Junior School News

Prep News

In MSL, Prep has been busy learning about the three sounds of ‘y’. This includes the rule of ‘Thief Y.’ In a one-syllable word, ‘y’ says ‘i,’ and in a two-syllable word, the ‘y’ says ‘e.’ This includes words like happy, sixty, and grumpy with two syllables, and my, try, and cry with one syllable.

In Writing, we have been continuing our learning on how to use conjunctions to expand sentences. We have been closely looking at the conjunctions but, which indicates a change of direction, and because, which tells us why something has happened. The Preps have been showing outstanding focus and taking amazing pride in their writing accomplishments!

In Maths, the Preps have enthusiastically explored length using informal units such as blocks, teddy bears, and paper clips to find out and compare how tall they are.

They have begun developing their understanding of capacity using terms such as full, empty, and the same amount. As the Preps learn about capacity and its link to everyday life, it is a wonderful opportunity for them to incorporate their learning at home. This might be through helping to cook or bake, exploring different-sized containers, and describing what they have observed using the terms full, half-full, or empty.

Keep an eye out for our growing grass heads, made during our incursion with the local Bunnings!

Year One News

In MSL, we are learning the 'Her Bird is Hurt' spelling rule. When there is a vowel followed by an 'r,' the 'r' turns around and controls the vowel sound. This includes er, ir, and ur. Our final rule for the term is 'Eat Bread and Steak,' which looks at the three sounds of 'ea.' The sounds include the long and short vowel sounds of 'e' and the long vowel sound of 'a.'

In Writing, students are applying their understanding of the parts of a sentence, punctuation, verbs, and nouns to create a range of procedure texts. Procedure texts tell us how to do something and include materials and ordered steps. We have loved writing about 'How to Make a Jam Sandwich' and 'How to Be a Good Friend.'

In Maths, students have been exploring 'groups of,' arrays, and using equal groups to skip count and find the total. We have loved incorporating our Daily Maths Fluency, focusing on written addition and subtraction equations. This is done as a four-minute sprint, working on fast number facts and recalling them with ease.

This week, our Junior School classrooms were filled with excitement and laughter during the famous ‘Milk Swirl’ experiment and the creation of some ‘Whirling Spinners’ for our Topic unit.

Year Two

Year Two started the week with a very special visit from Faustina's grandparents. The students loved showing off their amazing learning, creating a beautiful memory for the Grau Molina family.

In Year Two, students have been learning the spelling rule 'The Boat is Slow,' which covers two ways to represent the long ‘o’ sound. This includes using ‘oa’ at the beginning or middle of a word or syllable, and ‘ow’ at the end, most of the time. Students have also been exploring the two sounds of ‘s,’ which can represent ‘s’ as in sock and ‘z’ as in nose.

In Writing, students are learning to identify the four sentence types and to write statements, questions, commands, and exclamations using pictures and topics. Students have also begun exploring procedure writing, starting with a hands-on activity of making Fairy Bread and linking their procedure writing on ‘How to Make Grass Heads’ to our Junior School Bunnings incursion.

In Maths, the Year Twos have been identifying and describing the characteristics of three-dimensional shapes, including rectangular and triangular prisms, cubes, and spheres. Students have begun to explore how to solve addition problems using bar models. This includes finding the ‘parts’ and the ‘whole’ in a range of worded problems.