Miss Butler’s Literacy Update

Last Monday, classes met with Australian author Samantha Tidy (mother to Grace in Year 1 and Reuben in Kindergarten). Samantha shared interesting facts about the construction of the Sydney Harbour Bridge and read her book, ‘The Day We Built the Bridge’. Students were treated to a preview of her newest illustrated children’s picture book, ‘Our Bush Capital’, which pays tribute to the many wonderful things that make childhood in Canberra so special. Samantha has kindly offered a school community discount for the pre-order of this book due out in February 2020. To view this deal and her other publications, please visit https://www.samanthatidy.com/. We thank Samantha for generously offering her time and look forward to future visits.

We have had a successful start to our Reading Club on Tuesdays at lunch time. Students across all grades have been escaping the Winter chill to meet in the library and enjoy the reading and sharing of various books. Please keep an eye on our Facebook page for photos and book recommendations.

You may have heard that Miss Butler spends Friday mornings visiting classes during the Literacy Block. She meets with individuals and small groups to discuss all things Reading, Writing and Word Study. Recently in Year 2, students have been writing creative narratives based on treasure maps they made for Maths. During her discussions, Miss Butler explained articles (a/an/the), the jobs of ‘silent final e’ and the rule that there is at least one vowel in every syllable. Meanwhile, in 3/4Y students have been exploring various spelling strategies, including different vowel combinations, adding s/es to words, base word + suffixes, parts of speech (including how some words can be nouns or verbs, depending on their use) and compound words. 3/4W were busily editing and making final preparations for their part of the Stage 2 Growth Assembly last week. Miss Butler hopes to meet with students in the Stage 3 classrooms this week.

Please watch this space for information about an exciting whole school celebration for all things Literacy next term!