Home Learning Term 1 Week 11

Mother's Day Stall in Term 2

THRASS Spelling in Class

A regular THRASS spelling activity used at school involves the MASUTA method.  MASUTA is an acronym for Meaning Analysing Synthesis Using Testing Applying.

With the teacher, children discuss a word’s meaning and use it in a sentence to display understanding.  

They look at whether it has a prefix or suffix and if it does, the base word (morphology). 

They discuss its origins (etymology) and talk about other words in that family.

Then, using the THRASS chart, syllables are clapped to ensure each syllable contains a vowel.  

The word is segmented into phonemes (sounds), and the tricky grapheme (writing choice) identified.  Discussion continues about digraphs, trigraphs and even quadgraphs.

Children write the word, often using a coloured pencil to identify their tricky grapheme. 

Part of this is the 'I do, we do (together with the teacher) and finally the you do (children on their own) process.'

Darine Groch

Week 9: Geoboards, Buttons, Continuity and Change

We did a lot of learning in this short 3-day week! In our Stage 2 Maths session students identified and explored the properties of 2D shapes using geoboards and task cards. They were challenged to make a button turn on an LED light using their circuit building and coding knowledge during STEM. We also learnt about the historical concepts of 'Continuity and Change' in the context of our Communities: Then and Now unit. Students viewed a video from the Australian Histories Mysteries website (available via the Learning Hub Online Resources link). In particular, we discussed the aspects of the presenter's childhood community of Port Fairy in Victoria, things that changed and/or stayed the same since Colonial times (e.g. transport, buildings, clothing, landscapes, way of life). Students had the opportunity to look at, discuss and compare old and current photographs of the Port Fairy community and match them using an interactive iPad activity. Happy Easter!

Wendy Lucas