Junior School News
Year 3 Program of Inquiry - Sharing Our Planet
Year 3 has been studying how ‘Living things interact within ecosystems and humans play a significant role in their conservation.’ This inquiry was designed to complement Learning from Home and students took advantage of studying animals and their ecosystems by watching Live Streams from various zoos and reptile parks across Australia and the world. Students researched and created their own fact file for an animal. They even shared their own wildlife documentaries and Zookeeper talks on Seesaw.
Year 3 started by looking at Australia’s main terrestrial ecosystems, their living and non-living features and then compared its deserts, rivers, mountains and rainforests to those in Indonesia. We located these features on a map, then researched animals that are endangered or threatened due to changes in their ecosystem, including the Australian Numbat and Indonesian Orangutan. We developed our summarising and questioning reading strategies and discovered how the Eastern Lowland Gorillas habitat in the Congo is being destroyed by unregulated mining, poaching and deforestation.
Did you know that the minerals and ores such as coltan, are in huge demand by the smartphone industry? This country has one of the richest deposits of coltan and is the world’s largest supplier of cobalt.
Action: WE’RE CALLING ON YOU!
We want to help the gorillas by recycling mobile phones. By doing this, we can divert some of the metals in smartphones from waste and reduce the demand for further mining. The Junior School will participate in Taronga Conservation Society Australia’s ‘They’re Calling on You’ campaign, collecting old and damaged mobile phones for recycling.
Between Monday 1 June and Monday 30 June, Year 3 will have a mobile devices collection box in the Junior School office. Simply send in any mobile phones, chargers, or tablets that you no longer use and together, we can help protect wild gorillas.
PhoneCycle will donate all the money raised through our collection to support the Jane Goodall Institute, Australia’s essential primate conservation in Central Africa. To read more about the program, visit https://taronga.org.au/conservation-and-science/act-for-the-wild/theyre-calling-on-you.
Mrs Erin Burton and Mr Benjamin Fuser
Year 3 Teachers
National Simultaneous Storytime celebrations
On 27th May our Junior School students participated, along with over 1 million other Australians, in National Simultaneous Storytime. This is an annual event organised by the Australian Library and Information Association, with the aim of encouraging as many people as possible to read the same book at the same time.
This year’s book was 'Whitney and Britney Chicken Divas' by Lucinda Gifford. Students studied the book in the week before the event and were excited to see the Whitney and Britney (AKA Mrs Husband and Mrs Cosentino) holding a dance party outside the Library before school. Then, at 10:30am every class watched the book being read by every Junior School staff member.
We’re so looking forward to next year!
Rachael Cosentino
Teacher Librarian/Literacy Specialist
Year 2 Writing
Year 2 have been learning to write interesting orientations at the start of a narrative. We have worked hard to include, who, where, when, why and what is happening at the beginning of a story, as well as trying to include great adjectives, adverbs and vocabulary to enhance our writing. Here are some examples of our great work below.
Junior School Religious Education - Champagnat Week
This week at St Gregory’s we are celebrating Champagnat Week, an important week in our College where we celebrate the life of Saint Marcellin and his living impact on us as Marist people.
In the Junior School this week, we are celebrating a different characteristic each day and are learning what it means to be Marist.
On Monday, we celebrated the first Marist attribute ‘Love of Work’.
Marcellin showed us the importance of being ready to “roll up our sleeves”, prepared to do whatever is needed for the sake of our work. We follow his example in being generous of heart and showing perseverance in our daily learning.
The teachers were asked to pick four students who consistently demonstrate a ‘love of work’ in the classroom for a special award.
Well done to these students.
On Tuesday, we celebrated the Marist attribute ‘In the Way of Mary’. Mary is for us the perfect model of the Marist educator, as she was for Marcellin. We try to be like Mary in our lives, saying “yes” to God.
The Junior School students celebrated by creating rosaries through craft in the infant classes and praying a decade of the Rosary in the primary classes.
On Wednesday, we celebrated the Marist attribute ‘Presence’. Marcellin acknowledged Jesus’ presence in his life and acted upon this, trying to live a life of mission. We celebrated by watching a wonderful liturgy in the Senior School which was live-streamed to our classrooms.
On Thursday, we celebrated the Marist characteristic ‘Family Spirit’. Marcellin started the first Brothers community and they were united in heart and mind. Their relationships with each other were like a family.
To celebrate this ‘unity’ and ‘family spirit’, the Junior School watched the Year 12’s take part in the battle of the codes.
On Friday, we celebrated the last Marist characteristic ‘Simplicity’.
Marcellin was a believer in ‘doing good quietly’, being genuine, humble and modest.
At St Gregory’s, we try to be like Marcellin by trying our best and being humble about our achievements, proud of others when they succeed and honest with each other.
To celebrate, the Junior School completed a range of Champagnat activities in class and received a prayer card to end a wonderful week.
Ashley Mazzo
K-6 Religious Education Coordinator