NATURE'S CLOSE UPS!

Naming the dragons

Social media is a wonderful way to stay connected to things that are happening beyond our school walls.  We can learn from other people and share our learning too.  We (our teachers) saw a tweet from our friends at Museum Victoria (@mvTeachers). 

They wanted community help in naming the three Gippsland dragons. 

So we put our thinking caps on and completed the online forms ....

and waited .... and wondered

and then we finally heard that some of our suggestions had been accepted !

We are very excited ! 

Lucas said, " I was surprised and shocked that "Bubbles" was chosen. It was such a great moment.

Ava added, "I was so excited when I heard the name "Spike" announced! I feel happy that I have named her.

Eva agreed, "It was so surprising to hear the name Mohawk called out. I think it suited her because of the spikes on her neck!"

MEASURING OUR GARDEN PLOTS!

When you get outside, it's amazing how much can be learnt from one activity! Here's what we thought....

Hands on Measurement in Maths on PhotoPeach

I Am Australian

Emma: 

The Chorus of the song "We are Australian," says "We are one but we are many and from all the lands on earth we come, we’ll share a dream and sing with one voice I am,you are, we are Australian." It’s like a puzzle we are the pieces of the puzzle and eventually we will make a big puzzle.  

Artwork by Miles

Lucas:

Today we listened to the song,  “I am Australian.”   The question we had to answer was, What does this mean?

I thought the answer to this question was, that in each paragraph, was a different person’s point of view of their past and how they contributed to Australia’s history. People included the First Australians,Convicts and the First Fleet, World War 1 and 2, the landscape of Australia and Ned Kelly.

Artwork by Sophie

Caitlin: The song I am Australia is about the different perspective of different people’s point of view and that each person is an individual but together we are a family no matter where you come from.  There are three different perspectives No. 1 is about the First Australians, No. 2 is about the convicts and No. 3 is about gold-rush.  The song mainly means it doesn’t matter where you come from.. you are Australian.  

Artwork by Frances

Zac:
To me, the song “I Am Australian” is kind of telling the story of when the convicts were sent to Australia. Here are some of the words in the song: “Endured the lash, dry and barren run, child of depression and mother lode”. Here is what they mean: “Convicts, no water, time of poverty and gold”. The song means to me that we are all different people from different backgrounds, but no matter what, we are all Australian. It is a very nice song and I hope you enjoy it!

Artwork by Ava

Rosie

I came from the dream time from the dusty red soil plains........... Do you know that song? Do you know the rest of the song? What does that song mean to you?

Well, that song means that we are all Australian even though you might be a different nationality. The line "we are one, but we are many" means that you are one person but together we are one big family. 

There are 3 perspectives in the story. The first perspective is from the Aboriginals perspective, second- convicts and third- gold rush. 

Can you think of what it means to you? Watch the video!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jD3SkTyXzcE

FAREWELL MRS COFFA!

We'll miss you Mrs Coffa!

Rosie: What I loved was when you came and taught us new initiatives such as CS First. Thank you for teaching us about Twitter because it's nice to see what other people are doing on excursions.
Caitlin: What I loved was that Mrs Coffa always helped us and explained things so we "got it." But, most of all, you pushed down the walls of the classroom and opened up new learning and communication.
Alexa: I'm thankful that Mrs Coffa showed us Scratch because I have learnt so much.
Patrick: Thank you,Mrs Coffa, for showing us so many new programmes and thank you for taking your time for us.
Ava: Thank you for sharing all your ideas with us.
Hannah A: I am grateful for Mrs Coffa because she made us THINK outside the box and she helped us with new learning.
Declan: I especially thank Mrs Coffa for all the time and effort you have put into us...especially Coding.
Zach :Mrs Coffa inspired me to help other people on computers.
Sophie: Thank you, Mrs Coffa, for showing us good games and helping us learn. I learnt a lot from you.
Simon: I was happy you came in and worked with us and taught us new things. I enjoyed it!
Eva: I loved that you taught us how to work our Chrome Books.

Our Reviews of DigiTech tools

There are so many new tools around to help us learn about how we can actually create things with technology and not just be users.  We decided to explore a few and create our own Reviews.  They are of web-based tools. They were first impressions only but have a look and let us know if you would like us to review anymore !

PJ Day

A great day was had by all at our annual PJ Day and we raised plenty of funds with our gold coin donations for Melbourne City Mission. But a crucial part of the day was raising our consciousness about issues that may not affect us but, are part of many people's lives. We will continue to reflect about these things in the week ahead, especially making connections to the Catholic Social Teaching principle of the Preferential Option for the Poor.

Preferential Option for the Poor                            If the World Were 100 People

Homelessness

The Little Wooden Horse : exploring images

OZOBOTS

Today, we had our first amazing experience with Ozobots: tiny, but powerful robots!

