Primary Learning Spotlight

Read more for an overview of Primary Science Week and Book Week, as well as an overview of Kindergarten Maths skills and a look at the Year 5 History excursion to The Rocks, Sydney.

Science Week

Our Primary students (and their parents!) had such a fantastic time at Science Week this week.

To begin, on Tuesday and Wednesday our K - 2 students enjoyed making and decorating their own kaleidoscopes and learning about how light bounces off different surfaces to form patterns. They then had the chance to use their kaleidoscopes to explore some of the different patterns they could find in nature and around the campus.

On Thursday, Year 3 engaged in a STEM and Design and Technology activity where they worked in groups to construct a device that could keep a marble in continuous motion without human interference. As a group, the students worked to brainstorm, design, test and adjust to further improve their inventions. Meanwhile, Year 4 investigated honey and discovered the changes that occur when honey is heated or cooled and were amazed to discover how honey starts to look like glass as it heats.

Finally on Friday, Year 5 students were challenged to design a structure that could hold a weight from 5kg up to a student’s body weight with one catch - the only materials available were cardboard and scissors! Many of the dads in particular took this challenge very seriously and helped construct some very sophisticated creations! As this was happening, our Year 6 students were focused on creating a ‘water clock’ in collaboration with their studies of space and time. A water clock is a device that uses water to tell the passage of time. The students were given plastic cups, scissors, tape and glue to create a clock that would measure the length of exactly one minute. We were very impressed with their ingenuity!

It was a particular delight to have so many of our Primary parents in the classrooms with us this week. One of our Kindy mums Stephanie commented, “My son Ethan loves his Science and Maths classes! We love that ACC has a focus on STEM, it’s so important. Our family loves technology and we think it adds a lot of interest to the classroom and inspires students to be creative.”

Another one of our Year 5 mums Amanda commented, “It’s great to have the chance to be in class and learn alongside the kids, not just your own but watching all the students interact and work together. I think the skills they are learning through these activities (team work, problem solving, brainstorming) are all so useful in everyday life, even if they don’t pursue a career in Science.”

We are so thankful to Mr Alldis for preparing and organising a week full of exciting and interesting Science experiments for our Primary students!

Book Week

It was such a joy to see our Primary students all dressed up this morning at our Book Week Parade! Book Week is a time to celebrate the joy of books and encourage a love of reading. This year’s theme is ‘Dreaming with eyes open…’ and our Primary classes have spent the week playing literary games and enjoying lots of story-time!

A particular shout-out goes to Aeron Van Niekerk, Jackson Cone and Arav Kapur for forming the 'ACC General Deputy Patrol' and policing our Parade this morning. Thanks for keeping our community safe, boys!

Mathematics Skills - Counting, Addition and Subtraction with Mrs Kwok (KK)

Since the start of this year, KK have been practising their Mathematics skills - specifically the concepts of counting, addition and subtraction. This term, the students have progressed with their number operation skills to making equal groups (multiplication skills) and sharing into equal groups (division skills). We have been practising our understanding of these concepts through using gestures to model the operations and using many different kinds of hands-on learning opportunities.

We first learnt the concept of equal and unequal groups through playing grouping games, where children were counting and sorting themselves into groups by number and then deciding if the result for the class left us with equal or unequal groups. We then moved to using tangible objects such as cubes and counters to make equal groups and find the total.

As we moved into the concept of sharing into equal groups, we used familiar toys and everyday resources to share them into equal groups and conclude our findings. We even had ‘pretend’ picnics and parties to practise our sharing skills. Many students have been excited to realise that they are learning to multiply and divide. It has been a joy to see a love of Mathematics emerge in the students as they become confident with the language and see their own skills grow daily.

Year 5 History Excursion

Yesterday, our Year 5 students were very excited to consolidate their learning of their ‘Australian Colonial Times’ History topic with an excursion to The Rocks in Sydney Harbour!

Students experienced life as a convict, explored the Rocks in costume and actively participated in interactive learning experiences. Some of the topics they discussed were: the lives of real people from Australia’s colonial past and how Australian society changed throughout the 1800’s to the twentieth century. Our students had a great time and we were so impressed with the way they represented themselves and the school during this excursion.