News from JLC

During Reading Comprehension recently, the children in the Junior Learning Community have been reading and answering questions on Procedural Texts. 

The purpose of reading and understanding a procedural text is to be able to follow a series of precise, sequenced steps or directions that explain to the reader how to do something, while also allowing the reader to reach the outcome successfully.  In this particular case, the children read a Procedural text to enable them to create cone creatures for their amusement.  

Procedural texts can take several other forms, including recipes, instructions for how to do, use, or make something, science experiments and directions on how to get somewhere. The children carefully read the instructions step by step on how to make cone creatures.  They had a lot of fun colouring their cone creatures and using craft materials to give their creatures arms, legs, wings etc.  The second part of the activity required the children to answer a series of questions testing their comprehension of what materials and steps needed to be followed to make their cone creatures. They did an excellent job, well done JLC.

Recently, the children in the Junior Learning Community participated in an AFL clinic run by SEDA Boxhill.  SEDA is an independent Senior Secondary College that partners with major sporting organisations to facilitate education and participation in sport.  

AFL is Australian rules football which is a contact sport played between two teams of 18 players on an oval field with an oval shaped ball.  The winning team is the team that kicks the most points over four quarters.  During the clinic, the children learnt some basic football skills such as warming up drills, kicking and handballing which is an integral skill of the game and has the potential to be as effective as a kick.  The students played ball games (with the football) in two teams and also played a simple version of football against each other to try and get as many points as possible for their team. 

Good sportsmanship was encouraged as it makes competitive play more enjoyable for everyone. It was great to see them applying their game specific skills such as handballing and kicking and to see them having fun playing a team sport.  Well done everyone!

We recently attended whole school Mass. The Gospel story was from the book of John 6: 35-40. This passage tells of Jesus trying to explain that he is the bread of life from which his followers should take nourishment. However, the people did not understand and they wanted Jesus to give them bread to fill their tummies, but Jesus wanted to fill their hearts. When Jesus says he is the bread of life, he means that he wants to fill our empty hearts. Without Jesus, we would go hungry. We may have food in our bellies, but spiritually, we would have nothing without him. We could read our Bibles, pray, go to church, and serve others all we want, but all of that is pointless without Jesus. To help the children understand this message we watched a video, read the scripture passage and then shared our ideas about what the message was. We then engaged in a craft activity where students made a piece of bread from coloured paper which had written on it, 'Jesus said, “I am the bread of life.”’ These are now hanging up in our classroom.

Kind regards

Signora Gina Michieli and Miss Carly Wills

JLC Classroom Teachers