A Note From Miss Atterton

Dear Families,

My name is Katie Atterton and I will be working as a student teacher in your child’s classroom for the next ten weeks. I am in the fourth and final year of my Bachelor of Education Degree and I will be graduating this December from the University of Notre Dame in Fremantle.

I’m so grateful for the opportunity to complete my final placement at Wattle Grove Primary School alongside Mrs Szczepanik in her wonderful year three class. I will be working with the students in your child's class in various capacities with both small group and whole class teaching across various learning areas. My teaching load and responsibilities with the students will gradually increase over the course of the term.

During my previous student teaching placements I have taught kindergarten and pre-primary aged children, I’m eager to gain experience working with year three students. My background includes many years working in childcare and tutoring high school students who were behind in their literacy skills. Throughout my placement at Wattle Grove I hope to create a learning environment that fosters imagination and creativity, a space where students feel safe, supported and experience a sense of belonging. I’m passionate about building a community of learners that facilitates student’s collaborative engagement together and encourages them to reach their fullest potential.

I am truly looking forward to beginning my student teaching position at Wattle Grove Primary School. I believe this term will be full of learning, not only for the students but for myself as well! Thank you for this opportunity.

Sincerely,

Katie Atterton

Term 3 Overview

Welcome back to Term 3! It is hard to believe that we are already half way through Year 3 already. This term we welcome Miss Katie Atterton into our class for her final teaching practice. We are very lucky to have such a committed and enthusiastic student joining Room 16 for the next 10 weeks. Please help us to make her feel very welcome.

Below, I have broken down the key concepts that we will be focusing on this term for each Learning Area, to give you an understanding of what we will be doing throughout this term. As you can see, we are going to be very busy this term!

Maths:
- Multiplying and dividing 3 digit numbers
- Long division
- Adding and subtracting fractions
- Comparing fractions 
- Calculating area 
- Calculating capacity
- Learning our 6, 7, 8, 9 times tables with related division facts

Literacy:
- Figurative language such as similes, metaphors, idioms, personification, hyperbole and alliteration. 
- A wide range of poetry writing
- Narrative writing
- Use a wide range of punctuation correctly
- Spelling rules and phonics sounds
- Reading comprehension

Science:
We are going to focus of Physical Science and how heat is produce and how heat can transfer from one object to another.

HASS:
Our focus this term is on History. We will be studying different commemorations around the world. At the end of the term we will be presenting a speech based on a commemoration around the world.

Health:
For the whole term we will be investigating the question, 'What makes a balanced, healthy lifestyle?' We will be focusing on healthy eating habits, exercising and healthy relationships.

This term we also have our assembly, book week, NAIDOC Day, sports carnival and learning journeys.

If you have any queries please feel free to come and see me. I am looking forward to another fantastic term together!

Thank you for your ongoing support,
Mrs Caris Szczepanik

Congratulations

A huge congratulations to Harry, Pari, Yingxin and Sohail for receiving a Merit Award at the last senior assembly. Your hard work, dedication and determination has been amazing to see and you are all fantastic role models for Room 16. Well done to you all!

STEM Challenge

Last week Mrs S gave us a challenge to design and make a spaghetti tower using only 20 pieces of spaghetti, a meter of tape, some string and a marshmallow. Our spaghetti towers had to hold the marshmallow on top for at least 1 minute to be successful.

Before we started planning our towers we researched different tall towers of the world like the Eifel Tower, Leaning Tower of Pisa and the Space Needle. We figured out that to be successful the tower would need a strong, wide base and a thin top so it would balance. Once we gathered this information we then began to plan and sketch our tower with the person next to us. We had to make sure our diagrams were clear and labelled. 

We then had 30 minutes to create the tallest spaghetti tower we could! It was really difficult as the sticky tape wouldn't stick tot eh spaghetti, some of the spaghetti broke and some groups run out of materials. We had to use our problem solving skills and think of ways to over come these problems while using team work.

Some towers were successful and some weren’t but that is a part of Design and technology. Once the challenge was complete we then had to reflect on our design and think about what worked well and what we could improve next time. Next term, Mrs S is going to give us the same challenge again to see if our skills have improved.

Congratulations to Layla and Sam who built the tallest tower which was nearly 60cm tall and could hold the marshmallow for over 1 minute. Amazing work girls!

Stem from carisheppener

Sundial Experiment

On Wednesday, we conducted a Sundial Experiment to finish off our Science unit all about light. We have learnt some seriously interesting facts about how the sun, moon and Earth all work together. We conducted an investigation about how shadows move and why. Did you know…. that although shadows move it is actually the Earth that is moving as it is spinning on it axis.

In order to conduct our experiments we needed to come up with an aim, materials, method and document our results at the end of it. We had so much fun and are turning into fantastic Scientists.  

Sundial from carisheppener

Super Scientist Competition

A huge congratulations to all the incredible Year 3s of Room 16 for the ginormous effort that you all put into your Science presentations. I learnt so many incredible Science facts and your explanations about your experiments and presentations were outstanding. Well done!

I would also like to thank all the fabulous parents of Room 16 who helped prepare for these amazing presentations. Thank you for your ongoing support!

A special congratulations to Pari and Mevindu, who were the Super Scientist Winners from our class. Pari did a magnificent presentation about fire and water. Her explanation about why the fire went out and the water rose in the glass was outstanding! Mevindu told us all about the atmosphere in great detail, which was so interesting and he even made a book. Impressive work Pari and Mevindu!

Super science presentations from carisheppener

Planet Show Bags

As I am sure you have all heard by now (due to the overwhelming excitement!) we are mid way through completing our Planet Show Bags! This project has been an amazing opportunity for students to take control of their own learning and develop their research and questioning skills. As part of our Science and Design and Technology program, students were asked to pick a planet, create their own questions to research using the computers and record their information and references. From this information they have collected we will be completing Information Reports in class. Not only do students need to create a report but they also need to provide some fun activities which a show bag would usually have. These activities will need to be completed at home.

To break down the assignment we will:
- Complete our Information Reports at school
- Design and create our show bags at school
- Provide at least one activity from list one and from list two to go into our showbags. This will be done at home.

A copy of the assignment outline and rubric which they will be marked upon are attached below. I am so excited to see the final products in Week 9! If you have any questions please come and see me.