A Day in the Life of a Kearnan Student

Arriving at School
I am so happy to arrive at school! When I see Mrs Riddell, I often shout a big hello as I am coming down the path, greeting her with a huge smile as I shake her hand when I get to the classroom door. Then, my busy morning begins, I have lots of jobs to work through! The first few are self-care jobs – important things to do that help me to look after myself. First, I unpack my bag by taking my fruit to the fruit basket, putting my drink bottle on the drinks table and placing my folder in the diary basket. Before going inside, I decide whether I would like to hang my hat on my peg or leave it on the wall ready for outdoor engagement. Once inside, I wash my hands and take my stone to the prayer table. If I have a morning job, such as taking the purple folder to the front office or preparing morning tea, I begin, but if not, I am free to choose from books, puzzles or play at the light table until the bell rings for our morning muster.

Morning Muster
This week my job is to ring the bell throughout the day. I ring gently and tell the children that it is time to “reset and sit down for our morning muster”. The ‘bell ringer’ also has the job of starting with the message stick. I say, “Kaya, Elsie” and pass it on to someone sitting next to me. Once everyone has had a turn, we say our special Kindy Acknowledgement of Country and our morning prayer. We are learning the sign language for our morning prayer, and I have just about mastered it all. Once we have finished, we practise the days of the week pattern and talk about yesterday, today and tomorrow. Mrs Riddell writes the date up on the board and we all join in by saying the year, “2025 years, since Jesus was born”. Next, I watch the weather reporter count how many children are here and how many are away. She writes the numerals up on the board and then goes out to make her weather observations. I was the weather reporter last week and I LOVED it! While the weather reporter is checking the sky, I listen to our flow of the day – all the things we will be doing in Kindy. Monday is our music lesson day which I enjoy, but I really love sport on Wednesday. Finally, we hear about the weather and then get ready for morning fitness.

Morning Fitness
In Term 1, we do yoga every morning and I am learning a lot about my body; how to move in different ways, how to balance, how to be calm and what I can do to become strong. Today, Mrs Riddell asked us if we would like to do something a little bit different, just for a change. She took us out to the big playground on the oval. I had so much fun climbing and sliding but my favourite thing was to play in the boat, pretending that I was going on a camping trip with my friends.

Morning Lessons
We have an English lesson, and a Mathematics lesson most days. I have been learning to listen carefully to the different sounds I hear, how to blend little words to make bigger words and how to listen for the last group of sounds so I can create rhyming words. I am so good at rhyming words, and I sing our rhyming words song with great confidence! I also might have a lesson by myself with Mrs Riddell – this morning she presented the press-stud frame to me.

Provocations and Invitations
There are so many shelf jobs that I can work through. Some are there to help me develop hand strength and dexterity, some are there to help me learn practical life skills, and some are there for sensorial and maths learning. Mrs Riddell thinks play is the child’s work so she calls them jobs or work. I enjoy building in the block space with my friends or making orange juice, but I really love drawing and writing. We have been learning about primary and secondary colours in our Tuesday art lessons. Mrs Riddell gave me the colour mixing lesson last week, so I was practising mixing secondary colours today. I was also working on the small buttoning frame – I have nearly mastered it! Both jobs are so good for practising my pincer grip and working on my coordination and hand dexterity.

Morning Tea
We have a morning tea table that we go to eat at whenever we are hungry during the morning. It becomes the afternoon tea table later in the day! I have not had the job of preparing the fruit for morning tea yet, but I will soon. Once we have had morning tea, we wash, rinse and dry our bowls.

Outside Play
We often have the choice of free-flow indoor and outdoor play, once we have had our lessons and we have worked through some of our jobs. When the siren sounds, we all go outside to play with the Pre-Primary children. We do this twice a day; at recess time and then again after we have had our lunch.

Music Lesson
Mrs Jacob is our music teacher. The Pre-Primary children come to our classroom, and we join for singing, dancing and instrument-playing. I am a great singer, and I can often be heard singing the songs I have learned at home, and at school, throughout the day. During our lesson, Mrs Jacob teaches us about rhythm and melody and today we looked at music notes for the first time. I also like our other specialist lessons, library and sport. We go to the library on Tuesday and sport on Wednesday.

