Around the Junior School

Read, Grow, Inspire: Book Week 2023

Every student in the Junior School had sore stomachs from laughing so hard on Wednesday 16 August when the author, illustrator and TV producer, Mick Elliott, came to share some of his stories, secrets and writing tips. 

Although Mick can’t remember, his parents remind him that he lived in Orange for a few months when he was a baby, so it’s wonderful he was able to return after all these years. 

Students from Pre-K to Year 2 were able to relate to Mick’s newest picture book, Dads and Dogs. Year 2 were challenged to draw their classroom teacher, Mr Barrett in only 70 seconds and thought it was hilarious that Mick drew a parrot. They have now incorporated Squidge Dibley into their spelling! 

Years 3-6 learnt a little more about being an author and what happened behind the scenes for the Squidge Dibley series. 

All children learnt the value of sharing their stories and were entertained by Mick’s personal anecdotes and how he has incorporated them into some of his books (with a little bit of exaggeration). Students also had the opportunity to purchase a copy of one of the books Mick has written and were able to have it signed by him. 

The following Tuesday, 22 August, the students in Kinder to Year 3 were very lucky to have ‘The Story Lady’ visit. The Story Lady (Lydia Smith) happens to be Grandmother to Addie in Year 3 and Rigby in Year 1. She entertained the students with folk tales collected from all over the world. These stories have stood the test of time, have interesting themes and hold great appeal for children. Lydia chose to tell them through pictures, spoken word, and using a piece of string or a piece of paper. 

On Wednesday 23 August, all Junior School students held their Book Week Parade, led by Year 6 Douglas House Leaders. The celebrations began with Jazinta in Year 6 reading out her reflection on Matt Ottley’s artwork, chosen for Book Week. Year 5 then took up Matt’s challenge to find a word for every letter of the alphabet on his artwork. The Captains of Douglas, Izzy and George, announced the winners of each CBCA shortlist category throughout the parade and gave a short synopsis of the book as they held it up.

Children from most year groups were interviewed by students in Year 6 Douglas House to explain why they chose to come dressed as they did.

Below are some reflections from Year 2

Ivy Coleman: “I loved that we all got to walk on the stage and I got to dress up as my favourite character, Matilda.  Matilda is really smart and she can move things with her mind. She learnt to do all these things by teaching herself to read.”

 

Elke Sawtell: “We got to see everybody’s costumes and they were so good. I like how I got to dress up as Alice in Wonderland as she is so smart.”

 

Tom Haydon: “I was the Cat in the Hat because he is naughty and funny."

During Book Week Collin’s Bookstore in Orange gave our students an opportunity to hold a Book Fair. Students were able to ponder and explore the books on offer and write a ‘wish list’ of all the books they would like to purchase. Some students were fortunate to have their wishes come true. 

The School Library also held a guessing competition. The children were required to guess which bookshelf belonged to which staff member. There were a few red herrings as the children thought every bookshelf that contained a cat (yes it was a live cat) or lego masterpiece must belong to Mrs Hayward. They were convinced that Dr Parry’s bookshelf was Mrs Sinclair’s simply because they spotted a violin on the shelves and they assumed that the colour coded bookshelf belonged to our art teacher, Mrs Holmes. Congratulations to Ellie Johnstone in Year 5 for correctly matching the most number of bookshelves to the right owners. Ellie won a Collin’s gift voucher.

Book Week is always a great time for us to remind ourselves that the power of a book, once read, grows knowledge and imagination and inspires further thought and creativity. Keep Reading!

Year 6 Sausage Making

As part of the Year 6 Science Unit, 'Future of Farming', students visited the Senior School kitchens to make sausages.

Students are studying sheep farming, and looked at the process of making sausages from paddock to plate. The students were fortunate to learn from Mr Callaghan, Ms Dodson and Ms Howarth. In these photos, students measured the spice mix, minced the meat and cased the mince into sausages. Year 6 students will be cooking and eating these at Windermere in Week 8, and they will also learn about the process of wool dying.

Year 4 Wellington Caves Excursion

In Week 5, Year 4 went on an excursion to Wellington Caves to learn more about the local geology and formations. 

Students experienced a hands-on workshop where they learnt about fossils, rocks and megafauna. They participated in an activity where they had to dig through soil to discover  crystal formations, limestone and fossils. 

They also learnt about the science that happens at Wellington Caves: Students enjoyed exploring the Cathedral Caves and learnt about the extraordinary features, including an altar (a 15m tall stalagmite), Headache Rock and a well. 

We ended the excursion walking through the Ancient Landscapes Gallery. We listened to Dream Time Stories and discovered how megafauna used to roam the area.

We thoroughly enjoyed our time underground and learning about fossils. 

