BEHIND THE NEWS - IVORY TRADE

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.

VALUING SELF- ASSESSMENT

We have been using a rubric to self-assess our writing. This is what we thought about afterwards!                    

 Annie said, "You can use your mistakes to improve."

Emma reflected, " You get to know your strengths and challenges and begin to work on the challenges."

Ben thought, "You know what you are good at so you can improve in other things."

Ava said, "It helps you know what you should improve upon."

Alexa noted," You will know where to improve the next time you write this sort of text!"

LITERARY LANGUAGE

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.        

EMOTIVE LANGUAGE

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

Scootle supports our learning!

AMAZING NATURE - HOW BABOONS HAVE ADAPTED TO CHANGE.

CHLOE WRITES: In the grasslands of Kenya there has been an amazing discovery about the Olive Baboon. An anthropologist has been studying the baboons for 42 years and say that that is not enough time to thoroughly see the baboon's natural habits.  The baboons have been suffering due to the human population doubling and climate and environmental change. The baboons then had to readjust their lifestyle when they changed their habitat. They then also had to change their diet to the prickly pear.

While other animals eating the fruit suffered the consequences like mouth and gut ulcers and internal bleeding caused by the hairs on the fruit, the baboons knew how to cope. The baboons rub the prickly pear in the dirt to get the hairs off and in the dry season the males would squeeze the juice out of the fruit and eat the skin after.Since they changed their diet to the prickly pear they have become healthier.The Olive Baboon is such a smart animal! 

Angus explains: In Kenya there has been a long term study on Papio Anubis. You may know Papio Anubis as the Olive Baboon.Baboons have been in trouble from land hungry humans doubling in around a decade,but climate change is also playing a part in the decrease of Baboons. As parts of Kenya were degraded the Baboons were pushed to their limits and started to eat Prickly Pears.When other animals eat Prickly Pears  they get stomach ulcers and internal bleeding, killing them, but baboons have adapted a technique to roll the fatal hairs off the Prickly Pears in the dirt.

This is Marvelous story of evolution…

Ciaran notes: A unique species of primate has recently adapted to eating the harsh fruit in the boiling grasslands of Kenya…the Olive Baboons.

A patient anthropologist in Shirley Strum has been closely following these animals for a long 42 years. She has seen the dramatic changes to the outskirts of the towns and how degraded they now are. Against the odds, the baboons have demonstrated pure genius to overcome the dangers of such a powerful…fruit! The prickly pear is one of the toughest and roughest creatures around. If eaten, it viciously kills you. The intelligent baboons roll the dangerous fruit onto the dirt to scrape off the prickles. However, the baboons wouldn’t have had  to modify their diet if it wasn’t for us greedy, land hungry humans. The population in Kenya has significantly grown. In the last two decades Kenya’s human population has doubled. Our sometimes silly and disgraceful actions to purchase and take land we don’t need, nearly wiped out this beautiful species.  

A True Person: student reflections

A True Person- Gabiann Marin

www.newfrontier.com

Stephanie: "A True Person" is a powerful, meaningful and hopeful book with illustrations that use vibrant colours to enhance and bring text to life. The writing style was focused on Zallah’s thoughts and emotions throughout the book and used short and sharp sentences to really capture the essence of being held captive, unable to be free and being rejected. I believe that this book is much more than just a story. This book tells an important message to all who read it and leaves them in amazement and awe. The moral of this story is to never lose hope. The author was also protesting against the cruelty of Australian laws and how they are unjust and unfair.

Jamie: This story was a reflection on how Australia can be so cruel to immigrants and refugees who come here for a better and safer life.

I thought this book really connected to real life problems that happen to people in our world. The illustrations in the book were really powerful, such as the way the girl’s face appeared up close, because you could see her emotions when she was on her way to Australia hoping for a new life.

The story of A True Person had hidden messages.... never stop believing in yourself and that the governments may be cruel and unfair to immigrants and refugees that come to Australia.

Grace: In this story of "A True Person" I think that the illustrations go beyond the text because of the emotion that they show. In close ups of Zallah’s face especially, you can see the tears in her eye.

Reading this book made me feel disappointed because of the way that the governments treat asylum seekers. This also made me feel sad.

Ciaran:

This story gave us an insight of the harsh reality In our sometimes cruel world. It is horrible to think that behind the scenes, people treat others in a grotesque manner. The book ‘’A True Person’’ really nailed how inhumane this system is. Sending people to crowded camps isn’t  impressive and doesn't make Australia look good.  We can’t ignore this issue, it is a growing problem that must be stopped.  As a nation, Australia needs to understand and realise the fortune these people have. This story explains how life is for a large quantity of people. It shows that they need help and wisdom.

