Junior School News
Buddies in the Junior School
A new initiative in the Junior School this year is to allocate our Year 1 students with a Year 5 buddy. It is a wonderful opportunity to promote friendship and leadership with our younger and older students in a similar way as our Year 6 and Kindergarten students.
The students will meet every second week to support the Year 1 students in their “Discovery Learning” activities. Such learning will fit perfectly with the PYP Program as it promotes inquiry, collaboration and investigation.
Their initial introductions took place last Friday in the Year 1 classrooms and the teachers were thrilled to see the positive interactions that took place. The smiles and laughter provided both the students and teachers with great confidence as to the success of the program moving forward.
The year ahead promises tremendous possibilities for both grades and the future of the initiative. We can’t wait to share what happens in 2021.
Year 1 and Year 5 Classroom Teachers
Students who like maths are better at it: Research
By: James Wells in In The Classroom, News, News, Podcasts, Radio+TV, Top Stories February 9, 2017 0
In an unsurprising finding, a German study has concluded that students who find maths to be fun are better at it. This reinforces recent calls from experts, including Western Sydney University’s associate professor Catherine Attard, that making maths fun is key to improving classroom performance.
“When children are actually having fun and enjoying themselves, they’re more likely to learn, they're more likely to be open to being challenged,” Attard said. “When you don't like something, then you're resistant to doing it, and so you don't learn as much, and with mathematics in particular, attitude is everything. So, with a positive attitude, and this idea that you can learn, it might be challenging, but you can learn, children are more likely to have better academic results.”
Try these ideas at home to make maths fun and part of everyday activities.
- Connect math to everyday life and help your child understand how math influences them (i.e. shapes of traffic signs, walking distance to school, telling time).
- Play family math games together that add excitement such as checkers, junior monopoly, maths bingo and Uno.
- Computers + math = fun! There are great computer math games available on the internet that you can discover with your child.
- When cooking, talk about different measurements used, such as teaspoons, millilitres, litres, and cups. Discuss ideas about empty and full.
- Using playing cards Playing with cards is always a fun activity, particularly on a rainy day or on holidays.
You can: » Play matching number games like ‘Snap’ with playing cards. » Order the numbers on the cards from smallest to largest, or largest to smallest.
- Ask your child the difference between each day’s minimum and maximum temperatures. Do they notice a pattern or trend in the weather changes?
Mrs Diana Ivancic
Assistant Head of Junior School
Casual Clothing Day
A reminder that on Monday 22 March, the College(both the Senior and Junior School) will be holding a Casual Clothing Day as a Lenten money-raising initiative.
For the privilege of wearing casual clothes on the day, students will be asked to donate a gold coin. Appropriate casual clothing is to be clean and have no offensive or inappropriate words or images; no singlet tops are to be worn.
Students must wear closed in shoes and boys who are in the workshop that day will need to ensure that they have leather-topped shoes. The College hair, grooming and jewellery guidelines remain in place for the day, and the College bag must be used. This is still a normal College attendance day and all scheduled lessons will take place as normal.
The College sees this as an outstanding opportunity for students to raise money and think about those less fortunate than themselves.
Mrs Polly Quirk
English Teacher (Senior School)
Kindergarten News
Kindergarten has had a fantastic start to the year! So much learning and fun have been going on and we can hardly believe it is Week 8 already.
Our Term 1 focus has been on how we organise ourselves. Our central idea is that the interaction between people and places can instil belonging.
We hope that all the 2021 Kindergarten students feel a sense of belonging at St Gregory’s and that they understand that their actions can positively affect the people around them.
We asked a number of students what they liked best about our school.
I love how the teachers look after us. Makenzie KB
I like how we are learning to rhyme and read big words. Isaac KB
We are learning so much about sentences. Scarlett KB
I like to read and learn. Hugo KB
The cleaners help keep our school clean so that we can have fun with our friends. Emily KB
Jesus is in our school and in our hearts. Taj KM
We get to make heaps of fun stuff. Seanna KM
I love playing on the hills in the playground because they are high and they are fun. Lucas KM
I like learning and I like seeing all the teachers. Alivia KM
I love that we share toys and friends at school. Noah KM
Kindergarten has been busy putting our learning into action as well. We have made posters to display around the school to remind students to put their rubbish in the bin and we made thank you cards to show our appreciation to the people in our school who help make it special.
Mrs Scott and Mrs Limbrey
Kindergarten Teachers
Five Games to Have Fun with Maths
Games are a fun way to get your child thinking, communicating and reasoning like a mathematician. Here are five games for you to play together.
