Junior School News

Important Reminders

Take Home Books

Please ensure that your child has their Take Home Bag.

If they do not bring their Take Home Bag, they will not be able to bring a decodable text home. 

Book Week

A new date has been added to the whole school 'Dates' page of the newsletter. 

Book Week dress up: Friday, August 25th. 

Learning in Action

Literacy

Grade 1: This fortnight, Grade 1 students have practised applying the accuracy strategies they have learnt when reading difficult words to help them to write words correctly. It has been lots of fun learning about Medieval times and 1800’s school life through our reading and writing sessions. We have been so proud to see the way students have been able to draw connections between different civilizations in history and the similarities they have made to their lives today. Students have been very excited to finish their Poetry Anthologies and are looking forward to sharing them with parents on Celebration Morning at the end of the term.

Grade 2: Over the last fortnight, the Year 2 students have continued to work with different forms of poems. They have looked at examples of onomatopoeia in order to further engage the reader - use of phonetics to imitate a sound heard, e.g. meow, bang, crash. Students have written their own free verse poem. They have discussed the key areas to focus on when preparing to share their poetry anthologies with a group, such as reading with fluency, loud voice, and eye contact with the audience. Students have also looked at different experiences we can draw up to create ideas in our writing, as well as revising the use of proper nouns and commas in our writing, when listing items, people etc. During word study, students have looked at trigraphs in words, with a focus on ‘igh’ as in night, and ‘ear’ as in pear.  When reading, students have focused on making inferences as they read a text, e.g. the students read texts about various inventions over time and discussed why they think these inventions were invented.

Library

Grade 1: The Year 1 students have successfully accepted the challenge of organising their thinking and ideas into Venn Diagrams, when comparing two different texts. The chat and discussion in each group have been enlightening and informative, resulting in some very detailed recordings. This new learning (Venn Diagram) has been incorporated into our Reading and Inquiry lessons in the classroom, when comparing schooling in the 1800s to now. It has been fabulous to see students making connections with their Inquiry learning when browsing books in the library. The students themselves are super excited and proud to make these connections and love to share their findings with their teachers and classmates.  1KA and 1I have Library on Wednesday and 1PA and 1T on Friday. Please ensure library bags are sent to school as borrowing from the library ensures students have a new selection of books each week for home reading.

Grade 2: The students enjoy listening to read alouds and working in their triad groups during library sessions. Over the last fortnight, they have continued to listen to Lewis Carroll’s story ‘Alice in Wonderland’, and Enid Blyton’s ‘Adventures of the Wishing Chair’. The students also enjoyed listening to Roahl Dahl’s story ‘James and the Giant Peach’. The students are working well in their triad group to discuss the different settings these wonderful authors create in their stories. They are focused on speaking and listening skills as they each take their turn.

Year 2 Library is on a Monday. Please return library books every week or fortnight, as the students cannot borrow if they have the maximum number of books on their library record.

Maths 

Grade 1: 

Students have begun learning about division as sharing collections into equal groups. They have applied this knowledge to solve a range of worded stories using counters and drawings. Students learnt to identify the ‘total’, ‘equal groups’ and ‘how many in each’ in division number sentences to further support their understanding.

Students have also demonstrated their knowledge of o’clock and half past times to create their own timetable for a day at the aquarium.

Grade 2: The students have continued to look at worded multiplication problems. Students have also looked at skip counting to make the process more efficient working out a problem with a collection of items. Students have discussed and worked on problem-solving strategies. For example, using the process of elimination and trial and error.

We also looked at analogue clocks, discussing the hour and minute hands. We highlighted that our ability to skip count by 5s can help us when reading the minute hand on a clock. We looked at the clock in halves, to tell the time as ‘past’ and ‘to’, depending on which side of the clock the minute hand is on.