Lunch
Because it is our music day, we have a picnic lunch on the verandah with the Pre-Primary children. If it is not a music day, we have it inside at the table. I always have such a delicious lunch packed for me. Today I had a ham and cheese wrap, some yoghurt and fruit, and teddy biscuits. I was comparing my teddy biscuits with my friend Sophie; we had the same ones! Sitting together at lunch is another lovely time during the day for me to talk together with my friends and teachers about lots of different things. Once I have finished my lunch, I take a warm flannel and wash my face. I put away my lunchbox and then come back to tidy up. If I have dropped any crumbs, I sweep them up, and then I wash my side of the table and my chair. After I have finished, I am free to choose a job before I go outside for another play.

Rest
After outdoor play it is time to come in and go to the bathroom to ready us for the opportunity to reset our minds and bodies. Today, I listened to a guided Christian meditation about how much God loves us. On Tuesdays we will listen to different types of meditations from Jamie at Cosmic Kids and on Wednesday we usually listen to some restful music.

Afternoon Lesson
Because I had my music lesson this morning, my maths/sensorial lesson was this afternoon. Mrs Riddell showed us the red rods. Their job is to help us develop visual discrimination of length and order and a sense of distance, as well as help us develop our concentration skills. Now that I have had this lesson, I can begin to create different maze patterns. I can read all the numerals to ten already and match the right quantity to each number. My next step is to learn how to write them. We have sandpaper numerals which help us to practise the correct direction. On Tuesdays and Wednesdays, we will have Religious Education, protective behaviours or Science and HASS lessons.

Provocations and Invitations
Just like this morning, I have some time for some inside engagement – working through jobs and activities so I can practise the concepts and skills of the explicit instruction I have been given in my lessons. I really wanted to do the orange juicing job this morning but other children were waiting before me. Mrs Riddell doesn’t have lots of the same things on the shelves because she would like us to practise patience. She says that we don’t always get to take our turn straight away, but if we say, “Can I have a turn when you’re finished, please?” people will know we are waiting. I finally got my turn this afternoon. I had to use such strong hand muscles to press and squeeze the orange at the same time; it was really hard work! I took out all the pips, poured the juice into my glass and enjoyed drinking the sweet juice. Once I had finished, I washed all the dishes, dried them and got them ready for my friend Sophie who was waiting to go next.

Afternoon Muster
When it was time, I rang the bell for the last time today. I told the Kindy children that it was, “Time to reset and come to the mat for afternoon muster”. In our daily reflection this afternoon, we talked about what we loved most about our school day. I thought it was really hard to choose but I told everyone that I loved going to the playground for morning fitness. Once everyone had their turn, we said our afternoon prayer. Then we began listening for our names as our people came to pick us up. When I heard my name, I said goodbye to everyone, took my stone from the prayer table to put in the basket ready for tomorrow, and off I went outside to see my dad. I always greet my mum and dad with such a big smile and a cuddle! Now its off home to finish off my big day.

We begin our day getting our diaries signed and putting a new book in our satchel ready for homework. Now we do CCCs (care, concerns, and celebrations) to share with each other what’s happening in our lives. Then we do Spelling Mastery to practise our spelling skills.

We eat our Crunch ‘n Sip. We read and practise our fluency, comprehension and learn new words. At the moment we are also reading the novel Matilda by Roald Dahl as a class. During writing, we practise our narrative and persuasive texts. We are learning how to punctuate with full stops, commas and quotation marks.

We love recess because we get to have a break and play with our friends. We love to eat food, yum, yum! We play on the oval and at the nature playground. We love to climb trees.

After recess we do Maths, the best subject in the world. We like Maths because we get to multiply, subtract and divide. We use objects and whiteboards to help us solve different problems.

Sometimes we have other subjects: Art, Music, Italian and Sport. Art is fun because we can paint, learn about artists like Van Gough, and chat with our friends. Music is fun because we play instruments and sing, la la la la la! In Sport we practise our throwing, catching and have been practising for our sports carnival. Bonjourno! It’s cool to zoom in to our Italian teacher, we don’t have any other lessons where we get to do this.

