Are we there yet?

As a part of the Geography Unit and writing lessons, we collected research about famous Australian landmarks that were visited by the characters in Alison Lester's book, "Are we there yet?".  We used this research to write information reports. Here are some of the things that the students have learnt about some of Australia's most famous landmarks.

Zach and Nash learnt that the Great Australian Bight  is located along the coast of South Australia and Western Australia.  It is 918km west of the city of Adelaide. It is a very y long cliff face and has lots of surf beaches along it. It is a Marine national park and it is close to the Nullabor Plain. It was first discovered in 1627 by a Dutch seaman whose name was Pieter Nuyts. The Great Australian Bight is a great place to watch whales. 

Taylia  leant that the Sydney Opera House is located on the edge of Sydney Harbour, at Benelong Point. It is one of the most famous buildings in the world. It was designed by Jorn Utzon. Parts of the building look like sails on a boat. It cost $102 million to build.

Adrian and Jack learnt that the Three Sisters are located in Katoomba, in the Blue Mountains, in New South Wales. They are a sandstone rock formation. The largest sister is 922m high and the other two are 918m and 906m high. Their aboriginal names are Meehni, Gunnedoo and Wimlah.

Benita and Esha learnt that the Bungle Bungles are  located in the north east of Western Australia. The Bungle Bungles are made of sandstone towers and cones. They have horizontal stripes of iron oxide which makes them look orange.

Christian and Vance learnt that Uluru is located near the city of Alice Springs in the Northern Territory. It is a large sandstone rock formation. Lots of Uluru is hidden underground. Uluru appears to change colour at different times of the day.

Charli and Aleah learnt that the Daintree Rainforest is  located in the north east corner of Australia, along the coast of Queensland. It is the oldest surviving tropical rainforest in the world. More than 400000 visitors go there each year from all around the world and within Australia. 

Cade and Xander  learned that Wave Rock is located near Hyden in Western Australia. Wave rock is 15m high and it is a sandstone rock formation which has been eroded away by wind and rain. 

Ethan and Cruz learnt that the Sydney Harbour Bridge  is located in the middle of Sydney. It is a bridge which is 34metres tall. It is a steel arch and weighs 39000 tonnes. Cars, trains and pedestrians can travel across the bridge. 

People can climb right to the top of the bridge.  Sometimes it is called the “coat hanger”. 

Nathaniel and Thomas learnt that Katherine Gorge is located in the Northern Territory. It is a national park, 244km south east of Darwin. Katherine Gorge is a valley, with steep rocky walls. It was made when the Katherine River carved a pathway through the sandstone. Katherine Gorge is part of Kakadu National park and has many rapids and waterfalls. It is home to many freshwater crocodiles.

Ella and Brooke learnt that the Great Barrier Reef is located near Cairns, at the top end of Queensland. The Great Barrier Reef is a huge coral reef. It is the home to many beautiful fish and sea creatures.  The Great Barrier reef is larger than the entire country of Italy put together. Astronauts can see the Great Barrier Reef from space! 

Ryan and Bailey learnt that the Coorong is located at the end of the Murray River in South Australia. It is a river and a lagoon area with lots of beaches. It is very windy.

It is 152km south east of Adelaide and 61km from Meningie. It covers 50000 hectares of land. The movie “Storm Boy” was filmed there.

Sophia and Sienna learnt that Monkey Mia is located in Western Australia. It is a beach on the edge of Australia and is a part of the Shark Bay World Heritage area. Monkey Mia is famous because wild dolphins visit this beach every day.

Jemma and Charlotte learnt that Cradle Mountain is located in Tasmania. It is Tasmania’s tallest mountain.  Cradle Mountain is a national park made up of many types of rock, soil, pants and animals. Cradle Mountain is the home to the Tasmanian Devil. Lots of people go bush walking at Cradle Mountain. 

We then created a video using the green screen and an app called Green Screen by Do Ink, where the students read their research out and we created a background using the landmark they had researched so it looked like the students were actually telling us all about the land mark from the place they had learnt so much about! 

All about Addition and Subtraction!

In Maths lessons over the last week 1/2 F students haves been learning to use a variety of strategies to solve addition and subtraction problems involving one- and two-digit numbers.

We have used the Jump Strategy:

Jumping by parts of a number to solve a calculation.

For example: 4 + 12 = 4 + 10 + 1 + 1

Students have learnt to work backwards through some problems to convert them from additions to subtractions e.g. 8 + 10 =  … + 10 = 18

We have had lots of fun learning about these strategies and practiced using them by playing games and solving riddles.

Some the riddles solved were quite funny!

What do you call a snowman's tantrum? A meltdown

What do you call a cat on a beach? Sandy Claws

 

 

Floating on Air

Students had the opportunity to individually and collectively consider the questions: 

• What is air? 
• Where is air?

The class worked in pairs to collect air. Each pair of students had to predict where they might find air and recorded their predictions in workbooks.

Each pair of students had to use two plastic bags to collect as much air as they could and in any way they could. There were lots of creative strategies used to collect the air.  After teams  had an opportunity to collect air, they shared examples of where they found air and we discussed what we had learnt.

 

 

 

 

 

This is what are class learnt about air:

• Air is everywhere
• Air takes up space
• Air pushes up against falling objects
• Gravity pulls objects to the ground
• The shape of an object affects the rate at which it falls to the ground. For example, a flat sheet of paper falls slowly to the ground, compared to a scrunched up ball of paper.

Award recipients over the last couple of weeks!

Over the last couple of weeks the following students have received awards! Well done to these hard working students.

Week 4 Class awards. Well done to Vance, Cade and Brooke for your diligence to completing your work and trying your best in all areas of your learning!

Over the year students have worked hard to complete the Premier's Reading Challenge. The challenge aims to encourage a love of reading for leisure and pleasure in students, and to enable them to experience quality literature. Well done to Ella, Nathaniel, Christian, Charli and Sophia for receiving this award! You guys rock!

Well done Ryan, Sienna, Christian, Jack, Nathaniel and Esha! You have all been working diligently to learn lots of interesting and new things.

Grandparents day!

What a wonderful time was had on Friday morning, when we celebrated our grandparents and got to share in some activities here at school. It was terrific to see so many grandparents visit and the children were very excited to share the day with them. We solved puzzles, told a story using three pictures, painted sun catchers, read books together and we got to perform the Stockyards bush dance for our grandparents as well. Please enjoy some of the photos from the day.

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

Learning about Volume and Capacity!

In Maths we have been learning all about Volume and Capacity.

We have been learning to:

• pack cubic units into rectangular containers so that there are no gaps
• measure the volume of a container by filling the container with uniform informal units and counting the number of units used
• record volumes by referring to the number and type of informal unit used 
• estimate volumes of containers by referring to the number and type of informal unit used and check by measuring
• estimate the volume of a pile of materials and check by measuring
• learning about displacement of liquids