Junior School News
A Special Visit from Our Local Heroes 🚒
Our Prep students were thrilled to welcome some very special visitors, our local firefighters! During their visit, the firefighters shared fascinating facts about their important job, taught students how to stay safe in an emergency, and showed off their impressive protective gear and equipment. The highlight of the experience was exploring the fire truck and learning how firefighters help keep our community safe. 👨🚒🧯
Prep
In MSL, students have been developing their knowledge of open and closed syllables, with a focus on closed syllables this week. A closed syllable is when a vowel is “closed in” by a consonant, which makes the vowel say its short sound, such as in cat, sit, and shop.
📚Check out these little smarties in action as they put their skills to work in a fun game, focusing on open syllables.
In Writing, the Prep students have been expanding upon their sentence structure focsing on adding the 'when' at the beginning of a sentence. They are learning how this helps to add more detail by showing when something is happening, and are beginning to apply this skill in their own writing to create more interesting sentences.
In Maths, Preppies have been busy In Maths, our Prep students are developing their understanding of numbers up to 20. They are using concrete materials to represent numbers and strengthen their number sense. Students are learning to identify numbers between 10 and 20 using ten frames and are beginning to recognise how many tens and ones make up a number. These skills are essential for developing a strong foundation in numeracy.
Year One
In MSL, our Year One students have been learning about when to use 'k' or 'ck' at the end of a base word. They have been deepening their understanding that we use 'ck' after a short vowel sound, and a single 'k' after a long vowel sound. They use the 'duck rule' as a fun memory hook to help them remember this. This strategy is helping students build confidence with their spelling and recognise patterns in words.
In Writing, the Year Ones have recently started their novel study on Ask Aunty Seasons: An Introduction to First Nations Seasons. This warm and engaging picture book introduces First Nations knowledge of the seasons, exploring how Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples understand seasonal changes through detailed seasonal calendars rather than the traditional four-season model. Students will learn about the deep connection between Country, weather patterns, and cultural knowledge as they build their understanding through discussion and reflection.
In Maths, both the Year One and Two students have been starting their lessons by getting stuck into daily worded problems, carefully unpacking the meaning and identifying how to solve them. Teachers use an explicit approach to guide students through problem solving, and students record their answers on whiteboards. This provides a fantastic opportunity for teachers to check student understanding before getting stuck into the rest of the lesson. . Check out our wonderful teacher, Mrs O’Meara, in action!
Our Year One students have also been learning to represent subtraction number stories within 20 using ten frames. They are developing their ability to use ten frames to show number stories, subitise (quickly recognise) ten when it is represented, and find the difference between two numbers. These hands on activities are helping students build confidence with early subtraction skills and strengthen their understanding of numbers.
Year Two
In MSL, our Year Two students have been expanding their understanding of how the vowel team 'ea' can represent three different sounds, using the memory hook Eat, Bread & Steak.
For example, “ea” can make:
- the long /ē/ sound, as in eat
- the short /ĕ/ sound, as in bread
- the long /ā/ sound, as in steak
In Writing the students have recently started exploringIn Writing, our Year Two students are stepping into the incredible world of Gagudju Country through the book Walk with Us Through the Monsoon Forest (Allen & Unwin, 2021). They are discovering the amazing monsoon forest of Kakadu National Park, learning about its unique plants and animals, and exploring the Kundjeyhmi language and the rich culture of the Bininj people. Students were excited to see how deeply the Bininj people are connected to Country and had fun pronouncing lot of new words from the Kundjeyhmi language.
A special mention to Lilli who got a certificate for coming third place in gymnastics. Watch this space, a wonderful achievement that hints at even more success to come.
In Mathematics, the Year Two students have been building upon their knowledge of addition and subtraction, working with three-digit numbers using both mental and written strategies. This week they have started gto explore how to subtract a three digit number from another three digit number with regrouping in hundreds, tens and ones using place value.
STEM
🍕 Pizza was on the menu as students designed, created, and devoured their very own pizza masterpieces! The delicious smell drifting through the corridors had everyone asking questions. We were immediately hungry and eager for a taste of the learning in action!
Big smiles, warm hugs, and even bigger memories - Happy Grandparents’ Day! 💛
To finish off a fun fortnight of learning, our students absolutely loved welcoming their grandparents and special friends into the classroom yesterday! It was a very special opportunity to share smiles, laughter, and create lasting memories together. Students thoroughly enjoyed sitting alongside their special guests and working together on a fun activity, strengthening the wonderful connections between school and family.
Louise Bohannon,
Junior Leader
hwood@shsandringham.catholic.edu.au
zporter@shsandringham.catholic.edu.au
sprosser@shsandringham.catholic.edu.au
kobrien@shsandringham.catholic.edu.au