Junior School News
Welcome back to what is sure to be another outstanding term! It has been wonderful to see so many smiling faces returning to school, ready to learn, explore, and grow. The classrooms are already buzzing with energy, and we’re looking forward to a fun-filled term full of exciting learning opportunities.
Inform and Empower
This year, the Junior School is taking part in Inform & Empower’s Cyber Safety & Digital Wellbeing program. As part of this initiative, all students participate in live-streamed incursions each term. These sessions are designed to help create safer and more positive online experiences for students. So far, they have explored what the internet is, how listening to our bodies can help us recognise early warning signs, and how trusted adults can support us in staying safe online.
This term, we were especially excited to use our brand new STEM room, which gave us plenty of space to move around and come together to focus on healthy digital habits. Our learning included the importance of balancing screen time with green time, the value of healthy sleep routines, and why it can sometimes be difficult to put our devices down.
Look at these two gorgeous, new members of the O'Callaghan family!
Prep
The Preps have had a flying start to the term, jumping straight into their jam-packed learning schedule. They have been introduced to closed syllables, where the vowel is trapped and cannot shout out its name, in words such as cat, pin, and stop. This is an exciting time, as students begin to see their letter-sound knowledge develop and extend into syllable reading.
In writing, students have been exploring and identifying nouns which are names of animals, people, places, and things, through pictures, sorting activities, and sentence structures.
In Maths, the Preps have been strengthening their number sense by partitioning small numbers into part-part-whole models, for example, two and three make five, and developing their positional language, using terms such as on top, below, above, and beside.
As students continue to swap their readers each Monday, they will also be able to bring home one library book from our collection, as we have filled our school bookshelves with a range of storybooks.
Year One
In Year One, students have been learning about the different ways to represent the 'k' sound through the 'Cat and Kite Rule.' This rule explains that k is used before i, e, and y, as in king, keep, and sky, while c is used before a, o, and u, as in camp, cot, and cute. In writing, students have been learning about conjunctions and their purpose, to add more information by connecting two parts of a sentence. They have been applying the conjunctions but (which changes the direction of a sentence) and because (which tells us why something is true).
The Year Ones have been diving deeper into place value, exploring digits and numbers using tens and ones. They have been using their knowledge to create number bonds, focusing on part, part and whole models. This week, they have been exploring measurement through length, comparing objects using 'shorter than', 'longer than', or 'the same as'.
Year Two
In Year Two, the students have been working on applying the 'pitch rule,' where the long spelling of 'tch' comes directly after a short vowel sound, as in batch, stitch, and watch. They have also been learning the long spelling of 'ck' after a short vowel sound, in words such as dock, stick, and back. In writing, students have been developing questions and expanding simple sentences using adverbs.
In Maths, the Year Twos have been deepening their understanding of place value, rounding four-digit numbers to the nearest hundred, and are beginning to explore measurement through length.
Congratulations to the amazing Miss Flynn on her Australian Permanent Residency! We are so lucky to have such an incredible teacher as part of our school community.
Irregular Words
Many of the most frequently used words in English are irregular. Even the simplest decodable texts require children to be able to read some of these tricky words. Many of them cannot be fully ‘sounded out’. Therefore, we need to teach some explicitly. In writing, many of these words will be ones that students need to use early and often, so it makes sense to automatise their spellings from the start. Within each level of the Junior School, a different set of irregular words- ranging from the to said and friends- will be mapped out and practised each week.
Karate
To help kick-start our term, we had a wonderful Karate incursion in which students showed off their skills through body control, punching, and kicking with correct form and safety. They also practiced mindful breathing alongside a range of Japanese Karate sayings, such as “Kiai” and “Rei.” This was such a fun and active way to practise the skills of coordination, strength, and respect.
Mother's Day
We have loved celebrating our amazing mums in a range of ways, from discussing what makes them so special to creating crafts and preparing performances. The celebrations were topped off with a lovely visit from many mums to our classrooms, where they saw some of our hard work and joined in an activity.
"I love my mum because she gives me snuggles." – Bobby, Prep M
"My favourite thing about my mum is when she cuddles me." – Leo, 1O
"I love when my mum supports me." – Kate, 2F
Check out the gorgeous Year Ones and Twos performing the classic Stand by Me for their mums.
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