Junior School

Book week 'Dress up Day'

BOOK WEEK A FANTASTIC SUCCESS

Every year we celebrate Bookweek in the Junior School. This year we had a full week of events culminating in the annual Junior School Spelling Bee on Friday 23rd August.

 

We hosted a new event this year a “Reading Picnic” the whole Junior Sshool gathered in the MPH with books picnic rugs and cushions and we read together for 1 hour. The student loved it and didn’t want to stop reading. It was a huge success and will become an annual event on the Junior School calendar. We also had mystery readers visiting classrooms throughout the week and students sharing books they had written with younger students.

The last day of the week was 'Dress up Day', we had a parade and enjoyed playing dress up for the day. After the parade we had our much anticipated Spelling Bee. The students had been competing for weeks to find each year levels best speller in each House. The students competed in house groups. The competition was fierce and came down to a tie breaker between Mrs Lepilio and Mrs Sires. After running out of difficult words we called it a draw and Parkes and Barton both claimed the prize.

 

 

I want to thank my amazing staff who went above and beyond to make this week so much fun for our students. Particularly want to thank Mrs Cheung and Mrs Hendricks who pulled all the events together.

 

 

 

The Year 2s also enjoyed dressing up as their favourite book characters and loved reading 'The BFG' by Roald Dahl and writing some of their own golden dreams from the story!

 

PREPS INVITE DADS FOR BEAKFAST

On Friday 30th August the Preps invited their Dads to join them a breakfast of  crumpets and coffee as we celebrated and honored the special role they play in their lives. Each student created a special gift bag with messages of love and a hand painted caddy to hold odds and ends. The children wrote on hand made cards explaining how much they loved their Dads:

I love my dad more than KFC….

I Love my Dad more than 1 of my toys!

 

We love you Dads for all you do to bless us.

YEAR 2s VISIT SCIENCEWORKS & PLANETARIUM

 

The Year 2s had an awesome day exploring and learning new things at Scienceworks recently. Then they blasted off to the moon with Tycho, the inquisitive dog, while relaxing in the comfortable reclining seats of the Planetarium.  They also got to see the amazing Melbourne night sky and learn all about the incredible constellations. How great is our God, and majestic His creation!

YEAR 3s CARDBOARD ARCADE FUND RAISER

In the last week of this term the Year 3s hosted a Cardboard Arcade for the Junior School students. In STEM this term they were inspired by a story we watched on a boy in LA called Cain who developed his own arcade created from cardboard and recyclables.

 

They have worked so hard for a month, even at lunchtime and in their spare time to create the most creative and amazing arcade games. The arcade was open to students and they were invited to participate and play the games.

All proceeds from the arcade were donated to future missions trips at St Andrews.

YEAR 4s VISIT STATE LIBRARY

In week 6 this term, the year 4s had an excursion to the State Library and CERES.  In the State Library, we learned and saw lots of things. Some of these things include a gigantic book with pictures of birds (in real life size) in America, a scroll from ancient Egypt and a mini book collection. We had lots of fun during the tour.  After the tour, we learnt about the five important rules to drawing a map using the acronym B.O.L.T.S., which stands for Border, Orientation, Legend, Title and Scale.  In the afternoon, we went to CERES and learned how to play the African drums and some very fun but hard Indonesian games.  Overall, the excursion was great.

 

DISCOVERING GOD'S AMAZING CREATURES

On Thursday the 5th of September the Year 1 classes enjoyed a fantastic day at Melbourne Zoo. God blessed us abundantly with gorgeous weather as we strolled through the through the tall grasses, the rainforest environments, the arid desert areas and the underwater experiences. We saw a wonderful range of God’s amazing creatures in their diverse habitats.

 

There was a sleepy snow leopard sunning himself high up on a rock, lions lazing in the sun, lemurs walking about us, a koala climbing down a tree, giraffes calmly watching us from a distance and butterflies fluttering all around us in the warm, humid butterfly house. We saw crocodiles, puffer fish, seahorses, a sting ray, penguins waddling along, and seals flopping awkwardly on land but swimming so gracefully through the water, as well as a large variety of other amazing aquatic creatures.

 

 

The gorillas were hiding in a corner but the baboons with babies on their backs came to greet us at the glass. The orangutans were swinging around their cage while the tiger rested peacefully in the shade. The children enjoyed watching the graceful movements of a corn snake close up and some were even brave enough to touch it under the supervision of an educator.

 

They explored a range of habitats and in the learning centre and used their skills of investigation to try and identify the creatures that might have been there. We were so grateful to God for this wonderful experience, for the parents who accompanied and supported us and for a restful ride home on the bus.

PREP 'CHICKEN FARMERS' 

The Prep classes have enjoyed being “farmers” for 2 weeks as we’ve cared for 11 chickens in each of our classrooms. On Monday morning, Prep P and Prep S each received a delivery of 11 fertilised eggs and set up the incubators with great excitement. Many eggs hatched overnight but we were able to watch a few chickens hatch at school on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

 

As the excitement continued, we’ve been able to hold chickens, learn about living things and their needs and consolidate our learning about animal habitats.

 

 

We named our chickens and continued to watch them grow and change. The chickens returned to the farm after 2 weeks, but a couple of our families asked to take home some hens to keep as family pets. We have loved this hands-on learning about God’s amazing creation!

 

Prep Teachers - Sonia Sires and Shellene Pillifeant