Sea Stars Class

What a fabulous incursion our Sea Stars had during Term 3.

To deepen their learning about biology, the school hosted an incursion featuring some amazing ocean life animals.  The students learned about the importance of protecting our ocean animals and making sure that our rubbish goes into the bin, rather than our waterways.

The Sea Stars had lots of fun and were able to touch many of the ocean animals.

This term the Sea Stars are grateful for the environment makeover of their classroom.  They have newly polished floors, painted walls, new furniture and materials.  Their room looks very special! We are thankful for all our parent volunteers who have helped us and the school community this term.

Also this term the Sea Stars have been investigating animal life-cycles and have been learning about the human body.

Good work, Sea Stars!

It’s back to work in the Sea Stars’ classroom as they welcomed everyone back to school for Term 2.  This term, the students are learning about the continent of South America, making maps and noting the different countries and oceans around this great continent.  They will also be learning about Physical Science – observing how objects move and having lots of fun making moving objects. Well done, Sea Stars!

This Sea Stars class has settled into the New Year and the students are familiarising themselves with some very special Montessori materials.

Through their studies about the continent of Asia, the children worked with Lake and Island Landforms.  This Montessori Material introduces the students to a concrete experience of common features of the Earth, such as lakes, bays, islands and more.  And who says Mathematics is not fun?!  The Addition Strip Board helps our students to practice addition combinations.  They enjoy and practice this so much, that they easily begin to memorise addition tables! Also the Broad Stairs helps the students understand concepts such as dimension and sequence, building their confidence for future mathematic challenges.

Can you see the Moveable Alphabet? Our students use this material for writing words and sentences. They discover the shapes of the letters in an active way which helps to stimulate letter shape recognition also supporting the students’ fine motor skills.

What else have the Sea Stars been learning about? They have been working with many Earth Science activities including a Felt moon – which helps them to visualise the various moon phases, piquing their curiousity which leads to lots of conversations about the Moon.

Well done Sea Stars!

PS.  If your curiousity has now been piqued and you’d like to find out more about some other remarkable Montessori Materials, please visit here.

This term the Sea Stars have welcomed our new and existing students back to school after the holidays.  They have been busy working on the Montessori subjects of Practical Life and have practised grace and courtesy with one another.  The Sea Stars have been learning about the continent of Asia, the children have enjoyed making Origami envelopes, learning about the Lunar New Year, the animal and plant life of Asia.  The students have been working with the many Earth Science activities on the shelves including Astronaut figurines and a Felt moon.  They also worked with a Volcano puzzle, land, air and water activities including the Montessori water form materials.

Well done Sea Stars.

This term the Sea Stars welcomed five new students into our classroom.  We also welcomed five new fish into our classroom as well.  The Sea Star students created a graph to help survey everyone and work out which names we should call our fish.  This term we are learning about the continent of Antarctica, and biological science: lifecycles, the needs of living things, plants, animals and people.

Also in term 3, one of the areas that the Sea Stars studied was biology. Within our biology study we learned about botany.  We planted plants from cuttings, created leaf imprints in clay and planted a bean seed to observed the germination process.

There was lots of fun learning in Term 3.

The Sea Stars start to the year was very productive.  We have been busy learning about grace and courtesy, practical life, and our sensorial materials.  We focused on Earth Science – exploration of the land, water and air.  Our continent of focus for term one was Europe, the students made flags, studied the animals, countries and plants of Europe with our three-part card materials.  Thank you to all our families who joined us for our celebrations of cultures for our Harmony Day on the last day of term. Have a safe and happy holidays with your families.

This term the Sea Stars commenced their learning by exploring the seven continents of our world: North America, South America, Africa, Asia, Europe, Oceania and Antarctica.  We have also been studying biology in science: the life cycle of plants and the human body.  The Sea Stars experimented in art using various mediums to explore geometric abstraction.

Well done Sea Stars – there was lots of fun learning in Term 3!

In Term 2, the Sea Stars investigated physical science.  The students participated excitedly in several experiments and did some observations around the states of water (solid, liquid and gas).  We sorted objects into groups – magnetic and non-magnetic.  We had a popping Popcorn party where we observed a permanent physical change when a corn kernel transformed into Popcorn!  The Sea Stars worked out which objects sink and which objects float.  We have also been using many simple machines in the classroom including a mechanical beater, slinky apple slicer and a nut-cracker!

We’ve had lots of fun learning in Term 2.

Welcome back to school for Term 2, 2022.

