West Coast Language Development Centre

East Hamersley Campus Kindy News

In our class we know all our colours. As part of our revision of colours and embedding the Aboriginal culture into our everyday classroom activities we listened to the Dreamtime story ‘Warnayarra The Rainbow Snake,’ then used our fine motor skills to paint the snake and finally our oral language skills to describe our snake painting. They definitely brightened up our classroom.

We have also been learning to ‘Smart Ignore.’ We had to practise smart ignoring Compy when he was trying to distract us on the mat. We are getting quite good at smart ignoring silly behaviour, outside noises and other distractions. One student’s mum even reported that after telling her child to stop their silly behaviour at home that they replied, “no mum you need to smart ignore me.”

Finally, we have finished off our term learning all about food. It has been a fun few week’s sorting, describing and taste testing some different foods. Our home corner was turned into the Kindy Café and we have practised our oral language skills and manners while playing in the café. It is so much fun playing and learning at kindy.

Mrs McInnes

Class Teacher

 

Poseidon Campus News

Poseidon Primary School Cross Country Event

Well done to all the participants in the Poseidon Primary School Cross Country event last Wednesday. We were very proud to have several students on the winners’ podium. Thank you to Mr Pickering for organising the event and special thanks to the Year 6 students for their encouragement and help throughout the races.

Congratulations to the following ribbon winners:

Dennis– 1^st Place – Year 1 Boys

Haluto– 2^nd Place – Year 1 Boys

Jake– 2^nd Place Pre-primary Boys

Elson– 3^rd Place Pre-primary Boys

Max– 4^th Place Pre-primary Boys

Aoife – 4^th Place Pre-Primary Girls

 

Wanjoo Incursion

On Friday the 17^th of June, the Kindy – Year 3 students at Poseidon Primary School and West Coast LDC participated in the incursion ‘Wanjoo Workshop’ presented by Gina Williams and Guy Ghouse. The workshop focussed on the importance of keeping Noongar language and culture alive, as well as learning original Noongar language songs. The students learnt the songs ‘Iggy’s Lullaby’ (written for Gina’s son), ‘Bindi, Bindi (The Butterfly)’, ‘Ninnyok (Little Girl)’ as well as a Noongar version of ‘Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star (Djinda Djinda)’ and a terrific little counting song called ‘Keyen Koodjal, Daambart (One, Two, Three)’.

The student’s proudly sung the welcome song ‘Wanjoo’, and were absolutely captivated by the interactive experience.

The incursion was incredible, and the staff and students thoroughly enjoyed learning Noongar language songs with actions. It was an honour to meet the very talented duo of Gina Williams and Guy Ghouse! We thank them both for sharing their songs, culture and language with us. As mentioned, the workshop aimed to share the importance of keeping the Noongar language and culture alive, and it certainly achieved this goal.

Mrs Hayley Rowlett

Class Teacher

Poseidon Campus – Kindy A

Kindy A has been learning all about food and shopping and enjoying the narrative “The Very Hungry Caterpillar”. They have been very busy making craft which shows the life cycle of butterflies, and experiencing what it might be like in a cocoon!

 

We have also been learning about how to describe different fruit and sorting food into fruit and vegetable groups.

 

In the home corner the children have been taking turns with the roles of shopper and check-out operator. They are learning to greet each other, use polite words like ‘next please’ and ‘thank you, come again’.

Mrs Williams

Class Teacher

Poseidon Campus – Kindy B

It has been a very busy Term 2 for Kindy. We have settled well into our class routine, having a good understanding of ‘whole body listening’ and how to navigate through our rotation groups. We have been learning new vocabulary through our themes of ‘furniture’, ‘household jobs’, ‘food’ and ‘shopping’. We have used Colourful Semantics and semantic icons to scaffold and support our expressive language to be able to describe objects, for example the colour, shape and where you would find an item.

We have been using actions and pictures to help us retell stories as well as using the Braidy icons to help us explain who the character is and where the character is in the story.

