a skill that requires them to be very detail-oriented and take opportunities to bring their characters to life by using Dynamic Dialogue, one of our Seven Steps to Writing Success!

News from Preschool Over the past few weeks, the jarjums (children) at Plunkett Street Preschool have been exploring the reasons why the leaves are falling from some of the trees and investigating the question “Why do the leaves turn brown?” which was asked after reading the story 'Leaf Trouble' by Jonathan Emmett. These are some of the children's responses; Amelia - "Because they fell". Romulo - "They turn black after brown". Adam - "So the tree can have a sleep" and "The good stuff is going back into the trees branches and trunk". Jone - "Because it's red". Eureka - "Because the sun sets". Eureka also suggested that we try to rub the red leaves onto our paper to see if the colour with come out. Valentino - "They die". Louie - Describes how the water gets to the leaves "up the trunk to the branches". Nicklas - "Did you know?" (To Miss Bree) "The water is under the ground, it will come up and continue to grow". To support Louie’s understanding of living and non-living leaves we conducted an experiment and observed how liquid moves through the leaves veins to keep them green over a few days. When we were discussing the veins in the leaves we made comparisons to the veins in the human body by examining the purple veins that we can see in our wrists where our blood flows through to keep us alive much like the water in a leaf’s veins. At our yarning circle, we examined the veins in the leaves of a sandpaper fig tree which the Aboriginal people traditionally used as sandpaper to smooth their weapons. Here are the steps of the experiment we followed;

1. Went on a nature walk and collected different types of leaves from our environment. 2. We cut off the bottom of each leaf stem and put each leaf in a vase almost filled to the top with

water. 3. Next, we added food colouring to the water to help us to see the changes happening to the leaves. 4. We observed the leaves closely by looking at them with a magnifying glass and Miss Bree & Miss

Leanne recorded their observations of how they looked each day of the experiment. These were some of the observations we made; Day 1: Romulo - "The leaves are going to change to blue, green and red". Adam - "The colour water will go inside the veins". Eldora - "The colour is going to go up". Jone - They need water to stay green". Day 2: Miss Bree posed the question: "Is the leaf alive or is it dead?" Samantha - "Alive, because there is water in the leaf". Jone - "Dead, because it is red". Romulo - "Alive, because the leaf is still green".