This term the Sea Stars have been exploring the continent of  South America.  The students have been given the opportunity to look at and touch some pottery, baskets and items from Peru.  They have been busy making three-part cards of animals from South America, have explored some of the various musical instruments of South America and created various South American flags.

Well done Sea Stars!

Welcome back to school for Term 1, 2022.

Among other things, this term the Sea Stars are learning about our Environment.

The Sea Star students made Beeswax Wraps for Clean Up Australia Day.  We talked about how it is important to put our rubbish in the bin and not throw it away in our natural environment.  To help reduce waste and rubbish the Sea Stars have made beeswax wraps.  The beeswax wrap is an alternative to cling wrap.  It is made from fabric and beeswax.  The children may like to wrap their sandwiches, biscuits or muffins in their wrap for their school lunches.

The students learned about the cleaning instructions:  Beeswax wraps are best hand washed in  cold soapy water.  Then air dried.

Welcome back to school for Term 4.

Among other things, this term the Sea Stars are learning about Biology.

We are learning about the differences between living and non-living things, and the needs of people, animals and plants.
We have also been learning about the Earth’s southernmost continent Antarctica, its climate and the animals the live there.

In addition, thank you to our families for your donations to the Daniel Morcombe Foundation.  It was wonderful to see so many of our community wearing red to support child safety in our community.  In the Sea Stars Classroom we visited the Daniel Morcombe Foundation website and used some of the Keeping Kids Safe Resources and activities to encourage discussions about personal safety.  Our Sea Stars class watched a video about feelings, participated in a guess-the-feelings game..  We also learned a song about feelings and then we extended this in the classroom by creating a feelings collage-face.

As well as learning valuable lessons, the Sea Stars had fun.  We hope you enjoy the photos posted below.

We are looking forward to a fun-packed Term 4.

Welcome back to school for Term 3.

This week our Sea Stars welcomed a few new students to our classroom, and caught up with old friends over tea.  We had an action packed week with Cycle 1s participating in two incursions.  The Sea Stars extended our learning of Earth Science and Water from last term, when SEQ Water came to visit and found out we are drinking the same water as the dinosaurs.  The cycle 1s also participated in the viewing of an online whimsical musical “Could you hug a cactus?”

We are looking forward to a fun-packed Term 3.

On May 19th, our Sea Stars joined over 1.9 million other readers in participating in National Simultaneous Story Time (NSS) held by the Australian Library and Information Association.  The students participated in a classroom oration of the book ‘Give me some Space!’ written by Philip Bunting.  They then created an art extension using chalk, charcoal to create an image of the Earth and Moon.  On Friday,  the Sea Stars class watched astronaut Shannon Walker, from the International Space Station read the book ‘Out of this World’.  If you are interested in joining, you can do so with this link.  https://youtu.be/VeCxxMZjlFo.

This term is flying by.  Our Sea Stars have been busy working in all the areas of the classroom.  Since we welcomed two new Balloon Molly fish into our classroom, the parts of the fish puzzle has been very popular.  We are currently creating a class graph, to survey the class and find the most popular name for our new fish.

This term the Sea Stars Prep children have been participating in a program called Learning Connections.  This program is facilitated by one of our Leaning Enhancement Staff members, to help support the connection between movement and the brain.  Thank you to Rana and the Cycle 2 leaders for giving our Sea Stars the opportunity to do this fantastic program.

Last weekend was Clean Up Australia Day.  Caboolture Montessori’s Sea Stars learned about land pollution and the importance of reducing the amount of rubbish in landfill. The Sea Stars have already learned that we can all help reduce our waste by separating our rubbish in the classroom by using: our compost bin,  recycling bin, soft plastic bin and rubbish bin.  We created a sorting activity to practice and help remind us which items go into each bin.  We also had fun making a Compost In a Bottle experiment to observe how fruit, vegetables, newspaper and leaves break down to create soil.  Then we planted some seeds for our class garden, we are looking forward to watching them sprout and grow.

It’s hard to believe we are half way through the term already.  This term our Sea Stars have been learning about how animals move through running, sliding, hopping and swimming.  We made lanterns to welcome in the Luna New Year and found out that this year is the year of the Ox.   It is wonderful to see our students extending themselves and enjoying the new presentations of Montessori lessons that this term is bringing.

Check out some photos from the Sea Stars first few days at school for 2021. We would like to warmly welcome our new and continuing students and families. We look forward to working with our families for a fun and exciting year of learning.

