JLC

Class Sport

The children in the Junior Learning Community (JLC) really look forward to Class Sport on Thursday afternoons.  They love playing Dodgeball.  Dodgeball is a team sport in which players on two teams try to throw balls and hit opponents while avoiding being hit themselves. The children aim to eliminate all members of the opposing team by throwing the ball at them. The team that eliminates all of their opponent’s first are deemed the winners of the game.  It is great to see the children working in teams, cooperating and communicating together with the common goal of winning the game.  

Writing - Persuasive Text 

Over a series of weeks, the children in the Junior Learning Community learnt how to write a persuasive text. They learnt that persuasive writing is a type of writing that we use to convince someone of a particular viewpoint or do a certain thing.  As a class, we had discussions about how to use persuasive and emotive language to help persuade the reader.  The children’s task was to get into small groups and try to convince Miss Wills to allow them to have some time on Dojo Island, which is a virtual playground where kids can safely play, learn, explore, and interact with friends.  The children put forward some excellent arguments such as “Our class is the best behaved and we set a good example for the rest of the school” and “We have been working very well together as a class to reach more that 6,000 Dojo points”. 

Maths - Geometric Transformation

In Maths, the Junior Learning Community learnt about ‘Transformation' which is the change in position of a shape.  They learnt the correct terminology such as Reflection - flip, Translation - slide and Rotation - turn.  The children completed various differentiated tasks where they were required to flip, slide and turn shapes and draw the shapes in their new position. They were also asked to look at a pair of shapes and say how each shape was moved, was it a flip, a slide or a turn? 

Bounce Back

This term in Bounce Back we learnt about the importance of having social values.  Having social values helps us to treat people well and in return people will respect and treat us well. We discussed the importance of being kind and what it means to fill our bucket.  Bucket filling is a metaphor to teach children to show kindness, appreciation, gratitude and love on a daily basis.  The children completed an activity of bucket filling by thinking of acts of kindness they had done for others and drew these to fill their bucket.  

 JLC students learnt about division in Maths lessons this week. We learned how division means the same as sharing equally between groups. Division is the opposite of multiplication. When we swap numbers and operations around, this is called the law of commutativity. 

Some students were able to challenge themselves further by writing the factors for a particular number.

Religion 

In Religion, the children in the Junior Learning Community read and learnt about ‘The Wonder of Creation’.  They watched a short video called The Creation Story (Genesis 1 & 2). The Creation Story tells us of God's love and how he created the world over 7 Days. The children completed a colouring activity which showed the creation from the Day 1 when God created Light and Darkness to Day 7 when God said it was a Day of Rest. The children were very good at recounting God’s creation. 

Show and Share

Each week in the Junior Learning Community, the children have their allocated day when they can Show an item of interest or Share a memory.  Show and Share provides students with an opportunity to develop their speaking and listening skills. They are asked to make a brief presentation to their classmates on a specified topic.  One particular week, the children were asked to Share with the class an object from the past.  They were encouraged to ask their parents or grandparents if they had anything from when they were children such as toys, phones, old technology, records, CDs and books that they could show the class.  

The children in the Junior Learning Community and the Preps had their camp experience which included a trip to Healesville Sanctuary. They loved seeing the animals and watching the bird show called ‘Spirits of the Sky’.  When we arrived back at school, the children had afternoon tea and a play before they came back in to do some guided animal drawing with Miss Wills. Their koala and wombat drawings were very impressive. They had barbecued sausages for dinner followed by an icy pole.  After dinner the children put on their pyjamas, got into their sleeping bags and watched a movie called  ‘Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2.  It was a great camp experience for us all!    

Writing - JLC Memories

In the final weels of Term, the children in the Junior Learning Community created a booklet of their special memories of this year, which they have as a keepsake.  They recorded who their classroom teachers were and the students who were in their class this year.  The children wrote about their favourite memories and drew amazing pictures.  They wrote about their favourite subjects and about the games they liked to play.  

Across curriculum Christmas activities

As the Term was drawing to a close, the children got into the Christmas spirit while listening to Christmas Carols and working on different curriculum areas.  As a reading task, the children read about Christmas in Australia and choose words from the box to best describe what happens during Christmas in Australia. In Maths, they did addition and subtraction sums to colour pictures according to codes. They used their symmetry skills to mirror and draw the other half of Christmas items. The children also completed writing and drawing their 2023 memories of their last year at St Bridget’s.  Merry Christmas to all. 

Kind regards

Signora Gina Michieli & Miss Carly Wills

JLC Classroom Teachers