Term 2, 2026
Autumn and Winter at Ms Calleja’s Classroom
This term came with a series of challenges: it was an 11 week term (eek!), I was teaching in a local high school Monday to Thursday on top of my full Ms Calleja’s Classroom schedule, and everyone seemed to be beset with illness. Phew! We made it through though and managed to get a lot of learning done, have fun and keep our sense of humour in-tact. Well done everyone! I hope you are all enjoying a well-deserved break… I haven’t taken any rest days yet, but I plan to step away from the computer once I’ve done my tax, cleaned the classroom and caught up on all my unfinished tasks. Hmm, we’ll see. Fear not, though, I won’t be teaching at the high school as a classroom teacher next term… that was a lot of mental energy and I want to save that for Ms Calleja’s Classroom.
Primary School Groups
This term we covered the following phonemes:
short e e/ea/eo/ai/ei (bed, bread, said, friend, leopard)
r/rr/wr/rh (rat, carry, write, rhino)
g/gg/gh (got, juggle, ghost)
oo/oul/u/o (book, could, put, woman)
zh sound s/si/ge/z (leisure, vision prestige, seizure)
ear/eer/ere (near, deer, here)
m/mm/mb/mn (man, summer, lamb, Autumn)
oa/ow/o/o-e/oe/ough/ou/ew (boat, grow, most, note, tow, though, soul, sew)
igh/i-e/y/i/ie/eigh (night, like, dry, wild, pie, height)
s/ss/se/c/ce/st/sc/ps (sip, grass, house, cent, voice, castle, science, psychic)
f/ff/ph/gh/ffe (fan, staff, phone, laugh, giraffe)
ee/ea/e/y/ey/e-e/ie/ei/i/eo (keep, seat, me, funny, key, eve, chief, receive, variation, people)
ng/n (sing, pink) Notice the ng and nk endings
Now that looks like a lot… and it is. I am not expecting the kids to know all of those spellings, but to start to build a bigger schema of understanding that there are many ways to write, read and spell those combinations of letters. If they can cement the most common ones and have some awareness of the others, they can build a more sturdy foundation from there.
We have been working on building tolerance, concentration and comprehension for longer form reading of a range of different genre texts. We have also been writing in a variety of styles and for different purposes. We have been reading everything from maps to websites to short stories and song lyrics.
Depending on the group, we also did some Maths work (usually working from two years under their age group upwards to identify any gaps). A reminder to parents that all students have an ixlmaths account they can use at home.
High School Groups
Students have coped well with the end of Term 2 madness of assessments (they all converge in week 5 and week 10 most of the time), with some students doing exams as well as assessments.
Well done to all the high schoolers for their dedication to their studies and their willingness to tackle challenges head on and have fun along the way. We have enjoyed exploring different topics together after our individual study sessions.
One on One Students
Some students have been working with Marianne, some with Ana and some with myself. I really love hearing the lessons happening through the wall, as I teach students in the main classroom. I am so proud of all of you and what you are achieving!
At Ms Calleja’s Classroom we care about your kids and strive to create a learning environment where everyone can shine to their full potential.
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