Junior School takes a splash!

Year One

I’m not sure if you have heard but the Year 1’s started SWIMMING this week and are just slightly excited! We have enjoyed splashing around in the pool for week one of swimming. The students are becoming more independent when getting ready for their lessons and love the bus trip to and from the pool.

During Mathematics this fortnight we have been focusing on counting collections to 100 by partitioning numbers using knowledge of place value. We have been building numbers into groups of tens then identifying how many tens and ones form the number. We have continued developing our skip counting skills too. As a class, we recognise that our confidence to count backwards needs to improve so we have made that our focus in Mathematics also.

Our fitness lessons have involved using our bodies to move things. We have been trying to build our upper body strength by crawling on all fours and tapping a spiky ball. We have also worked on our coordination by doing figure eights with spiky balls through our legs. It was tricky but we were able to have a laugh while we tried!

 

Our whole class spelling focus last week was the inflected endings ‘ed’ and ‘ing’. We searched in books throughout the week to try and build a large repertoire. This week we have investigated the word families –uck, -ick, -ock and –ack. We have continued sorting our words in small groups and have begun using the application Word Cloud to help concrete our learning of our sounds. 

Ms Behiels

Year One Teacher

Year Three

The Year 3 students have definitely made a SPLASH both in and out of the classroom this week! We have begun swimming lessons at State Swim and the children are enjoying the opportunity to practise and improve their swimming skills.

In English, the children have been exploring poetry. We have learned all about similes, personification and onomatopoeia. We wrote some wonderful poetry using the words such as BOOM, SPLASH and BANG. We have also begun looking at limericks and the importance of not only rhyming words but the number of syllables. On Wednesday, it was Remembrance Day and we used this as our topic for our very first limerick! Below are some examples of our wonderful work:

Gallipoli

Gallipoli is a sad place,

It was war they had to face.

It was very sad,

It was very bad.

We will remember them at that place.

By Jasmine Okello

Remembrance Day

There was lots of death and no fun,

Everyone tried to hide and run.

It was not fun at all,

They even had to crawl!

On the eleventh it was all done.

By Madison Breadsell

Miss Henderson

Year Three Teacher

Kindergarten H

In Kindergarten we have been continuing our exploration of how things work by learning about the water cycle. The children have spent some time exploring what happens when water is heated through a few experiments. One was by looking at how long it would take for their water paintings on the pavement to disappear on a sunny day and another was observing what happens to the escaping steam from a boiling kettle. We also made a comparison to the rain clouds in the sky by looking at what happens when a sponge soaked in water can no longer hold any more fluids. The students have made some beautiful art pieces to represent the water cycle, these are hanging in our classroom. The children have also had fun making music with bananas and play dough! Using the Makey Makey devices, the students used conductible materials to complete a circuit of wiring, which was then connected to a virtual musical instrument on a laptop. The students became very proficient at independently troubleshooting whenever a connection came loose. We have very clever and creative Kindergarten children at Holy Cross College!

Other News

Thank you to the parents and families for your support in ensuring the children have the correct equipment for swimming lessons. A reminder that there is still one week to go, concluding on Friday, 20 November. 

The Junior School 2016 Transition Day for PP-Year 4 classes will be held on Tuesday, 24 November. We look forward to welcoming the new students to the College and the opportunity for new friendships to be formed. 

The next Junior School Assembly will be held in Week 7, Tuesday 24 November. 

Melissa Croswell

Head of Junior School

12 November 2015