With only 1 more week of school until the holidays, the Sea Stars would like to share some highlights from our Term 4.  Thank you for a wonderful term J

The Sea Stars are learning about Seasons this term.  We are constructing a collaborative class graph, to find out what season we were born in.  Students are sorting familiar objects/pictures that are commonly associated with each of the seasons.  We have been learning about how in Nyoongar country there are six seasons recognised throughout the year. In art appreciation we are looking at famous artists and their artworks, which depict various seasons to sort and classify them into the seasons that we feel they represent.  We noticed that our birthday celebration, can help show how the various parts of the Earth tilts towards and away from the sun at different times of the year, creating our different seasonal events.

It is wonderful to see the Sea Star students back at school for Term 4.

This term we are studying the Oceania continent and learning about the weather and seasons. Check out our photos from last week.

We hope you are having a relaxing and memorable holiday time with your family.

Check out some highlights from the Sea Stars classroom during Term 3.

The last week of Term 3, the Sea Stars explored a self-guided, art-filled journey, curated to transport them to remote Australia.  The students enjoyed following the map and footsteps around the school to appreciate sixteen artworks and their Indigenous artists.

Today the Sea Stars participated in a peaceful and fulfilled afternoon of Yoga sessions.  Thank you to parent Stevie-Jae from Cultivate Health and Wellbeing for sharing your time and yoga talents with our class.

The Sea Stars travelled around each classroom exploring various Countries from around the world, our classroom was designed around the country Peru.   Students got to smell the herbs and spices of Peruvian cuisine, they played maraca’s, made their own spinning drum and were inspired by Peruvian fabric to create their own artworks.

We hope you are all enjoying our garden we planted last week at the front of the school.  The Sea Stars planted fruits, herbs and edible flowers to brighten up our outside work area. We are looking forward to caring for our garden and making sure we meet the needs of the plants – providing it with healthy soil, water and sunlight.  Many of our children are already enjoying the pleasant outlook of the garden while completing their work activities in our outside classroom environment.

The Sea Stars welcome two new student into our classroom community for Term 3.   We will continue our studies of the globe and explore South America in depth.    This week we are planning to plant some deliciously edible herbs, vegetables and flowers in our garden for the students to admire as they enter the school.  To extend this botany experience we will be learning about healthy foods and sort them into their food groups.  We look forward to sharing more of our classroom snapshots with you from throughout this term, in particular as we prepare for our in-school Multicultural Day at the end of August.

27 May – 3 June is National Reconciliation Week, the 2020 theme this year is ‘In this together’.  In the Sea Stars Classroom we talked about Australia’s history and how when the European’s arrived in Australia they hurt our Indigenous Peoples.  We spoke about our National Sorry Day and how it is a day of healing to remember and commemorate the mistreatment of the country’s indigenous people.  The Sea Star students then created a collaborative healing artwork to commemorate.

Welcome back Cycle 1’s. It’s wonderful to see most of our Cycle 1 students return to school this week to continue their term 2 learning.  Our Sea Stars have settled back in confidently and continued working in both our indoor and outdoor classroom environment.

We learned about the symbol of Rosemary for ANZAC day and made our wreath using the rosemary we harvested from the school garden,  then we placed painted poppies on our wreath.  Anzac biscuits were also baked as a part of our commemorations.

We would like to wish the CMS community a safe and relaxing holiday period.  The Sea Stars had a busy and enjoyable Term 1, take a look at some of our learning experiences. Warm regards, Sarah & Leonie.

For Clean Up Australia Day the Sea Stars made their own Beeswax Wrap.  We discussed how cling wrap is a type of thin plastic and how we could help reduce the amount of rubbish and plastic we use by making our own wraps out of fabric and beeswax.

This term the Sea Stars are discovering ‘the Great White Desert’ of Antarctica.  We have been exploring the animals which live on our coldest continent, finding out about the life cycle of a penguin, and learning to name the parts of some of the animals that live there. The students have been sorting and classifying living and non-living things you might see on Antarctica.  Did you know the climate is so cold that no humans live on the continent, only scientists visit for short periods of time to do their research?

On our first day back this year the Sea Stars went down to our community garden to see how the seedlings had grown over the Summer holidays. Our pumpkin vine was thriving, our sunflowers had bloomed, the cherry tomatoes were ready to be harvested and we even have a watermelon developing. We were lucky enough to see the Cycle 3 student’s collecting the eggs the chickens had laid and feed the chickens our food scraps from the day. A pleasant afternoon of harvesting to end to a fabulous first day of school.