Montessori 1/2 Term 4 2024 Curriculum Overview
Welcome & General Information
Welcome Back to Term 4! We hope you had a chance to spend some quality time together and refresh over the holidays. We are now entering term 4 – our term finale for the year. For our year 1’s, it is always so fulfilling to see the progression of all they can now do, by the end of this term. For the year 2’s the excitement is building for the completion of their Junior Primary Experience and the journey ahead into middle primary. Term 4 means it is time for our annual Montessori excursion to the Cattana Wetlands. This excursion is a compulsory activity as it provides vital data and research required for the completion of upcoming assessment tasks. As part of this task, students will be required to collect statistics of the different bird species present in their local area. They will also conduct an in-depth, continuing study of birds present in this local changing environment and how their living needs are met. This excursion also supports the student’s annual participation in the Australian Bird Count. This is a vital community event that offers students the opportunity to develop ongoing partnerships with professional scientists who need this data to support their conservation efforts and research re Australian Birdlife. The year’s nearly over but not over yet! We would like to stress the importance of each child attending every day (when they are well) and arriving in time to start learning when the 9am bell rings. Children’s learning is a team effort and we appreciate your support wherever possible, in helping your child arrive at school every day well rested. The weather is heating up which means our little ones need adequate reminders to hydrate at night and first thing in the morning at home. At school we will be giving the children regular drinks breaks to maintain deep concentration and encourage best learning opportunities at school. Water is the most hydrating drink there is for water bottles. |
English
Last term, our year 1’s and 2’s practised using a range of speaking skills to give a persuasive speech about a given topic. This term, students will be asked to further this experience, by writing a persuasive argument for a given topic, with supporting reasons for their opinion. Students will continue to consolidate their foundational writing skills during this task re sentence structure, punctuation, spelling and handwriting. They will also demonstrate their ability to read and answer comprehension questions related to a range of narrative texts to finish off the term.
Maths
Students will be engaging in the solving of number problems. The year 1’s will be focused on addition and subtraction of numbers to 20 and use of mathematical modelling to solve practical problems involving addition, subtraction, equal sharing and grouping, using calculation strategies. The year 2’s will focus on a range of more complex mathematical modelling to solve these type of number problems, representing the situation and choosing appropriate number strategy. The ability to recall and demonstrate proficiency with addition and subtraction facts within 20 and multiplication facts for twos will also be further developed. Our cleverly designed Montessori maths materials will continue to be used to help students demonstrate and develop these complex number problem skills throughout the term. The study of data gathering and analysis of statistics will also be a focus this term. Year 1’s will collect and record categorical data, create one-to-one displays, and compare and discuss the data using frequencies. Our Year 2’s will extend these skills by using a wider range of methods to collect, record, represent and interpret categorical data in response to questions |
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Science
This term students will make links between external features of living things and the environments in which they live. They consider how the needs of living things are met in a variety of habitats and compare differences between healthy and unhealthy habitats. By using local habitats as a basis of observation, they will discuss and suggest how changes to habitats can affect how the needs of living things are met. There will be a particular focus on developing the ability to share observations using scientific and everyday language. Our year 2 students extend this study into also comparing similarities and differences animals have in their life stages. Currently we have a new class pet to aid in this study – ‘mealworms’ and we are closely watching for their life cycle changes daily. |
Humanities & Social Sciences (HASS)
This term, our year 2’s will extend their learning of the ‘Australia Past and Present Unit’ by attending a School Incursion ‘History on the Move’. The ‘History on the Move Educational Trailor’ provides a unique intergenerational experience which enables students to enjoy interactive access of objects and local stories from the past. This presentation is run by the fantastic volunteers of the Cairns Museum who provide a wonderful learning experience for all. Our year 1’s love hearing the year 2’s report back on what they learnt and enjoyed, setting the stage of excitement for their turn the following year..
Health & Physical education (HPE)
Year 1
Students in year one will perform the fundamental movement skills of two-handed throwing, two-handed catching, soccer dribbling and basketball dribbling in a variety of movement situations.
Year 2
Students in year two will perform long-rope skipping sequences to rhymes. They will identify how their heart reacts to skipping. They will see how the heart reacts to different physical activities including skipping.