Snakes and Ladders
This classic board game can help your child build confidence with quantifying collections, learning how numbers work and developing spatial skills. Players take turns to roll the dice to determine how many spaces they need to move. Landing on a snake will send you plunging down the board, whereas landing on a ladder will get you closer to the winning square. If you don’t have a commercial copy of the game at home, you can make your own.
Tiny Polka Dot
You and your child can play different games with this versatile set of colourful cards, aimed at children aged from 3 to 8 years. Playing Tiny Polka Dot can help build your child’s understanding of how numbers work, help them quantify collections, and develop reasoning and communicating skills.
Go Fish
This card game can be played with a standard deck of playing cards. Go Fish helps your child explore how numbers work as well as developing their skills in quantifying collections and patterning. There's also some strategic thinking required so they can outwit their opponents! You can shake things up by tweaking the rules to explore other mathematical ideas.
Connect 4
This game is similar to Tic-Tac-Toe or Noughts and Crosses and will help your child practice their skills in quantifying collections, strategic thinking and position. In Connect 4, two players compete to be the first to make a line of four coloured discs - either vertically, horizontally or diagonally. If you don’t have access to the game itself, you and your child can still play a version of it on paper.
UNO
UNO is a card game that develops your child's knowledge of quantifying collections, how numbers work and strategic thinking. It's played with a coloured deck of cards numbered one to ten, with additional special action cards.
The goal of the game is to run out of cards first, yelling UNO before anyone else when you have one card left in your hand. Coming in classic, junior and specialised formats, UNO is a game the whole family can enjoy!
Try some fun games as a family – the upcoming holidays are a great time to play.
Mrs Diana Ivancic
Assistant Head of Junior School
Junior School Show Team Makes History
St Gregory’s College Campbelltown has a long history of competing in various aspects of agriculture. Up until 1990, it was home to a commercial dairy, cattle, piggery and rodeo. For the past 95 years, young men have participated in cattle and sheep competitions and programs including the Royal Easter Show, Camden Show and Dubbo Show.
On Saturday 13 March, the College’s very first Junior School Show Team of students, both boys and girls, participated in the Moss Vale Show. These eleven-year-olds are the first Junior School students to have joined the Show Team, training each week with Hayley Mahoney. The team will hopefully attend Hawkesbury and Picton shows (COVID pending).
The students have learned to handle the cattle, groom them and parade them independently. An absolutely amazing opportunity for these young girls and boys. It has also been wonderful to watch the Senior boys mentor and support the Junior students during the preparation and showing.
It has been a great start and judging by its success, this promises to continue to become stronger every year.
Mrs Diana Ivancic
Assistant Head of Junior School
Year 3 News!
This term, Year 3 have been learning that an interdependent relationship exists between all creation. This means that all creation is connected to each other and relies on each other to survive. Creation also includes friendship, family and love.
We each chose an animal to research, wrote an information report and made a diorama of the habitat it lives in. Our dioramas show that there are many things that come together to help the animal survive such as food, and shelter from predators.
We have done many different activities to understand that creation is alive all around us and everything is linked together.
Written By Samuel Brown, Sasha Pereira, Caitlin Palmer and Olivia Sheedy
St Greg’s Students branch out to connect to the community
Students in Year 4 at St Gregory’s College Junior School, have been exploring how reaching out in love and service can connect communities locally and globally. In their Unit of Inquiry, the students have explored and investigated various people and organisations that reach out in love and service, to support the wide range of needs present within our community.
Throughout the unit, they were exposed to different organisations such as; Caritas, Marist Solidarity, Orange Sky, Helping Hands and St Vincent de Paul. Mr Jordan from St Vincent de Paul Macarthur visited the classes and shared the vision, mission and numerous day to day services they provide to people in the local area. A panel of students from the school community involved in outreach programs also shared their work, experiences and motivation.
The staff had recently participated in a Marist Spirituality Day in which they hand-made rosary beads to send to families in Timor Leste. The families see the Rosary as a form of protection to help guide them through their spiritual and faith journey. Photos of the staff taking action were shown to the students who then further assisted by contributing to the making of more rosary beads to send overseas. These beads were accompanied by personal letters to those they prayed for as they made the Rosary Beads.
This practical experience further strengthens the spirit of community that exists between the Marist Community here in Australia and our brothers and sisters in Timor Leste.
Mrs Diana Ivancic
Assistant Head of Junior School
