Junior School News

This week, the Junior School classes headed off to the Sea Life Melbourne Aquarium as part of the immersion phase of our Biological Topic Unit of learning.

Led by the AMAZING Sea Life educational facilitators, the Prep, Year 1 and 2 students engaged in rich-learning opportunities to support their learning of the basic needs of living things, as well as exploring several different Australian marine habitats and exhibits around the aquarium.

It was a joy to see the children's curiosity when exploring the different exhibits and seeing their excitement and wonderment as they observed Pingarra the saltwater crocodile, Plugga the turtle, and the many sharks, jellyfish, seahorses, fish, and penguins throughout the aquarium.

Of course, the big highlight of the day was meeting Pesto the penguin! How lucky are we, to have timed our excursion so well, to be able to meet the biggest baby penguin the aquarium has ever seen?!

Thank you to all our wonderful parents who volunteered their time to help us with the excursion. We are so glad that everyone had such a fabulous day!

On return to school, the children could not stop sharing all of the fun and interesting facts they had learned, and we are now well set up to delve deeper into our learning for the term.

 Read on to hear more about this amazing experience from the students themselves.

Molly, Prep A: We went to the aquarium! We saw Pesto the penguin. He was so brown and fluffy and he was so tall!

Amelie, Prep A: My favourite animal at the aquarium was the jellyfish!

Alfie, Prep M: I learned that a crocodile can hold its breath underwater for 20 hours!

Eloise, Prep M: I loved seeing the seahorses. They built a special house for them, so they have somewhere to stay safe because they can’t swim very fast. They hide from predators instead.

Ned Kropman, 1J: Today at the aquarium I learned that turtles can breathe out of their bottom underwater when they sleep!

Aston, 1J: I learned that sharks look like they are swimming when they are asleep.

Bo, 1N: It was so cool to see Pesto the penguin because he was so cute. It was funny because he is bigger than his mum and dad!

Alex, 1N: We saw a big crocodile, named Pingarra. His habitat was a big aquarium with water and land. There were little fish in the water and they eat Pingarra’s poo.

Tom, 2L: When we went to the jellyfish area, there were special lights to help us see them because they are transparent. The lights also made all the white bits on our clothes glow! It was so cool!

Mason, 2L: It was very cool to see the saltwater crocodile! We learned that crocodile habitats need air, water, food, and shelter. Crocodile's brown backs help them stay camouflaged in the water.

Maggie, 2N: I loved seeing the Moon Jellyfish. They were white and I learned a fun fact: the stingers on the jellyfish are made of venom. This is to protect them from predators.

Blake, 2N: I loved seeing the penguins. I learned that the head penguin is also named Blake and he is a King penguin.

Lisa Mclean

Junior School Leader