Music
Year 1
In this unit, students will learn main rhythmical elements – Ta, Ti-ti, Za, Vah and Great Vah. They will explore sounds as they learn to listen to and make rhythmical patterns using a variety of percussion instruments. They will also learn to discriminate between long and short sounds and silence.
Year 2
In this unit, students will appreciate and analyse the music of Saint-Saens. They will consolidate their knowledge of rhythmical elements – Ta, Ti-ti and Za and learn tika-tika(semiquavers). Students will create and perform different rhythmical patterns using known rhythmical elements. They will learn about tuned and un-tuned percussion instruments and use these to produce rhythmical ostinatos. Students will be introduced to the musical forms of the canon, A form and AB form by singing different songs. They will consolidate their knowledge of the pentatonic scale.
Technology
Year 1
This term, students will explore familiar digital systems, recognising systems are made up of hardware and software. They recognise digital systems can be used as solutions to solve everyday problems.
Year 2
Students will explore the properties of materials and how they affect movement in a range of products. They will develop skills to generate, design and implement a solution. They will also learn to evaluate a designed solution by expressing personal preference against a success criteria.
IEC
Welcome back to an exciting term 4 at TBSS! As Inclusive Education Teachers (IET’s), our role is to provide tailored and individualised supports for students with additional needs in year 1 and 2. Our focus is on making reasonable adjustments to ensure all students can access the curriculum at their level and are supported academically and socially to achieve their very best. We support students and teachers in their classrooms and facilitate targeted intervention sessions for individual students and small groups. Our preferred method of communication is via email. Caroline Houston cahou1@eq.edu.au Danika Sydenham dsyde3@eq.edu.au Should you have any further questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact us via email or drop in to the Inclusive Education Centre to make a time to chat 😊 |
Assessment Schedule
Learning Area | Assessment Task | Due Date |
English | Persuasive Text Pre-Test Monitoring task Final Assessment Reading Comprehension | Week 1 Week 5 Week 7 Week 8 |
Maths | Number | Weeks 2,3 |
Data | Week 4,5 | |
Science | Study of a Habitat | Week 5 |
Study of Lifecycles | Week 6 |
Reading & Spelling
Our school continues to embed a whole school approach to reading and spelling across Prep to Year 6. This involves teaching the reading and spelling demands of the Australian Curriculum, providing students with a systematic synthetic phonics approach and unpacking the Big 6/Science of Reading through engaging and meaningful lessons. Students engage with decodable texts when learning to read and rich authentic texts when reading to learn and continue to use the PLD approach for their spelling and sound focus.
Homework
Please remember to hand in folder Thursday mornings. Thankyou. A short amount of time should be spent on homework each day after school. Your support in completing this is much appreciated. If you are unsure about how to best support your child, please email your class teacher with any questions
Attendance
How to report an absence:
- Email attendance@trinitybeachss.eq.edu.au or
- Call the school's absence line on 4057 1444, then press #1 and don't forget to leave a reason why your child/children are away, or
- Send a note to the classroom teacher on their return
Our school’s attendance target is 95%
QParents
QP is an online portal helping the school move toward a cashless and paper friendly school.
- The QP portal allows Parents and Carers to grant participation consent online for activities such as swimming and excursions which reduces our need to print out paper consent forms
- Also, the QP portal enables Parents and Carers to make payment online for school activities and viewing unpaid invoices payment history.
Thank you to all those parents who have registered for QParents. This means every registered parent now has the opportunity to access to their children’s student records at their fingertips, anytime, anywhere. Haven’t received an invitation from us yet? There’s still time! Please let us know immediately. Or if you are simply looking for further information, videos and FAQs on QParents, visit https://qparents.qld.edu.au
Contact information
Classroom Teachers 1/2A - Kat Davies kdavi226@eq.edu.au 1/2B - Jac Williams jwill68@eq.edu.au Specialist Teachers HPE Jodie Donovan jdono63@eq.edu.au HPE Damien Theodore dxthe0@eq.edu.au Visual Arts Vanessa Graham vgrah5@eq.edu.au Music Svetlana Walker swalk146@eq.edu.au Drama David Terry dater1@eq.edu.au Technology Alex Einerman aeine0@eq.edu.au LOTE Stefan Poropat sporo2@eq.edu.au |