Junior School News
It has been inspiring to watch our students continue building on their skills, confidence, and friendships. Each day brings new opportunities for them to extend their thinking, challenge themselves, and celebrate progress. The energy in our classrooms shows how much the children are continuing to grow, not just in their learning but also in the way they support and encourage one another. We are excited to see their strong foundations continue to develop throughout the coming weeks of term.
Prep
In Prep, students have been moving from strength to strength, building and strengthening their reading skills with multi-syllabic words. These include words beginning with an open or closed syllable and ending in a magic e syllable, such as reptile, dislike, and inflate.
In Writing, the Preps have been learning to identify two types of sentences: questions and statements. They have discovered that a statement tells us something and gives a simple idea, ending with a full stop, for example, I play sport on Saturday. Meanwhile, a question asks something and ends with a question mark, for example, Can I have one?
In Maths, students have been exploring measurement through length, using the vocabulary tall, short, and height. They applied their knowledge of length in a fun, hands-on activity where they measured, compared, and ordered a Gingerbread Man family.
They have also been exploring mass, including the vocabulary heavy and light.
Students have been using hefting (to estimate or test the weight of something by holding or lifting it) to feel how heavy something is and to compare two different objects at the same time, deciding which one feels heavier. They have also been using balancing scales to sort and compare the mass of a range of objects.
A highlight of the Preps’ week was the annual Fire Brigade visit, during which students learnt about the role of a firefighter, what to do in an emergency, and how to stay fire safe. Find below a message given by the Fire Department...
Year One
In Year One, students have nailed the first two r-controlled vowel sounds, or and ar, and have now moved on to a new rule called Loud Cow, which explores two ways to represent the one sound /ou/. In this rule, ou is used at the beginning and middle of words and syllables, while ow is used at the end, or when l or n follows the sound at the end of the word, as in brown or growl.
In Writing, the Year Ones have loved learning about adverbs to upgrade their sentences. They discovered that an adverb describes a verb (a doing word) and shows how something is done. The students also learnt that adverbs don’t always, but often, end in the suffix -ly, such as in quietly, quickly, or gracefully. During their Literacy block, the Year Ones have excelled in creating word sums and identifying a range of common suffixes, such as -s, -ing, -er, and -ed, as part of their work in Morphology.
In Maths, Year One has begun exploring multiplication through groups of, arrays, and collections. They have been sharing collections, identifying which numbers can be shared equally into groups, and noticing how arrays are all around us in neat and organised rows and columns.
This week, the Year Ones loved spending some time creating a beautiful card for our local police to thank them for everything they do for our community.
Year Two
The Year Twos have been whizzing through a range of reading rules, including Double ee, double the power, which shows one way to represent the long e sound, as well as the two sounds of oo within the rule Food is good. They have now moved on to exploring the two sounds that can be made by s: /s/ as in sock and /z/ as in nose. In Morphology, the Year Twos have been identifying and applying the prefix re-, which, when added to a base word, changes its meaning to “doing it again,” as in rewrite, reread, and retie.
In Writing, they have been learning how to expand a simple sentence by beginning with a fronted adverbial phrase or adverb. An adverbial phrase is a group of words that modifies (describes) a verb. It can tell us how, when, where, why, how often, or how much something happens. Some examples of this include: We went skateboarding at the park. She gets to work by train. and I went for a run in the morning.
However, they did not stop there; they have also been learning to use commas to separate items in a list. They have been working on defining what a list is, identifying correct examples of lists in sentences, and writing their own sentences using commas between nouns and adjectives. For example: The elephant’s ears are large, wrinkly, and grey.
In Maths, the Year Twos have been expanding their understanding of shapes by combining and splitting two-dimensional figures and identifying the two-dimensional faces on three-dimensional objects. They have been labelling the features of these two-dimensional shapes, finding two-dimensional shapes on three-dimensional objects, and matching three-dimensional objects with their corresponding faces. The Year Twos also worked on sorting three-dimensional objects based on their features, using the vocabulary edge, face, vertices, and surface.
Mass
Last week, as part of our connection to our local church and parish, the Year Ones and Twos attended separate weekly Masses. This was a beautiful time to come together as a class, connect with the wider community, and spend time in prayer and reflection. During the Mass, students were given the opportunity to participate by singing two of their favourite hymns and by delivering the offertory. Both the Year One and Year Two students showed wonderful reverence, and we could not have been more proud of the respect and calm they displayed.
The opportunity to attend Mass also highlights how each class in the Junior School has been focusing on a different story or message this term during Religion lessons. The Preps have been learning about who Jesus is and why He is important; the Year Ones have been exploring God’s Creation; and the Year Twos have been studying the Parable of The Prodigal Son.
Father's Day
To end an overflowing fortnight of fun and learning, the students adored having their fathers and special friends attend assembly and visit their classrooms. This was an amazing opportunity to build lasting memories and connections for the students. Throughout the week and on the day, endless crafts and activities took place for students to show their love and appreciation for their fathers and special friends, including trophies, stalls, poems, and interviews, just to name a few.
As the Glitz program has now come to an end, all Junior School students are asked to wear their PE uniforms on Fridays for class sport, and their winter school uniforms on Mondays for the rest of the term.
The school closure day could not have come at a better time, with many students feeling the effects of our fast-paced, hardworking, and jam-packed schedule. We hope all students and families were able to use this time to rest and recover in preparation for what will be an amazing final few weeks of term.
Sophie Prosser
Junior Leader
hwood@shsandringham.catholic.edu.au
bmaloney@shsandringham.catholic.edu.au
sprosser@shsandringham.catholic.edu.au
comeara@shs.catholic.edu.au kflynn@shsandringham.catholic.edu.au