Gai writes: You might be wondering what is Ivory trade. Ivory is something that comes from elephants’ tusks that people carve into jewellery and statues. Ivory trade is illegal. The African government leader burnt ivory in a stockpile to tell people to stop poaching.In 1989 one leader said, “poaching has turned elephants into refugees. Zach believes: Ivory Trading is a huge problem in our world right now. There are approximately 500,000 elephants in Africa but 25,000 to 30,000 elephants get killed every year.
During the clip I watched, I saw people were trying different ways to stop poaching like sending drones, personal training and private places for the elephants.
I feel sympathy for all of the elephants around the world and I am very disappointed with the people who are poaching.
I think that there should be more bans in our countries and people should make more donations for the elephants. I wonder what poaching will be like in the future. I wonder if people have finally inspired poachers to stop what they’re doing or it will improve and the elephant numbers will go down until there nearly extinct.
I learnt a lot about elephant ivory today. I’ve learnt that ivory can be turned into lots of beautiful things. I’ve also learnt that there are a couple of ways to save the elephants such as people using drones to spy on people if they are poaching and then report it.
So, what do you think about poaching?
Tom thought:What I saw: I saw hundreds of millions of dollars go up in flames. Even though it is illegal worldwide people would do anything to get ivory.
What I felt:I feel distraught knowing that all of those elephants are getting harmed and dying because of these people. I also feel horrified by what they have done. The Gabon president quotes, “Poaching has turned elephants into refugees.”
What I wondered: I wonder how this catastrophic ivory trade happened in the first place. I also wonder what items have ivory in them that we don’t know of.Are there any problems that you want to talk about and please give some detail?
Luke wrote:
How do you feel about Ivory trade? I feel that we really need to stop killing animals such as elephants.What did I see? I see that they, are getting lonely especially baby elephants.What did I think? I think we are not treating elephants as we should.What did I wonder? I wonder why people would kill elephants just for their tusks?What did I learn?I learned that people carve pictures into tusks.
Alexa reflected: Stop poaching! I think poaching elephants is wrong. Poaching is when someone kills elephants or hurts an elephant for Ivory.What is happening?25,000 – 30,000 elephants have been killed every year and most of them from poaching. To stop poaching, countries have been burning ivory to show people that poaching is wrong. A leader even said that poaching is making elephants refugees.How I feel!Elephants are beautiful animals and I think many people feel sad for elephants and so do I!What do I wonderI wonder why people think ivory is more important than our elephants?What I learntI learnt how elephants are being affected by us.I also learnt that we should save our elephants.
Enjoy the latest art from Middle Matters! After studying Sidney Nolan's Gallipoli soldier images, we researched soldiers and nurses from the Gallipoli campaign. After practising our sketches, we applied a thick layer of paint, then sketched our chosen images with the handle of our paintbrushes. Gallipoli Soldier from Marg Yore on Vimeo.
This week we made Oobleck! We mixed cornflour and water and watched for the reaction. We were amazed to see that Oobleck could act as a solid or a liquid, depending on how we treated it!
First of all, our reflection about doing science....
Ava: science is fun because it's about trying something different!
Emma: I enjoy the hands-on approach of science
Eva: we learn from seeing and doing- I like learning that way
Ben: agreed that a hands on approach is a great way to learn
Annie: everyone got a go at being involved in an experiment
Lucas: I love the fun and mess of science Tom: Science is important for future learning
Now for our conclusions about Oobleck....
Ben thought it happened because the corn flour solidified it and the water made it liquify
Alexa thought that because you mixed a solid and liquid together, it was like they were fighting to be the star
Tom thought there was a chemical reaction between the water and the cornstarch
Caitlin thought it was because there was a solid and a liquid and the solid kicked in with pressure and the liquid had no pressure
Jordi learnt that when you hold the oobleck the "cogs" hold it together and when you relax your hold, the "cogs" separate Now we'll ask the scientists?? So we Tweeted it and this is what has happened so far?
So now one of the Middle MY students will try Cam's suggestion for their personal learning task!
