Junior School News

Grandparents Day

Grandparents and Special Friends Day is one of the most highly anticipated and treasured events on our school calendar. For families, students, and teachers, it fills our hearts, classrooms, and hallways with warmth and joy. 

It’s not only beautiful to see the students proudly share their learning spaces and work, along with the pride their grandparents and special friends have for them, but also a powerful reminder of the invaluable connections and love in their lives that make all the difference.

Prep

Preps have been working hard to learn the new rule of Magic E. This is when a vowel is "trapped" and usually makes its short vowel sound but is able to "shout out" its name with the help of a magic e at the end of the word. The magic e helps the vowel say its name but remains silent, such as in words like note, cape, and tube. This is often a favourite rule among students, and this year is no exception!

In Writing, students have continued to develop the skill of expanding their sentences by adding a ‘when’ and ‘where’, which gives more information and makes their writing more interesting. Preps are supported by the use of Colourful Semantics, which is a color-coding system to break down sentences and highlight the different parts of speech, making them easier to understand and build. 

In Maths, the Preps have been building their understanding of numbers by reading and writing numerals up to fifteen. This includes correctly forming each numeral, as well as counting and identifying them within collections. Students have also been using ten-frames to make numbers from eleven to twenty, where the language of place value has been introduced, for example, "17 has one ten and seven ones."

Teddy Bear Picnic

The Preps finished off their week with a gorgeous Teddy Bear Picnic! It was a great way to celebrate their hard work, positive behaviour, and the effort they bring each day. It was also super cute to see their love for their toys and teddies! Of course, they couldn’t have had such an exciting event without writing about it, just look at those fantastic sentences. Go Preps!

Year One

In Year One, students have continued to develop their understanding of the ‘ck’ shield rule, which represents the ‘k’ sound that comes straight after a short vowel, as in words like duck, back, and peck. Students have also been exploring the irregular words some and come, identifying that the ‘o’ is not making its usual sound and the ‘e’ is not doing its usual job. These words need to be mapped and remembered by heart.

In Writing, students have been learning to identify the difference between sentences and fragments. A sentence is a group of words made up of two parts: a who/what (also called a noun) and a what doing (also called a verb). If one of those parts is missing, it is called a fragment. Fragments are not complete sentences. Sentences must also make sense, begin with a capital letter, and end with a punctuation mark.

In Maths, the Year Ones have been exploring the concept of time by learning to sequence events and compare short and long durations. They’ve looked at a wide range of ideas, from how many months and days are in a year to the steps involved in getting ready for school and putting them in the correct order.

Year Two

In Reading, the Year Twos have been examining the three sounds of “ea” with the memory hook “Eat, Bread, and Steak,” which shows that “ea” can make:

• the long /ē/ sound, as in eat
• the short /ĕ/ sound, as in bread
• the long /ā/ sound, as in steak

They have also reviewed the two spellings for the “oi” sound, using ‘oi’ at the beginning or middle of words and syllables, like in soil and coin and ‘oy’ at the end, like in toy and destroy.

They have also explored the prefix pre-, which is added to the beginning of base words to change the meaning to “before,” as in preview, prevent, and previous.

In Writing, the Year Twos have been converting fragments into complete sentences by identifying missing parts and then rewriting the sentences to include the necessary information. They have also been unscrambling words to deepen their understanding of sentence structure.

In Maths, students have been learning to compare and order the mass of objects on balance scales using informal units, and predicting which objects will have a larger mass. They have also been measuring, estimating, and comparing the capacity of containers using informal units.

Community Helpers 

We have been so lucky to welcome some parent helpers to support our current topic unit, Our Health is Our Wealth, which explores all the ways we can stay safe and healthy. We have finished this unit by learning about the people in our community who are here to help us. We cannot thank those who volunteered their time enough for sharing how their jobs support our community. 

A special thank you to James Tehan, Emily Matthiesson, Emily Meehan and Sam Tudor for their wonderful presentations and for answering so many intriguing questions from students across all three Junior School grades. Not only did students gain a deeper understanding of how roles such as paramedics, nurses, and dietitians help us, but we are also sure a few new dream jobs were sparked in the process!

Class Sport

There are many lessons and classes that students enjoy, however, class sport is certainly at the top of many students' lists. It provides time for students to bond and strengthen their relationships, while also offering opportunities to develop their sportsmanship, self-regulation, and teamwork skills. With a range of tasks and games incorporated into each session, students also build their gross and fine motor skills, including running, jumping, throwing, and hand-eye coordination.

Sophie Prosser

Junior Leader

hwood@shsandringham.catholic.edu.au

bmaloney@shsandringham.catholic.edu.au 

tlevy@shs.catholic.edu.au 

sprosser@shsandringham.catholic.edu.au

lmckeon@shs.catholic.edu.au 

comeara@shs.catholic.edu.au kflynn@shsandringham.catholic.edu.au