Junior School
Prep
What a wonderful way to finish Term 3 in Prep! We have had a busy and exciting final few weeks, filled with learning, reflection, celebration and lots of growth.
Reflecting on Swimming Weeks Through Art
After our exciting Swimming Weeks, the students enjoyed reflecting on their experiences through art. They used their paintings to represent themselves swimming and incorporated details from their own experiences. It was lovely to see how each child expressed their memories and ideas in their own unique way.
Letters & Numbers
We have continued to strengthen our early literacy and numeracy skills by practising correct letter and number formation. The students have worked hard to develop their pencil control, formation and confidence when recording their learning.
Maths Games & Learning Through Play
Our maths learning has also included lots of hands-on games and activities. These have provided opportunities to practise counting, number recognition, ordering numbers, addition and subtraction while having fun with our friends.
Finishing Our End-of-Term Learning
We have also been busy finishing off our end-of-term assessments and testing. It has been wonderful to see just how much the students have grown in their knowledge and skills since the beginning of the year.
Celebrating Ted’s Birthday!
One of our favourite parts of the final weeks has been preparing for our class Teddy’s birthday! Each day, a different student brought something special in to help celebrate Ted’s birthday. Even more excitingly, Ted went home with that student each night! This was such a special experience for the children and created lots of excitement as they shared their adventures with Ted with the class the following day.
What a Term!
We are finishing Term 3 with such a positive classroom environment, and both Mrs Bail and I are incredibly proud of the effort, progress and achievements of every student.
One of the greatest highlights of our days is watching each child grow in confidence. Whether it has been putting their hand up to share an idea, having a go at something new, becoming more independent, making rainbow choices or simply believing in themselves a little more — we have loved watching these little moments of growth.
Thank you to all of our families for your support throughout the term. It has been a joy to teach and watch your children flourish.
We wish everyone a safe, happy and restful holiday break. Enjoy some precious family time, have lots of fun and make some wonderful memories!
We can’t wait to see everyone in Term 4 and hear all about what you got up to over the holidays!
Have a wonderful break!
Sarah Grainger & Margot Bail
Prep E Teachers
What a wonderful way to finish Term 3 in Prep G! We have had another busy and fun-filled couple of weeks, with lots of creating, exploring and playing together.
Last week, our Year 6 buddies helped us make our very own squishy balls using balloons and rice. Some students decorated their squishies, while others carefully cut patterns into the outer balloon to reveal the different colour underneath. Everyone loved making their squishies and of course, playing with them afterwards!
In Health, we have been learning about germs and how they can spread. We had lots of fun creating some colourful ‘germ art’ by dropping watercolour paint onto paper and using straws to blow the paint in all different directions. Once they were dry, we added funny faces and decorations to bring our germs to life!
We also enjoyed reading Harry the Dirty Dog and used charcoal to create some fantastic inverted artworks of Harry. On one side, Harry was white with black spots, and on the other, he was black with white spots, just like his transformation in the story!
Throughout the week, we have enjoyed lots of games, building and opportunities to learn and play together. It was also great fun joining Prep E outside last Friday for some games together.
It has been a fantastic Term 3, and I am so proud of all that the Prep students have achieved. I hope everyone has a wonderful and restful spring holiday break, and I look forward to seeing you all again for our final term of Prep!
Alissa Griffin
Teacher
Year 1
What a wonderful and busy Term 3 we have had in Year 1! We have been blessed with so many opportunities to learn, create, explore and enjoy God’s wonderful world together.
Recently, our Year 1 students spent their Art lessons creating portraits of people in their lives whom they truly admire. The children enjoyed thinking about the special qualities and character of these people and celebrating the gifts God has given each of them. To top off their hard work, we took an exciting trip to the Art Gallery, where the children were thrilled to spot their very own masterpieces displayed in a book!
While we were there, a gallery guide took us on a wonderful tour exploring some of our local art history. A favourite moment was stopping to look at the famous painting of Tower Hill. Looking closely at the detailed landscape gave us an opportunity to appreciate the beauty of God’s creation and talk about how artists can use their talents to tell meaningful stories through their work.
Year 1 have also enjoyed getting creative with art from nature, using natural materials and treasures from God’s creation as inspiration for their artwork. It has been wonderful watching their imaginations grow as they explored different textures, shapes, patterns and colours found in the world around them.
And, of course, we cannot forget one of the unexpected highlights of the term, the rogue chicken who decided to pay a very special visit to the Year 1 classroom! This unexpected visitor certainly created plenty of excitement, laughter and a few surprised faces! It was one of those memorable school moments that the children are sure to talk about for a long time.
After such a fun-filled and adventurous Term 3, we are all ready for a well-deserved break. May all of our families enjoy a restful and refreshing holiday, with plenty of opportunities to spend time together, enjoy God’s beautiful creation and make some special memories.
Kerry Snook
Year 1 Teacher
Year 2
It has been a fun and slightly more relaxed week in the Year 2 classroom as we make the most of our weeks of Term 3!
This week, we combined learning with a few sweet treats. In Maths, we used lollies to create our own analogue clocks. We focused on reading the time in 5-minute intervals and practised moving the long and short hands correctly to show different times. The lollies made our learning especially engaging – and thankfully, we managed to keep most of them on our clocks!
