Junior School
This week, I’d like to highlight the vibrant tapestry of learning at our school, where Visual Arts sparks creativity, Physical Education fosters health and teamwork, Chinese opens cultural horizons, Food Tech blends culinary skills, and STEM propels innovation. Our dedicated specialist subject teachers ignite passion and guide students toward excellence. These subjects not only enrich minds but also shape well-rounded individuals. Thank you God, for our wonderful educators who inspire students, providing them with rich and diverse learning experiences.
Alex Burgess
Head of Junior School
Prep
The Preps have been enjoying learning in the classroom! We have enjoyed using some of our new Top 10 resources in Maths to practice counting, borrowing Year 2's mealworms to investigate living things, and going to the Library to borrow books.
Eden Romero
Prep Teacher
Year 1
Year 1 have been learning about living and non-living things in Science this term. We found lots of living things in our playground and looked closely at where they lived and what they needed to survive and do their jobs. We were amazed at how wonderfully God created tiny creatures like Ants and Bees, to live in communities and work hard to help care for our world. Year 1 drew wonderful Bee pictures and had fun making a habitat for a tiny creature to live in.
Kerry Snook & Lyndell Tucker
Year 1 Teachers
Year 2
It has been a fun filled fortnight in Year 2! Last Monday we went on our first excursion to the Warrnambool Art Gallery as part of our Humanities unit, Connecting to Places. Students engaged in the Maar Nation Made exhibition; having the opportunity to talk to the artist, ask questions, learn about Aboriginal connections to land and Aboriginal symbols, as well as create their own story using Aboriginal symbols.
This week, we created another story using the Aboriginal symbols and painted the stories to have up on display. The Year 2's have loved learning about our local Indigenous culture and special places around Warrnambool, such as Moyjil.
It has also been lots of fun for the Year 2's to have more opportunities to explore using the laptops. We have been practising how to log in and out (as well as playing some fun literacy games on them!). We have also been wrapping up our unit on Place Value this week; playing lots of games and revising our number skills.
Alissa Griffin
Year 2 Teacher
Year 3
Year 3 had a very special presentation recently, receiving their very own Bibles at assembly. We had a great talk from Mr Rouse about the history of the Bible and learnt just how precious and important these books are to learn about and cherish as the Word of God. Unfortunately Rebecca and Bobby-Joe couldn’t be at the presentation, so Mrs Burgess came in and presented them with their Bibles and spoke about how she likes to listen to her Bible as an audiobook now!
We have continued to do lots of hands on learning activities in our Numeracy sessions and we improve our group work skills by working together and supporting one another. Did you know that children actually learn more from their peers than their teacher? Not something Mrs Hales likes to admit, but looking at these photos it’s clear to see that in Year 3 we like to work together, teach each other and have fun whilst learning.
Ang Hales
Year 3 Teacher
Year 4
Students in Year 4 are currently focusing on Narratives in Term 1. This week they have been busily typing up and publishing their final draft and wow, the storylines have been gripping to say the least! Have a read of some of the story ideas below and do pop into the Year 4 classroom for a read!
Germand - My story is about two interdimentional universes that crash together.
Benjamin - In my story the main character Colin wants to find his missing parents because they've been captured!
Evelyn - My story is about three girls who have gone missing and three boys who think they've been kidnapped and have to find them.
William - My story is about 5 dragonettes and a half human half dragon who fulfill the prophecy to save the world.
Elise - In my story some boys steal a billy cart and ride it down the hill then get caught by the police.
Eva - My story is about two girls named Sarah and Eve
Adrian - My story is about the 'WASSQUAD' that stands for 'Weird Animal Society'
Nirvair - In my story two kids are versing each other in cricket but one gets injured!
Gabriela - In my story a girl gang of four and they say positive thoughts to each
other and try to make the world better together.
Jemimah - I'm writing a story about two girls getting captured.
Emily - My story is about three kids who go to school together and get caught in a fire.
Grace - My story is about girls that travel the world and buy something really cool at each country they go to.
Elliana - My story is about a girl who goes to the park with her annoying brother!
Elijah - My story is about two people who are told there is place called 'Happy land' at the end of the forest.
Emily Hunter
Year 4 Teacher
Year 5
Year 5 have been doing a wonderful job this week learning about decimal place value and problem solving. They have learned about equivalent fractions, decimals and percentages. They have all worked very hard and are developing wonderful new knowledge. They have also had a lot of fun learning about interest. In humanities, we have been learning about interest earned and interest charged. The students have all worked as small groups to make presentations to share their new found understandings. The first few groups that have shared have been very impressive, creating some very informative and creative slideshows. It is wonderful to see such high quality work. Well done.
Naomi O'Brien
Year 5 Teacher
Year 6
Year 6 is a year when the students take on responsibility for helping in many and varied situations around the school. The class have taken this responsibility very seriously and tackle it each day with great enthusiasm. Not only do they host Junior School Assembly each week and lead the songs for the Junior classes, but they also have daily jobs that they diligently perform.
Some of the things they do are:
- Collect the compost from all the Junior classrooms, the Staff room and the Food Tech room and dispose of it
- Collect waste paper from each classroom to recycle into notepads and return them to the classes
- Making sure our classroom is adequately ventilated by opening and closing windows
- Cleaning our whiteboard
- Leading devotions and recording and praying for any prayer requests each day
- Helping to keep the Junior School playground equipment tidy and organised
- Changing our daily and weekly timetables
- Charging our chromebooks each day
Life in Year 6 is full of responsibilities and this year's class are rocking it!
Coral Robertson
Year 6 Teacher
Junior School LOTE
In the last couple of weeks, Junior School students celebrated Chinese New Year together during LOTE class. We learnt that Chinese New Year celebrations started 4000 years ago with the farmers in China, and that Chinese New Year celebrations last for 15 days. The students made special blessing signs to decorate their house. They also made red envelopes with blessing scriptures (such as the one below) to give out to family members, staff and other students.
Numbers 6:24 - 26
The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace.
民数记 六章二十四 ～二十六节
愿耶和华赐福你，保护你；愿耶和华使祂的脸光照你，赐恩给你；愿耶和华敞脸垂顾你，赐你平安。
Anna Chen
Junior School LOTE Teacher
Junior School Gideon Program
The Junior Gideon class has been getting creative! Students made weighted ‘Sensory Snakes’ using old socks, material scraps, dried lavender and other personalised decorations. Students showed great enthusiasm for the task and it was great to see some jump on the sewing machine and have a go! These whole-class learning experiences help build student confidence in communication, decision-making, achieving goals and working collaboratively with others. Students will now be focusing on creating a procedure writing task titled How to Make a Sensory Snake. A published copy will then be distributed to other Junior School classes.
Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.
Thessalonians 5:11
Stephanie Kosh
Junior School Gideon Teacher