We have been learning all about numbers up to 10 and have enjoyed creating crafts relating to each number.

We went to the undercover area and got to enjoy listening to Gina Williams and Guy Ghouse perform ‘Wanjoo’ and many other songs in Noongar. For some of the songs, we stood up to dance and join in with the actions.

For cooking we have been making food items related to our class themes, for example we made Goldilocks and one of the bears from rice crackers, meat, cheese and noodles. After eating what we have made, we complete our procedural retell, telling our teacher what we made and how we made it.

We are looking forward to the last few weeks of term as we are reading and making our own story book about “The Very Hungry Caterpillar”.

Mrs Livingstone and Mrs Gastelaars

Class Teacher and Education Assistant

Quinns Beach Campus – Kindy A

In Kindy we have been learning the steps involved in simple procedures using some clever connecting words like; first, next and finally.

We made yummy Vegemite crackers to eat.

• First we put the cracker on the plate.
• Next we spread the butter on the cracker.
• Then spread some Vegemite.
• Finally we ate the cracker.

Yum!

Mrs Porter

Class Teacher

Quinns Beach Campus – Kindy B

Our theme is ‘Food’ and we have been learning how to do things in the right order. We learnt how to make vegemite sandwiches and a bowl of cereal. Then we had to tell Compy what actions to do in the right order. We used the words ‘first, next, then and last’ to show the order of the actions. We also tried hard to use words like ‘pour’ and ‘spread’.  We all took turns to do the actions and to do the talking. We had lots of fun!

Mrs de Visser

Class Teacher

East Hamersley Campus PPA

Term 2 for PPA has been another exciting and hardworking term. The children should be so proud of all their learning and their achievements so far!
We started the term again with our Literature Based Unit, this term our story focus was ‘The Three Little Pigs’. A Literature Based Unit is a way of systematically unpacking stories and linking this to carefully selected activities that target specific language skills to assist our students to understand the language in books. The children enjoyed creating the Three Little Pig’s houses and their own puppets, costumes and other story telling props. The children built farms in the block area with the farm animals and role-played daily farm life with a ‘small world’ farm.

 

 

 

 

The children have also been continuing to develop their comprehension skills. Last term we learnt about Whole Body Listening and ‘Clunking’ when there is a problem. We might ‘clunk’ when we don’t understand something or even something as simple as we can’t find our water bottle. ‘Clunking’ helps the teacher or our friends know that there is a problem, and we need help! The Pre-primary students are so enthusiastic when it comes to helping their friends when there is a ‘clunk!’.
This term the children have started learning about verbalising and visualising. Sometimes when someone says something to us, we don’t know what they are talking about. So, we have been working on using our describing words to help put a better picture in someone’s brain when we are telling them about something. We also need to work on visualising in our own brain when someone is talking to us. This helps us to comprehend and understand things when someone is talking to us, when we are reading and it helps us to follow instructions.
We had the wonderful Mrs Vawser come to visit us to help us learn about Verbalising and Visualising. These photos show us verbalising to a friend what is happing in the picture card and our friend visualising what they are hearing by drawing a picture of it. How clever we are!

 

 

 

 

 

Miss Kate Brennan, Mrs Pauline Acott, Miss Elin Wee and the PPA Koolangka (children)

Classroom Teachers and Speech Pathologist

East Hamersley Campus PPB

Pre -primary in Term 2 has been exciting, we have been learning to visualise. Each morning we use visualising to listen to clues, make connections and draw a picture. We then verbalise what we have drawn. For example, we are learning about places where we go as part of Geography. (My place and my favourite place)

Mrs Nash gives us four clues, for example I am thinking of a place where we go,

1. It has lots of green grass.
2. It has lots of trees.
3. There is a slide and trees.
4. People like to walk their dog.

What is the place I am thinking of? Students then have a smart guess through making connections and then we close our eyes to visualise. We repeat the clues and then draw a picture from our picture in our brain. The students love to verbalise what they see in their brain and then use drawing to express their picture.