We also put our thinking and scientific skills to the test with a Skittles experiment. The children made predictions about what they thought would happen, tested their ideas and carefully observed the results. We then changed different parts of the experiment to see whether this would change the outcome. It was a great opportunity to practise making predictions, testing ideas, observing and thinking like scientists.
As we come to the end of a busy term, it has been lovely to slow down a little, enjoy some hands-on learning and have some relaxed fun together. The Year 2 students have worked hard this term, and they certainly deserve a little time to celebrate their learning and enjoy being together!
On Monday, Year 2 enjoyed a wonderful afternoon in the Food Tech room, where we made delicious choc chip cookies! A big thank you to our wonderful helpers, Mrs Schultink, Mrs Wiggett and Mrs Emeny, for giving up their time to come and help us.
Our cooking lesson was about more than just making cookies. The students also made a special card and prepared cookies for someone in their life who has been helpful to them. We talked about how we can show kindness and gratitude to others and how small acts of kindness can make a big difference.
Our lesson objective was to spread kindness and share God’s love with others. It was beautiful to see the students thinking about people who have helped them and finding a special way to say, “Thank you!”
We also celebrated another term of great learning by playing maths games on Tuesday morning. Students played Blockus, Rummy O, and Uno in groups. Zayn and Kian preferred to work on a VERY tricky jigsaw puzzle that took many days to complete!
Emily Hunter & Ellie Johnson
Year 2 Teachers
Year 3
What a wonderful way to begin our final fortnight of Term 3! Our Little Superstars did an exceptional job performing Simon and Garfunkel’s El Condor Pasa at assembly. They confidently played their instruments and should be incredibly proud of their performance. A huge thank you to the amazing Mr Philpot for leading and supporting them!
Maths has been very hands-on over the past couple of weeks. We have been using pretend money to practise calculating change - a challenging concept for children to master, particularly when most of us now use cards rather than cash in our everyday lives! The children have been doing a fantastic job and we will continue to build their confidence with this skill. As always, it has also been wonderful to see so much peertutoring happening in our maths lessons. The children are often able to explain a concept to a friend in a different way, and in doing so, consolidate their own understanding. It is fantastic to see them learning from and supporting one another.
We also celebrated International Play-Doh Day by learning about the interesting history of Play-Doh before making our own batch in the classroom. There were certainly some very enthusiastic Play-Doh creators in Year 3!
Over the past couple of weeks, we have also been very fortunate to enjoy some special class rewards thanks to the generosity of some of our students. A number of children chose to donate a very large proportion of their hard-earned Dojos to the class, allowing everyone to enjoy a movie afternoon watching Back to the Outback, as well as some well-deserved free time. It has been particularly lovely to see our Christian values reflected in these choices - children thinking about others and choosing to use something they have worked hard to earn for the benefit and enjoyment of everyone.
Thank you, as always, to all of our Year 3 families for your wonderful support throughout the term. I hope all of our Grade 3s have a wonderful, safe and restful holiday. They have certainly earned a good break! Enjoy the time together and I look forward to seeing everyone refreshed and ready for Term 4.
Ang Hales
Year 3 Teacher
Year 5
Year 5 spent Monday - Wednesday of this week at our camp at Sovereign Hill, Ballarat.
We had a wonderful time learning about life in the Gold rush era. Some of the many activities we did were gold panning, going down in the mines for a tour, watching gold being poured, making candles, dressing up and re-enacting the Eureka stockade, learning to write on slate and with nib pens we dipped in ink and we watched an awesome sound and light show called Aura that showed all about Eureka too.
We also visited the Ballarat observatory to learn about stars, the moon and planets. At the Eureka museum we got to see the real Southern Cross Eureka flag. It was amazing and huge.
We all really enjoyed our time in Ballarat.
Coral Robertson
Year 5 Teacher
Year 6
For the past few weeks, Yr 6 have been reading information reports and writing them themselves. They have had to write 4 body paragraphs on their own topics for their place and an introduction paragraph and a conclusion paragraph.
Yr 6 have had fun learning about the history of places and the foods. They have even made posters with their paragraphs.
Evelyn Mehanni
Student
Junior School Warrnambool Art Gallery Excursion
Over the past two weeks, all Junior School students have had the wonderful opportunity to visit the Warrnambool Art Gallery to see their artwork exhibited as part of the Young Portrait Competition. It was a very special experience for our students to see their own artwork displayed in a professional gallery alongside the work of other young artists from our local community.
A big thank you to Megan from the Warrnambool Art Gallery for providing our students with such a wonderful learning experience. Megan shared with us the story behind the portrait of Sir Fletcher Jones and helped students explore the artwork depicting Tower Hill, giving them an opportunity to look closely at the artworks and learn more about their local history and community.
Students then had the opportunity to create their own artwork inspired by what they had seen and learnt during their visit. It was fantastic to see their creativity and enthusiasm as they explored different ideas and ways of representing what they had discovered.
We are very grateful to the Warrnambool Art Gallery for welcoming our Junior School students and helping to make art a meaningful and exciting part of their learning.
Christie Stephen
Teacher
Reminder for Hats
Hats are needed from 1 September, so please bring your hats back to school!
Hats will be required for recess and lunch until the end of the year.
You can purchase new hats from the uniform shop on Tuesdays or Thursdays, from 8.15 am - 8.45 am or 3.00 pm - 3.45 pm.
If your child has no hat, they will have to stay and play under some shade.