Glennwood Merinos – Year 6 Excursion

On 17 August, Year 6 travelled to the other side of Wellington to visit Mr and Mrs Smith at Glenwood Merino Farm. When we arrived, we were introduced to the owners and their working dogs. Suzie the dog was very old and friendly. 

We went into their new shearing shed, took a chair and sat down in the shed where Mr and Mrs Smith told us all about the farm. We then moved over to the wool table and looked at some of their wool. All of Year 6 had a go at pulling the strings of wool to measure its strength and looked at how the micron machine determines the classification and quality of the wool. We touched the wool and we were all challenged to see who could guess the finest wool before it went into the machine. 

Mrs Smith spoke to us about the process of wool making. We looked at yarns of wool from their sheep and looked at the final product of her pieces of clothing. After this we went down to the creek and into a paddock where we learnt some more facts about farm management. We ate our lunch and went home from the beautiful farm called Glenwood Merinos. 

Some fun facts about the farm:

1. Glenwood Farm is roughly 7000 acres.
2. One of their sustainable holistic farming practices is cell grazing. This is where they have big mobs and move them from paddock to paddock every 3-7 days, so they don’t over graze the paddock.
3. Mr and Mrs Smith use DNA testing to marry up the lambs and mothers.
4. Shearing happens every 8 months.
5. Lambs are commonly born in August. When the sheep are lambing, they move the sheep into smaller mobs to avoid the baby lambs losing their mothers. 
6. Mrs Smiths’ clothing business is called Love Merino. 

Nick Balcomb, 6M. 

Cubism inspired artworks by Year 4

Year 4 students have been appreciating the works of Pablo Picasso. They learnt about the art movement ‘Cubism’ which was pioneered by Pablo Picasso and fellow artist Georges Braque. Students have used key techniques that Picasso employed in his works when completing their own Cubism inspired portraits. 

Year 2 Slime Time!

Do you have leftover items on the bottom of your bathroom shelf that you need to use? What about half a 2L bottle of PVA glue from your child’s Year 8 2002 art assignment? Well, ask Year 2 what to do and we will come to the rescue. 

During our science investigations this term, Year 2 are looking at the properties of materials and how mixing materials together create chemical changes. Last Thursday during periods 3 and 4, we made slime with the purpose of predicting whether the chemical change that occurred when mixing shaving foam, PVA glue and eye wash would create a reversible or irreversible change. 

We discovered that the creation of this slime was an irreversible change, meaning we could not revert our slime back to the original state of our ingredients. 

Year 2 had lots of fun and in the nick of slime, we finished just before lunchtime!

Lachlan​ Barrett

Merit Awards - Term 3 Week  2023

K Paddington

• Betty Stewart: Working hard to expand her sentence writing. 

K Plume

• Rhys Morley: Having such a great attitude to school and learning, and always giving 100% in all he does!
• Luca Vardanega: Continuing to improve his listening skills in the classroom and excellent work in sentence writing.

1 Elmer

1 Simba

• Stani Fatai: Working hard to improve handwriting.
• Camilla Haynes: Improved spelling in “stop and spell” spelling reviews.

2 Jack Berne

• Tom Haydon: Working with three-digit numbers in mathematics as successfully as Marnus Labuschagne scored his century amid the rain on day four of the Ashes Old Trafford Test. 
• Ivy Coleman: Being a kind-hearted Year 2 member like Roald Dahl’s Matilda

3 Watson   

• Alec Stewart: His excellent work identifying independent and dependent clauses. Well done!
• Liam Hayward: His excellent work in maths and accurately telling the time. Well done!

3 Armstrong

• Alexander Flynn: Being a master mathematician who always puts 110 percent effort into our math lessons.
• Phoebe Westcott: Her creative flair and wonderful use of descriptive language in her imaginative city writing piece.

4 Einstein   

• Pippi Clinton: Taking a leap in her learning independence and working with focus.
• Lachlan Church: Answering more questions in class and contributing to class discussions.

4 Pitt

• Lucy Austen: For her outstanding improvement across many areas of the curriculum.
• Julian Capanas: Contributing excellent ideas to our class discussion on the features of informative texts.

5 Mabo

• Amara Tomlinson: Consistently displaying an excellent, responsible attitude to all her learning and always being a most helpful student in class.
• Charlie McDougall: Being a responsible class member in all activities this term.

5 King

• Willa Tomlinson: Projecting kindness and positivity toward others.
• Leopold Wade: Showing chivalry in his everyday actions.

6 Mandela

• Nick Balcomb: Enthusiastically sharing his knowledge on sheep farming during science lessons and excursions.
• Miller Byrne: Her dedication in completing home learning tasks and for always demonstrating the school values within the classroom and on the playground. 

6 Brockman

• Zaro Jalal: For the incredible application of his skills in mathematics problem solving.
• Cassandra Philippe: Her continued dedicated effort in all areas of her learning in and out of the classroom.