Lunchtime is the best! We get another break to fill our tummies, reset our brain and play with our friends. Sometimes we are in the middle of a game and we have to stop it early because we have to go inside. There are friends who are creative and make great games. If we have any friendship fires, we talk it out. We’re always friends in the end.

Science is interesting and exciting because we get to make experiments. At the moment we are looking at the length of shadows and earth’s rotations.

Religion is relaxing. We learn about Jesus, God and get to make our own prayers.

The best thing about our class is that we have very kind people in it. We are all unique and that’s OK.

At the end of the day we are so relieved to relax and go home after our day of learning and socialising.

When we first walk into the classroom, we get ready for the day and do our Year Six jobs, such as flags, messages and lunch baskets. Then, we split into five groups to do Spelling Mastery. After Spelling, we practise our fluency, learn new vocabulary words and do our novel studies. This term we are reading Hatchet, which we all look forward to reading! We read one chapter a day and complete an activity such as our comprehension booklet to reflect on our reading.

For Period Two, we walk to the woodwork room to meet Mr Goddin. In woodwork, we are working on robots using screws and nails. Then, we have a recess break where we eat, play and run around.

After recess, we have Writing, where we are learning to write an action story using tools from our toolkit. Then, we have Mathematics. We begin with a whiteboard warm-up and complete the activities in our Stepping Stones book. We also do fluency warm-ups using 99Math and consolidate what we’ve learned using Mathletics.

Right before lunch, we have Catalyse with Ms Burvill, where we do stretches and exercises.

After lunch, we settle down by doing gratitude and silent reading. Then, we have Religion. At the moment we are making posters about vocations which include priesthood, consecrated religious, single, married, and family.

After Religion, we pack up for the end of the day, do our jobs, and get ready for Phys Ed with Miss Webb. We play sports such as cricket, basketball, and soccer, and are currently practising for the interschool sports carnival.

That’s the end of our day in Year 6.

Arrival
I arrive at school around 8:15, 30 minutes before it begins. This gives me time to unpack and organise my locker, and hangout with my mates while we shoot hoops on the school courts until the bell rings. We’re also given other options such as visiting the library, or playing footy and soccer on the oval, which we share with the primary students as well.

Homeroom:
After the bell rings, I gather the things I need for the next two periods and meet my peers in Kelly (my House) in Room One. Over the course of the next 15 mins, the homeroom teacher marks the roll, reads out the notices to inform students about significant events or changes for the day, and leads prayer. I’m also able to catch up with friends or even make new ones until homeroom ends at 8:55 and we move to Period One.

Period One & Two – Outdoor Education
Outdoor Ed is the best way to start the day. In this subject we take part in team-building activities to build on everyone’s strengths and weaknesses. We’re also taught about safety and how to act in an emergency, and we ride bikes or hike on tracks around the school to improve our fitness for the coming camp.

Recess
During recess I meet up with my friends, eat my snacks, and occasionally shoot hoops on the courts or kick the footy on the oval. I am also able to sit with my friends on the grass or benches, and enjoy the sunshine in Wanju Place, the main quad area for the high school.

Period Three – HASS
Humanities and Social Sciences is a very interesting and important topic that helps us make meaning of the world. We talk and debate about the national innovation system, real world issues, and the developments within our society, culture, and individual identity throughout the four main topics: History, Geography, Economics and Civics and Citizenship.

Period Four – Science
This subject is one of my favourites because the content we’re taught about is so interesting to learn. We’re allowed to perform exciting experiments with Bunsen burners in Chemistry, and more physical investigations like the Water Bottle Rocket investigation we performed and wrote a lab report about with the help of our awesome teacher.

Period Five – Religion
I see religion as an easy-going and enjoyable period where we’re taught about Catholic beliefs and the beliefs of different religions and the importance of recognising our inner questions.

Period Six – Maths
Maths lessons can be really fun, particularly because my teacher, Mrs Lockwood, is such an easy going, patient, and lovely person. In this subject, we learn about many different strategies to calculate answers to a whole variety of topics such as algebra and linear equations. We also participate in online quiz games with the class, and brain break games after a trying maths session, giving us a chance to gain chocolates and merit points if we win.

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