Year 2 students are very excited about Maths Masters. Here is the link to the belts and activities to help your child achieve their next goal (copy and paste the link if link doesn’t work directly). If time permits at home, your child might like to work on an activity for 5 or so minutes, 3 times a week.

 https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1HrbYUBgO5DwoOHFoQEmLt1dsYm1oksyo

Inquiry

Grade 1: This week, students in year 1 were lucky enough to travel back in time to the 1800s with our Past in the Class incursion. Students were greeted by Mrs. Sargood, who said good morning before lining the students up in boy's and girl's lines and checking if the students were clean. Once in the classroom, students were only allowed to talk when talked to and only if they had raised their hands, just like in the 1800s. Mrs. Sargood, was a very strict teacher, even bringing her cane with her. The students learnt what it would be like to live in a rich family in the 1800s, with 12 siblings, a ballroom, a tennis court, and even pet kangaroos at their mansion. Students also discussed the differences between boys and girls, such as boys having harder punishments than girls and the different jobs they would have if they were a servant. The students also were taught how to write in cursive with ink. Students tried writing the alphabet and their own names. Overall, the students had a great time learning how life was different in the 1800s. 

If you would like to continue discussing life in the 1800s with your child, Rippon Lea Estate has an interactive map that you can use to compare your house and lifestyle to the 1800s. Please see link below.  

https://www.ripponleaestate.com.au/the-mansion/ 

Grade 2: Over the last fortnight, Year 2 students have discussed and looked into the changes in transport and communication over time.

Wellbeing

Friendology

The students revised the friendship ninja concepts they have learnt so far and celebrated their new insights and ways to deal with various ups and downs in their new, old, or changing friendships.

RRRRs

The students have worked on their first session of 4Rs for this term. They discussed the importance of fair play for all. Regardless of gender or who someone is. We must all respect others and play games fairly.

Pyjama Day

What a buzz there was around the school with the excitement of being in pyjamas! 

The Year 2 students were very eager to contribute a gold coin too, learning that this special day will help other children that are not always so lucky.

Preview for Learning

Literacy

Grade 1: Next week, Grade 1 students will continue making personal connections to what we read, by exploring lots of interesting texts about the 1900s and WWII. As this week was the conclusion of our Poetry Unit for this term, next week will be the beginning of our next unit of work: Narratives.

Grade 2: Over the next fortnight, the students will be looking at the structure of narratives. They will be focussing on the events that can lead up to the problem in a narrative and any character traits they can identify. Students will also look at how to use a thesaurus, to enhance their vocabulary used in writing and speaking.

Library 

Grade 1: With the Children’s Book Council of Australia 2023 Awards coming up soon, the students in Year 1 will listen to a selection of nominated books, and vote for the book that they think deserves to win.

Grade 2: Through discussions in triad groups, the students will continue working on their speaking and listening skills. They will also focus on their ability to compare and analyse the different settings they have heard about in the read aloud sessions.

Maths 

Grade 1: Students will continue learning about division by solving problems that have remainders. This will involve them finding the leftover amount for problems such as 17 frogs shared between 4 lilypads. Students will also be introduced to a new topic on chance. They will be provided with events that ‘will’, ‘won’t’ or ‘may’ happen. 

Grade 2: Over the next fortnight, Year 2 students will be revising and extending their knowledge and ability to work out division problems. The students continue exploring time in regard to clocks (e.g. quarter ‘to’ and ‘past’), months, seasons and the calendar (e.g. identify the date and determine the number of days in a month).

Inquiry:

Grade 1: Over the next fortnight, the Grade 1 students will be exploring how the daily life of people looked throughout the mid-1900s. We will continue to analyse how people communicated, how they learned, and what family life looked like. Students will compare their own life experiences to this time period. 

Grade 2: Over the next fortnight, we will continue to look at the different ways people have communicated, in the past and present.

Wellbeing

RRRRs

Over the next fortnight, students will be engaged in the following sessions:

Creating a gender-friendly classroom

Thinking about gender fair and friendly behaviours, equality for both genders and gender friendly behaviours we can practise in the classroom and playground, e.g. can both genders be leaders, what do we do if a friend is starting to lead an activity that is mean, hurtful or unfair?

What is gender-based violence?

People can hurt the bodies of other people by hitting, kicking, biting, pushing or throwing things. Sometimes people also use boy or girl labels in a mean or violent way, e.g. Amira is on the swing, Jo says 'Girls have to get off or I will push them off.' Some boys are playing footy, one gets hurt and cries, another says 'Boys don't cry.' What emotions would people feel if they experienced gender-based violence? What can be some feelings in the body the person could feel? This is setting the scene that violence is never acceptable as a mode of resolving a relationship problem.

Student of the Week

Congratulations to our Grade 1 and Grade 2 award winners.