  

 

PLASTIC NIGHTMARE

The students usually write the posts for our class but, today I'm feeling proud of the great work they are doing so I'm having a turn! The actions being focused upon, in learning about writing an exposition, include writing a provocative opening sentence, using rhetorical questions and utilising modality when giving opinions. Some excerpts of writing, and the movie used as an inspiration, are included below.  Mrs Y

“Plastic Nightmare”
 From Steph....
During the 21st century, plastic bags are part of our everyday lives but do you actually know what the consequences of using them really are?

Australia uses about 4 billion plastic bags a year! That’s enough plastic bags to make a chain long enough to reach around the world 24 times, yet we still continue without considering the things that are suffering.

From Joe:

NO! NO! NO! Nightmares are bad but the worst nightmare is a plastic nightmare.Plastic bags, killers aren't they, by getting into the ocean and  killing the animals that live there? This is why we need to stop them and we must do it now.

From Chloe...

While you're busy with your plastic bags, do you really know the consequences of using them?

When you're finished using plastic bags they go to landfill, but they take forever to break down and they hang around for a very long time. Sometimes they blow away and sail around in currents until they are either eaten by marine life or end up on the shore.

From Eden...

Today we are in the 21st century, aren’t we? So why are we still getting millions of pieces of rubbish in our oceans? That’s what I want to know.

We use around 4 billion environmentally harmful plastic bags in Australia. That is enough to be tied up and go all the way around Earth 24 times but we still keep using them. More than 100,000 animals are killed each year because they have swallowed harmful plastic. Plastic is made from polyethylene which takes hundreds of years to break down.

From Will:

Are you busy using plastic for your daily shop when 3.5 million plastic pieces enter the sea everyday?

Australia uses a whopping 5 Billion plastic objects a year and 3.5 Million enter the sea a day, but in a year, 1,277,500,000 Bags enter the ocean…which isn't a good statistic.

UPCYCLING

After watching BTN's fabulous presentation on "Upcycling," we began to experiment with some key persuasive devices such as writing a provocative opening sentence, experimenting with rhetorical sentences and using modality to emphasise our opinions.    http://www.abc.net.au/btn/story/s4183196.htm

Here are some of our thoughts!

From Ciaran: 

Do you know the future of rubbish?... you should!! Everyone knows what recycling is, but do you know about the wiser upcycling? 50,000 kids in Australian are using upcycling and absolutely loving it. It puts some good fun and imagination into your life and it seems to be affecting the environment… in  an eco friendly way of course.

What is upcycling ?

Most the time upcycling products can’t be recycled. You take trash and make it into your own clever idea. For example school kids have been using old dirty tooth paste into clever little headbands. You must try this fun,creative,eco friendly idea.

From Elisa: 

So have you ever heard of the word upcycling? Well everybody should know what it means … Upcycling is where you can take trash and turn it into something new without changing its formation.

Well what is the difference whether you recycle or upcycle? When you upcycle the product stays in its original shape but when you recycle it turns into something totally different.

There are 50,000 children in Australia that are in a program where you bring things that can be recycled, then you make anything you want. You can even turn trash into a decoration!

From Brandon P: Rubbish is surely useless right? Am I right? Well actually no! Over 50 Thousand Australian children are doing something called upcycling which is where for example you take a toothpaste tube and make it into something else like a bag. Upcycling is actually nothing like recycling.  Upcycling focuses more on using the actual material to make something but recycling focuses more on breaking things down and using the material again.  Also upcycling uses things you would usually not recycle. I think that upcycling is a very good idea and if you have a little bit of spare time why not try it? You might like it and its good for the environment.So do you think that we should keep uncycling? Instead of throwing things in the trash, we should definitely upcycle.

From Joe:

Recycling has been around for ever but have you heard of the great thing called “Upcycling”?

There is so much rubbish in the world that we will not have enough space for it on earth so let’s Upcycle.

We must Upcycle to save the earth and the people on it or we could be living on smelly tonnes of rubbish when we are older.Upcycling is so easy because you can make so many things out of waste.

Upcycling is when you use the materials that can’t be recycled like toothpaste tubes and candy wrappers. It is absolutely disgraceful if you are wasting these resources that we can upcycle.

It seems to be that not lots of people know about upcycling and we are often only told about recycling and sometimes try recycling things that we can upcycle.

This should be something that everyone does in their day to day life.You should start that trend.

This is possibly one of the world’s biggest problems today and maybe even the worst so you must start doing this to save the world as we know it.So save the world and start a trend so that you can make a difference.Do this please!

WHY DO WE GO TO SCHOOL?

When we came to School this morning we were set a task by our teacher. It was to answer the question, 'Why Do We Go To School' and the whole class contributed. We brainstormed the answers and wrote them down on our Chrome Books. We came up with a number of great answers that we put into a google doc and our teacher thought they were brilliant... see below for some quotes about our thinking!