Today we learnt about a tool that allows us to make a computer do the things we want it to. We started with a simple program called Scratch Jr. (thankfully there is a Chrome Store App for this and we can use it on our Chromebooks)
Here are some of the things we learned :
I learnt how to make my cat small then big – Emma
I learnt how to change a background – Jordi
I learnt how to program my cat – Tom
I learnt how to change my sprite – Sophia
I learned how to turn to the right and left – Ebony
I learnt how to change my background – Ava
I learnt how to add characters – Niamh
I learnt how to program a different way to what I knew – James
I learned to change my person and make voices – Rose
I learned how to make sounds – Lucas
I learnt how to make a cat invisible and visible. – Sienna
I learnt to change my cats direction – Siena
I learnt how to get big then small – Elva
I learned that you can make a play out of Scratch – Chantelle
I learned how to change animals and make plays – Matthew
I learned how make a voice – Jennifer
On Scratch Jr I learnt to change the background and add new characters I also learnt to change the colour of my cat – Raphael
I learned how to change my person’s colour – Sam
I learnt that you can make your sprite talk – Caitlin
I learnt how to make it flip, small and big – Annie
I learned to change characters – Hannah
I learnt how to change the colour of the person – Zach
I learnt that you can make the cat move over and over again –Hannah
I learnt how to make him talk and how to turn him into a lizard – Ava
I learnt how to make 2 different pages on 1 project – Sophia
I learnt how too use Scratch – Frances
I learnt how to change characters and delete them. – Declan
I learned to shrink and grow – Mia
On the first video I learnt how to make a car move. On the second video I learnt how to make animals race . – Frances
I learnt how to make a race! – Patrick
I learnt sounds speed and race’s and everything – Emma
It was great I could make a dog shoot a Basketball into a basketball hoop with only using three buttons – Lucas
We also used Google Classroom to shared our resources (our toolbox), our learning and our questions.
It was really exciting to see what we achieved in just one hour. Watch out for more sharing about this fun new adventure.
What a wonderful morning we spent looking at the presentations of the Term 1 Inquiry - Who am I? Who am I called to be? One of the highlights was the choice of a "Habit of Mind" to guide the Term 2 goalsetting. The top choice was "Persisting." Others wonderful choices included, "Creating, Imagining, Innovating" and "Thinking about Thinking."
At Monday morning prayer, the Seniors presented us with "Lent in a Bag." Today we explored one of the objects -the candle - and read from Matthew's Gospel 5:14-16 ..."You are the light of the world!"
Thanks Seniors!
Our Reflections
Declan: Showing other people the way...being the light to other people...being seen as the light like Jesus.
Patrick: We are called to be the light of other people's world. When your friends are in the dark, we are there to light their way. Don't blow out someone's light. It would be like being alone in the dark
Caitlin: The candle means to be a light in the world...make a difference in the world...be the light for someone and make it a more fair and kind world!
Rose: The candle represents Jesus, because jesus is the light of the world. We can light up somebody's world by being Good News and by reaching out in love and mercy!
Hannah A: The light means to show people the way and not to be a bystander. Be the one who helps people...show them the good way, not the bully's way.
Jordi: The candle means to shine your light on one another, to make people happier when they are feeling down. The candle is like Jesus beacuse he is the light of the world. We can also light up other people's world.
What an amazing experience it was watching my 3/4 class exploring Jackie French's picture story book, "Fire, for literary devices. Their excitement was palpable. Here's what they had to say!
Rosie:Dear Jackie French,
Today we read, “Fire.” “I really enjoyed how you used personification, similes and metaphors. Some examples are, "King fire has a short harsh reign" and "earth’s green children have come back, Peering from the word of black. "I also liked "hills bleached gold".
From Rosie!
Alexa:
My favourite thing was all the great personification such as, ‘Earth's green children have come back.” I just could not stop myself from reading it over and over again. Can you please please write a book like this one . Bye from Alexa
Patrick:
Dear Jackie,
Today we read, “Fire”. It was a fantastic book and the part I enjoyed was when used a simile with, “Winding like a small black snake”. I liked it because it went into the detail and fire is like a small black snake. And the illustrations were really realistic ...I loved the illustrations. I also I like how you called fire the "monster" or the "beast."
Zach:
Dear Jackie ,
Today we read the book “Fire.” I really loved it when you used personification and wrote, “Trees licked by tongues of fire, Flames are laughing, higher, higher.” I also loved that simile when you wrote, “Winding like a small black snake.” But the reason why I really loved it was because you really got in there and described it very well.
Thanks to a great Scootle Object, we were able to explore our understanding of emotive language as a device that helps us when writing a persuasive text! Emotive language means words that describe something and make you want to do that thing...Hannah A Emotive language is a kind of text that we use for persuasive writing...Annie
....by Caitlin
When you use emotive language, you are using your emotions to tell someone about something...Emma Emotive language is emotions changed to words...Ava
...from Miles
With emotive language you are persuading the readers to come to the place you are advertising...Declan
...from Jordi
Emotive language is trying to convince people to change their mind...Miles
This is our first movie for 2016! We have been debating the worth of handwriting after finding out that Finland has scrapped the teaching of handwriting. The Years three and four students completed all the filming themselves!
As the year draws to a close, the students from Middle Matters have completed their amazing inquiries into Climate Justice.
This brief snapshot of presentation slides gives a glimpse into how they've made the connections between the facts,the Global Goals, Catholic Social Teaching and the papal encyclical, "Laudato Si."
Furthermore, they have raised awareness amd discussed possible actions that can be taken, even as a primary student!