We discovered that:

-the robot changes colour when it is on a coloured line-the ozobot can sense lines and colours-certain patterns created a tornado-you could use a code to control the robot-colours and the order of colours means different things-the ozobot was confused by white-the ozobot reads lines

We are spending time researching in order to developing our understanding of how to programme our Ozobots!

Marvellous Maths Strategy for Problem Solving.

Maths Problem-Solving Strategy #1: Draw a Diagram

Hannah A: It's easier to look for patterns in the numbers-you don't always have to add everything.

Rosie: It causes you to be organised.

Miles: You can combine the strategy with other ones such as trial and error.

Lucas: you draw what you visualise.

Caitlin: you don't need words!

Annie: key words, when reading, are still important.

Sophie: you need to put the numbers (labels) on your diagrams.

AUTUMN SKETCHES

Using the inspiration of Vincent Van Gogh, we created pastel sketches depicting "Autumn."

Autumn Sketches - Kizoa Video Editor - Movie Maker

Term 3 - Inquiry Unit begins

If I were the PM Competition

We have been busily preparing our speeches for the If I were the PM competition.

Ava described the process that we followed, "First we had to write our speech - long or short, then we worked with a friend and we timed each other so we knew whether to make it longer or shorter.  After that we edited our drafts to make it the right length.  The final stages were practising reading it out loud and then filming them"

The film crew (Alexa and Hannah A), experimented with a Chrome App, that allowed us to film and record straight to our Google Drive.  We also moved the camera around and tried to get the best results.

Tom thought "I thought it was good for learning how to speak out loud.  I liked how we write our own speech and said what we thought"

MATHS REFLECTIONS

This week our learning in reading has been,"How to read worded Maths questions." Here is what we are thinking so far...

Declan: use the diagrams to help your understanding

Rosie: find key words about what the question is asking

Caitlin: the key words lead us to answer correctly

Hannah B: check the text and the diagrams before trying to answer the question

Jordi: if the question is tricky, eleminate the obvious non-answers

Can you help us with some more?

100WC - Week 20

The 100WC presents us with ideas for writing and the challenge of responding in 100 words. Here are some examples of responses to this prompt:

Gai

As I sat on a bench  reading a book something strange happened. I felt a cold tap on my shoulder.Then I looked to my left. Suddenly a statue appeared. I wondered.

“That was strange,” I quietly whispered to myself.

“You got that right,” the statue replied. As I slowly turned my head around the statue was as still as a wall. Suddenly he started to move. “You got me, you got me,” the statue replied.

“I’m from another dimension,”said the statue. As I turned back around the statue disappeared.

“I’m never going to this bench again!” I declared.

Tom

“Hello, old chap,” the time traveler said.

“Wh…wh…who was that?” The old man jumped as he saw a bronze, eighteen hundreds man looking at him.

“Who are you..where are you… what time are you?” the old man was blurting out everything he was thinking.

“I’m from Werribee in 1854. You should also know I am a time traveler,” the time traveler explained.

“A TIME TRAVELER!” the old man screamed

“Well, I better be going now,” said the time traveler,

“Going! You only…” the old man couldn’t finish,

“Byebye” whispered the time traveler and the old man awoke.

Alexa

Statue alive

Outside a cafe a man sat down near a statue. Sitting down, he started to read.  There was no one around that could talk to him. After he read one page, he heard someone whisper something.

”Who is there?” he asked.

He thought, “No one can talk to me. No one is here.” He heard the person say something again,

“I’m a statue that talks,” the statue whispered.

The man sitting next to the statue jumped, in surprise and yelled, “WHAT!”

Now it was time for the man to go, but he added, “I will see you again.”

Lucas

Suddenly I found myself sitting on a chair next to a man who looked like he was from the future. I tapped him on the shoulder and asked…  

“Are you from around these areas?”  

“Yes, I live just over there,” the other man replied.

“I’ve never seen you here before,’’ I said with a big grin on my face.

That’s because my sister has a job here now,’’ the man started to exclaim.

“Wow!” I shouted, “Maybe I can get a discount.”

The man replied saying, “Sure.”

So I ran to the counter and asked

“Can I have a coffee?”…

Zach

I was reading my book on a bench with an old statue next to me. When I just finished the chapter, someone tapped my shoulder. I turned my left to see who it was. It was the statue. “A-are y-you a-alive?” I asked frighteningly.

“Yes,” the man replied “my name is Edward.

“Hello Edward” I squeaked, feeling a bit more confident “Have you ever talked to someone?”

“No,” Edward answered sadly ,“This is my first time.”

“Don’t be shy, just go out there,” I said. The statue smiled at me and I smiled back.