Junior School News
Year 4 Chicken Coops
This term, Year 4 planned, designed and created a chicken coop. These were made from recycled materials such as boxes, clay, straws, pipe cleaners, paddle pop sticks, paper, cardboard and wire. Miss Mahoney, Mr Weekes and Mrs Ivancic visited the Year 4 classrooms and it was during their visit, the students had the opportunity to explain their designs, the features they included and why.d.
It was wonderful to see so many unique design features including perches, ramps, play areas and nesting boxes. Year 4 are very much looking forward to parts of their designs being included in a chicken coop which they hope to be built in the Junior School playground in the near future.
Mrs Kaelene Harris
Year 4 teacher
Year 4 - How we Organise Ourselves
As part of our Unit of Inquiry ‘How We Organise Ourselves’, Year 4 have been investigating the environment around them. Chickens became a focus and the great egg debate caged versus free-range, was discussed at length. Students attended an incursion to the St Gregory’s College Farm. They explored the chicken coops and learnt many interesting facts about eggs and chickens from Miss Mahoney.
Term 3 investigations have centred around environmental issues such as; the use of plastic bags and plastic water bottles, using sustainable products in our lunch boxes and fake versus real when it comes to plants.
The project of designing and creating a chicken coop for the Junior School proved to be interesting. Students looked at the functionality and practicality of the design and the essential features that had to be included.
Who knows? You may soon see chickens running about the Junior School and have the opportunity to purchase their eggs!
Mrs Kaelene Harris
Year 4 teacher
Where has Book Week gone?
Do not fear! Our Junior School is still
celebrating Book Week but we have moved the dates to match the Children’s Book Council Awards change of date to Term 4. This means you have even more time to prepare costumes for the “Curious Creatures, Wild Minds” theme.
Our Book Week begins on Monday 19 October with the opening of our Book Fair. The Book Fair will be open all week and, depending on COVID-19 restrictions at that time, maybe very different from our past Book Fairs. We hope that our community will continue to support this excellent opportunity for our students to purchase a wide range of books and support our Library. All purchases contribute to the Library’s collections. The Book Fair will close on Friday 23rd October.
On Wednesday 21 October, we will hold our Book Character Parade. This will be a streamed event for parents and carers to be able to enjoy our parade as well. As usual, each participating student will receive a raffle ticket and prizes will be drawn from each class. Our Book Character Parade draws on the Book Week theme of ‘Curious Creatures, Wild Minds’ - think creature characters like animals and monsters and wild characters like the Wild Things and the Alice in Wonderland and Jabberwocky.
Along with our usual variety of Book Week Competitions, we will also be hosting Author/Illustrator Gus Gordon on Friday 23 October. Gus will start his day with Writing Workshops for our Years 3 and 4 students followed by our Years 5 and 6 students. He will also do a book signing and present some of our Book Week prizes. Gus will finish off with an illustration session with our Kindergarten, Year 1 and Year 2 students. We’re very excited to be hosting Gus this year and know that our students will learn so much from him. Order forms for books will be sent out before the next holidays to ensure that we can have them all available on the day of Gus’ visit.
Students have already started exploring the CBCA Shortlisted Books from each of the categories and will continue to do so in the lead up to the announcement of the winners during Book Week in October. It’s my favourite time of the year, but I’m biased!
Rachael Cosentino
Teacher Librarian/Literacy Specialist
Getting back to nature!
The Junior School Nature Club has been working hard this term. So far, we have come up with some awesome ideas to help our school become a more sustainable and
environmentally friendly school. We now have “Tubby”, the compost bin who is in charge of collecting all of the fruit scraps the students collect in their classroom.
We also have a team of Year 6 students that put together our very first worm farm. It has been messy, but a lot of fun. Our Nature Team consists of students from Years 3 to 6. Each Friday we meet to discuss ideas on how to better our school and help with the veggie patches and garden area on the yard. It will take time to put everything together, however, we are very happy to have the opportunity to watch things come to life and grow in our school.
Mrs Paula Grados
Year 5 Teacher