 

Narrative

The students have been learning all story elements in the story ‘The Three little Pigs’. The children used actions and role play to retell the story. We created our very own story map and we enjoyed telling our stories to our friends and Mrs Silverlock.

Social Skills

As part of our Social skills program, I Do IT! we are learning to greet new friends. We are visiting our other Pre- primary friends and are playing by joining in and trying new play opportunities. As part of our play skills, we have been dressing up and using pronouns to orally state what our friends are wearing.

For example:

She is wearing a pink skirt.

He is wearing a green spotted hat.

 

 

 

 

 

Synthetic phonics

We have made progress with our spelling, reading, and writing skills using Sounds Write, a synthetic phonics program that is evidence based and a tool used centre wide.

 

Mrs Nash, Miss Bates, Miss Wee, Mrs Carbonne, Mrs Backx

Pre-primary East Hamersley team – Class Teachers, Speech Pathologist and Education Assistant.

 

Padbury Campus – PPA

We have been learning the story of the three little pigs. To develop our semantic knowledge, we learned about farm animals and their produce.

 

 

 

We played in the new Farmer’s Market Joint Action Routine to role play with money. All the items were $1 or $2 – we had to look closely to recognise the numbers and use the correct amount for all our shopping. We sorted our food and drinks into categories of fruit, vegetables, meat, bread, milk, honey, eggs, and dairy. Then we linked them to other shops in our community e.g., the butcher, bakery,         greengrocer, and fish monger. It was lots of fun playing in the Farmer’s Market.

 

 

 

We also had Farmer Mick and his animals visit our school. We got to meet real farm animals. We enjoyed holding them, feeding some and learning about animals that live on a farm.

 

 

 

In Geography, we are learning about where we live. We made a paper plate craft to show ourselves, homes, neighbourhoods, state, country, and world. Our home-corner has transformed into a train station so we can role play catching a train to school, library, the shops, or the city. We are getting lots of practise with using Australian money with $1 and $2 coins as well as $5 and $10 notes. It’s been great!

 

 

 

 

 

Miss Nguyen, Mrs Giltrow, Mrs Stopher and Mrs Hopper.

Class Teachers, Speech Pathologist and Education Assistant

Padbury Campus – PPB

‘A Farmyard on Wheels’ came to school for all the Padbury Pre-primary students. Farmer Mick brought his sheep dog, a pig, a pony, an alpaca, chickens, ducks, and geese. The best part was when we each held a baby chick very gently in our hands. We were so excited and had a great time. When we went back to class, we composed a story about ‘A Farmyard on Wheels’ and painted and talked about our favourite animal of the day.

 

Mrs Rogers

Class Teacher

 

 

Poseidon Campus – PPA

Term 2 has been another busy term so far. PPA loved doing our literacy-based unit on the story ‘The Three Little Pigs’. The children had a great time learning about the story and developing their skills at retelling a narrative. We have covered a lot of our letters and sounds, and students are using this knowledge to write words with support by listening to the sounds they hear in words. PPA are doing a fabulous job of being able to identify the first sounds they hear in words.

 

 

 

 

 

In numeracy we have been consolidating our counting skills and copying and continuing patterns. We have also been focusing on before and after numbers and addition and subtraction.

 

 

 

 

 

Finally, this term in Geography we have been discussing our special places – why they are special to us. The children gave a small presentation to the class telling us about their favourite place and what they do to look after it.

Mrs McDonell

Class Teacher

Poseidon Campus – PPB

This term has been busy and challenging in many ways. For the first time this term, I hope to have a full class again this week after illness has kept many of us away from school. However, we are still having lots of fun and doing so much learning!

Our narrative focus for this term has been ‘The Three Little Pigs’. Apart from learning how to become great story tellers by including all the parts of a story, this unit has allowed us to explore farms and farm animals, label the parts of a pig, engage in role play incorporating a Veterinary Clinic, write about our favourite part of the story and so much more. Our last fabulous lesson about the Three Little pigs, included an innovation of the story – the students all chose new characters for the three pigs and big, bad wolf and it was wonderful listening to the new story creations!