Angus and Will.                                            

Do you wonder why we all come to School?

Do you think its a waste of time?

Well let me tell you why it is so important...

We come to School to learn about Skills for the future that will help us evolve in life to become more independent and responsible…

We also come to School to take action and learn to learn.

School also encourages us to take action and work at our goals(Mine is Maths!).

School helps us to learn about the world and its different people and their cultures throughout the world from pole to pole.School helps us to realise we are part of a giant loving community. Angus

Here are some reasons why Senior MY thinks we should go to school!My first reason is for us to gain an education to help us prepare for the our future jobs and life. I think it is good to make friends and relationships with new people, that means we will never be lonely again.It is good to become independent, responsible and to be inspired to take action in the world. I think it is good to express ourselves-develop deeper thinking. Also to work for our goal and hopefully get there. Last but not least to learn to learn! I hope now that you have read this you will love school even better than before. Elisa

We come to school to help us take action into  the world and develop our own thinking skills.The most important thing is to learn how to learn really think dive deeply and express  yourself.We also come learn about not just our community but the world and environment around us.“So don't just sit there go outside go for a walk and learn” You may not notice but  learning is all around you. Grace

School inspires us to get good jobs. School helps us to be independent and responsible  for when we get older and leave our parents and live on our own. School helps us to think more deeply and to reach our goals. School educates me for future jobs and skills for the future and the last thing of all is we learn to learn.  Brandon C

                

LONE PINE

THE LONE PINE

From Tia:

“At last the sky clears.The years pass.The tree weathers many storms…but the Lone Pine still stands proud and strong.”
Lone Pine is a captivating book, which conquered my heart. It really makes me feel a connection to the families now and then. I now truly understand what feels like to have family involved in a war.Susie Brown and Margaret Warner used powerful language to create a heart-stopping story. The strong, sharp sentences make a lovely story.  

From Daniel:
The Lone Pine is a story about WW1 in Gallipoli, Turkey. Three brothers go to war for what they think is going to be an amazing adventure. But the soldiers of Turkey are ready for them and the the fight is short and fierce. Two of the brothers survive but one falls in battle.

The oldest brother finds a pine cone while searching for his younger sibling and posts it to his mother who is back home in Australia. She puts them in a pot and grows three small saplings from the seeds of the pine. two survive and are green and healthy but the last one weathers away and dies. She sends the first one to a place called Inverell. The second went to Canberra to the memorial for the war where it still is today.

From Tom:

You can feel the pain in the story of a lost brother, a lost child, possibly a lost father or husband. You don’t want to take things for granted after  reading this story, knowing that this happens every day, receiving the dreadful news of a loved one, gone forever....a truly beautiful sight for such a horrible battle!

The beauty, although, keeps us remembering them, thanking them, knowing our lives would not be the same because of them.~Lest We Forget~

From Will:

The lone pine is a sad but heart warming true story. The emotions it brings to mind move from the sad moments to the moments that fill your heart with joy. It's a story of remembrance that proves that a mother’s love is very, very strong...a family's bond will never break.

From Gemma: I love the amazing vibrant images and the way the illustrator Sebastian Ciaffaglone captured the story was incredible. This book was stunning. “Lest We Forget.”

From Ava:I feel terrified. Bullets are speeding toward us as we are running to war. Many have fallen in the time that has gone past, but I have survived till the end of the war. Now I am looking for my little brother who I still can not find.  I come across a pine branch that has a one last cone on it. I hold  it  tightly and smell the aroma of it. It reminds me of my mother's garden so very much.

The Piano: student response to animation

A beautiful animation inspires the students to experiment with some lovely creative writing!

The brief: a creative commentary experimenting with two new words - excerpt and juxtapose

Natalia: Do you ever wonder about the saddest and happiest moments of your life? In this touching excerpt, we see an old man playing the piano juxtaposed with some of his most memorable moments. I felt immensely sad when the man's wife appears as a ghost and kisses him on the cheek. When the man is a little boy, and receives a gift which he was clearly longing for, I felt his joy.

Madison: "The Piano" is a living music piece that takes us back to our own memories as the old man remembers his. ..The feeling is magical and sensitive, therefore my reaction is sadness and to be patient.

Madeline: Looking back at one's life, we see joyful and painful moments juxtaposed...The short excerpt from this old man's life was guided by the mesmerising piano song.

Tessa: Many moments in your life can be touching, from youth to old age...watching this clip makes me wonder what life will be like for me at that age.

Isabella: The old man thinks of the past, remembering things with the help of his piano. Playing the piano is bringing the passion and emotion into his memory.

Mia: Today we watched a short excerpt from an old man's life and saw how the piano made him remember and brought the tears down....all he has left is his grandson who plays the piano with him as they remember. The clip today was very sad and brought memories to my mind, too.