Junior School
Year 1
Thank you to Mrs Nield for organising our participation in National Simultaneous Storytime last Wednesday. We loved watching, reading and listening to The Truck Cat, and had fun making Tinka the cat, drawing Yacoub behind the wheel and constructing his truck. Creative minds and inventive hands quickly transformed paper and craft materials to manufacture a unique and diverse cargo of food, just like Yacoub transported.
Speaking of transport, in Maths we enjoyed investigating how to increase the distance a toy car travels from a ramp, creating a labyrinth of roads and ramps in our classroom and passageway. Many clever ideas were utilised to create the most effective ramp using cardboard, corflute, masking tape and classroom objects, with trial and error honing designs to maximise slope, stability and durability.
Lyndell Tucker
Year 1 Teacher
Year 2
Year 2 produced some wonderful work in their Big Write last week! Our Big Writes are a chance to celebrate and 'show off' their writing skills and their learning of a particular topic. Our Big Write topic, 'If The Earth Could Talk, What Would It Say?' connected with our learning in Humanities of 'Our Wonderful World' and the exploration of Sustainability.
I am continually being blown away by the excellent writing that I am seeing from the Year 2s! Well done!
Over the past week, we have also looked at maps and directions. Students practised using cardinal directions in a little challenge where their partner was blindfolded and had to follow the directions they were given to reach a destination.
This week, the Year 2s had some buddy-time. We walked down to the Bush Kinder and had some time exploring the awesome space (we look forward to doing some activities down there in the future)! We have been investigating sound through discovering what different sounds can be made by different types of materials (such as wood, metal, paper and plastic), and how using more and less energy changes the sound. Finally, students explored digital art through creating a Pointillism-style artwork on our laptops!
Alissa Griffin
Year 2 Teacher
Year 3
Year 3s have been having lots of fun in Numeracy, learning about kilograms and grams and weighing lots of different things.
As part of National Reconciliation Week and Sorry Day, we read a story called Sorry Day” and did some art that looks magnificent!
In Humanities, we are learning about Australia; the different states and capital cities and famous landmarks. In small groups we had a challenge of putting together a puzzle of Australia - in silence! Luckily, after a while we were able to talk and we got them sorted.
Ang Hales
Year 3 Teacher
Year 4
This week, students in Year 4 have taken part in an investigation as part of our Maths unit. They have been using skills in finding the line of symmetry, making symettrical patterns, measuring perimeter and calculating perimeter. This week's activity involved a nature walk around the school to collect natural items. After that, students arranged them in different ways to make a symetrical pattern - have a look at some of their great creations!
We have also been using the VCOP tools for writing and having great fun learning about the different elements that make up a piece of writing. This week our focus was using connectives to join and link sentences together. Using these has helped enhance student's writing and it's been fun to see how creative we can be with different words. Enjoy these photos of students playing a game of 'Subordinating Conjunctions' - it might not sound like a fun game but I promise there was lots of laughing and creativity happening!
Emily Hunter
Year 4 Teacher
Year 4/5
Year 4/5 have had lots of fun getting creative lately. We have been putting our newfound maths knowledge into practice creating our own maths games. The students have invented some really great games with varying levels of complexity. It has been a great way to practice what we have learned.
They also did an Assembly performance last Friday and worked very hard to put together an exciting and meaningfully choreographed version of Your Ways Better by Forrest Frank. Everyone did a wonderful job of entertaining and conveying the message that following God is living in His peace, protection and provision.
Naomi O'Brien
Year 4/5 Teacher
Year 6
Art
Recently in Art, Year 6 have been working on making paper mache heads for glove puppets. They started with a few pieces of scrunched up newspaper and then covered it with masking tape to help hold the shape. The next step was to cover the masked up head shape with strips of newspaper soaked in watered down PVA glue. We had to cover the whole head so that we could not see any masking tape. At this stage we also had to attach the neck with the PVA soaked strips.
After our head had dried we then had to work out what we would use to emphasise things like eyes, ears, noses, facial features and hair. Mrs Robertson provided bags and bags of all sorts of materials for us to use. Things like pipe cleaners were used for things from eyebrows to lips to hair. After we had finished our head we had to make a "glove" body so we could use our puppet.
This was made out of material that we lay our hand on and traced around it, leaving a margin big enough so we could fit our hand in. We then had to staple the pieces together to make the glove puppet part. We could also choose if we decorated the body as well. After this we used hot glue guns to stick the body to the head.
The photos show many finished and some almost finished puppets. We hope you like them.
Coral Robertson
Year 6 Teacher
Food Tech
Last week, our Year 6 students got busy in the kitchen making delicious fairy cakes! It was a wonderful opportunity for the students to show off their baking skills and creativity, and the results were both tasty and impressive.
But the fun didn’t stop there! We were also joined by our Year 12 buddies from Prep, who came to visit and lend a helping hand. It was heartwarming to see the students reconnect and support each other, continuing the special bond they share.
A big thank you to our Canadian student teacher, Shannon, who was there to guide the students every step of the way. With her support, the lesson was filled with laughter, learning, and of course some tasty treats.
What a fun and memorable week for everyone involved!
Ally Robinson
Teacher
Junior Gideon Program
In the Junior Gideon writing sessions, students have been exploring and innovating their own recounts based on the Talk For Writing style of story mapping. Talk for Writing is a unique process that uses spoken activities to develop writing skills. Quality writing is created by first expanding and developing students’ oral language skills and then teaching the necessary steps for exceptional sentence, paragraph and text construction.
Students used their first hand experience of going fishing at Jubilee Park last term to create a whole class picture story map recounting the event. The students have then practiced their recount orally and with actions, to the point where they could recite the whole story with correct structure, connective words and with limited visual prompting from the story map. Amazing!
Next students innovated/altered parts of the recount with sticky note picture cues to reflect their own personal recount story. They changed the who, what, when, where, why and the events of their story but kept the structure of the recount the same. Students then presented their innovated recount orally. All students were successful in working through the structure and using the visual prompts to effortlessly and confidently share in front of the whole class. Incredible! Students are currently editing and finalising the unit and their completed recounts will be on display outside the Junior Gideon class next week.
Also, just a reminder that our class will be exploring the King's College Bush Camp (on campus) on Monday 2nd June from 8:50 - 11:15. We will be doing some camp cooking on a fire and learning in an alternative hands on space. We will be going in wet or dry weather so please bring a raincoat/warm coat, beanie, sports uniform and gumboots or farm boots. Students are also welcome to bring an umbrella. Looking forward to another adventure in Junior Gideon!
For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. - Colossians 1:16-17
Stephanie Kosh
Junior Gideon Teacher