 

 

 

 

 

We continue to learn about places as part of our Geography unit this term and each student in the class did a short presentation and painting about their ‘special place’.

We have been learning to add and subtract, order numbers correctly, create our own patterns and work with shapes in maths. The children love this hands-on learning and are doing a great job in acquiring new skills in this learning area.

Last Wednesday, Poseidon Primary held a ‘Crazy dress day’ fundraiser. Crazy clothes, crazy socks and crazy hair were all around us – have a look at the ‘crazy PPB students’!

We look forward to the remainder of term two.

Mrs Foster

Class Teacher

Quinns Beach Campus – PPA & PPB

Students at Quinns Beach have been engaging with the text: ‘The Three Little Pigs’. We have been learning about the meaning of the word strong by investigating different ways of making houses including from biscuits and icing.

We also enjoyed a visit from the Swan Valley Cuddly Animal Farm.

 

 

 

 

 

Pre-primary Staff

Quinns Beach.

 

 

 

 

East Hamersley Campus Year One News

We have been enjoying the Autumn weather so far this term, using the fine days to weed and plant garlic in our secret garden plus observe the changes in our broccoli and spring onion seedlings. We don’t mind the rain because it is watering our crops for us! We will be planting different crops throughout the year and will keep you updated via Seesaw.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We are continuing to learn more code to become better readers and spellers and we have now met all the aliens who help us generate great sentences when we are speaking and writing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This term we will be studying Geography, learning about people and places in our world as well as the 6 Noongar and 4 European seasons. Our focus texts to explore this term are some Australian classics: “Possum Magic” by Mem Fox, “The Journey Home” by Alison Lester and “Tiddalick-The Frog Who Caused A Flood” by Robert Roennfeldt.

Cross country will be in week 6 so we have been training hard with Mrs Acott plus learning to compare weight and length. It’s another busy term.

Mrs Vladich

Class Teacher

Padbury Campus – Year 1A

Every Tuesday, the students in Year 1A have a busy day taught by three different teachers! One of the subjects that we learn on Tuesday is Art. Usually Mrs Luppnow teaches Art, but Mrs Mayberry has taken over while Mrs Luppnow enjoys some long service leave.

In Art, we have been learning about line, colour and shape. We use this knowledge to make a variety of amazing artworks. Recently, we learned about foreground and background. We kept those new concepts in mind for our next Art project – drawing a picture of the school playground.

 

 

 

 

 

After we drew a picture of the school playground, we used watercolour paints to add colour to our drawings. Mrs Valentino came to take pictures while we were painting and everyone wanted to show off their artwork. In Year 1A, we are all Artists!

Mrs Valentino

Class Teacher

Quinns Beach Campus – Year 1A

This term we have been talking about the story Possum Magic. We have learnt about the word ‘invisible’ and thought about what we would do if we were invisible for a day! We are also learning how to be good storytellers by discussing all the important parts and events in the text.

We followed a procedure to make vegemite sandwiches (that’s what made Hush’s tail appear!) and created a set of written instructions.

 

 

 

 

 

On Tuesdays, the children have been learning to recognise and describe 3D shapes. They made windsocks out of cylinders, and they had fun playing with them outside in the wind.

 

Mrs O’Callaghan and Ms Hemmy

Class Teachers

 

 

Quinns Beach Campus – Year 1B

During term 1, we introduced our students to living things in our science lessons.   Students had the opportunity to grow their own plants.  We experimented to prove that living things have certain needs to survive, such as water, food, air, space and sun.

Our narrative, “A home for Bilby” taught us about different Australian Animals and their habitats.  We were very excited to visit Caversham National Park to see these animals in their natural habitats.

 

 

 

 

 

When we returned to school, we researched an animal of our choice.  We used our description chart to describe our animal.   We used shoe boxes and other materials to build a habitat for our animals made of clay.

Mrs Liebold

Class Teacher