Fraction Action!

This last week we have been investigating fractions.  What they are, how we can make them and how they are different.  Read on to hear about some of our discoveries...

Artist in residence

 
It's all over, and WOW, what a show we put on!  Our annual artist in residence performance featured Valanga, an African drummer, who worked with us for the week.  We practiced hard, sung our lungs out all week and got sore hands from all the drumming!

Here is a collection of photo's from our performance, enjoy!

iPads... how do you use them?

Well, we've had our 12 iPads for a little while now, and to be honest, we're getting pretty handy at them.  We've been using them (along with the foundation students) in all areas of class.  We've taken plenty of photo's (Mr Lorback might think too many) around school, on excursions, in class, you name it.  We've been practicing our placemat words, our hand writing, reading and maths.  We've created buildings, ebooks, mixed up crazy animals and even some videos.  We've been able to produce class resources together, even from different iPads at the same time!

We've had plenty of fun whilst secretly learning heaps and thought we should share a bit of our work and some of our favourite apps with everyone.

Pasta

Its been a busy term, and whilst we've been a bit absent on the blog of late, we have certainly been busy in the classroom.  A recent highlight would have to be our recent 'trip to Italy' (more commonly known as our cooking in the staffroom).

With our chefs hats at the ready, a generous amount of flour we were set to whip up a pasta extravaganza!  We have an ebook on the way for you to hear all about it, but to keep you going, here's a collection of photo's that captured the moment!

Happy cooking and happy holidays!

Scienceworks. A junior school excursion!

Last week the Junior school students made the big trip down to Melbourne to spend the day exploring Scienceworks.  It was a frantic day, but an absolute cracker with plenty of activities and experiments to fill everyones minds!

Below are some of the days memories:

Which shape are you?

Lately we have been investigating shapes and have discover some interesting characters along the way. We've looked around every corner and searched along the sides and have to face it, there are some strange looking folks out there!  Check out the gallery below to see what we mean.

Pancake day

On Tuesday the junior school celebrated Pancake Day by cooking up a storm!  With plenty of parents available to help out the morning was a big success with plenty of sugar coated excitement running around.  Here are some stories and photos from the 1/2's, enjoy!

Welcome to 2014

Somehow it seems that we are half way through term one already! I'm not sure how that has happened so quickly, but it can only mean that everyone's been busy!  We've covered a lot of ground so far with information nights, interviews, bush dances and the fun run and it has been great to see so many parents  involved.
We've now had time to catch our breath and get the 1/2 blog up and going once again.  Our aim with the blog is to keep our junior school community involved and aware of the work that is happening in the classroom.  We realise that students aren't always full of information about their days, so hopefully you'll be able to use our posts to start discussions at home.
By browsing through last years posts you'll see the type of information we send out.  You will also notice at the bottom of this post is a 'comments' section.  The students love seeing comments from parents and friends so please leave your thoughts and questions so that we can reply.
On the right of the webpage you will also see a 'subscribe to blog' section.  By adding your email address you will receive all new posts straight to your inbox and be kept up to date without even trying!

So welcome to 2014, it promises to be a great year, so please follow along our way!

Cars have taken over our Maths lessons lately and have helped us with measuring length and estimating.  This week we have been looking at garages to store our zooped up machines.  Our first lesson had us estimating how many cars would fit into different sized 'garages'.  Yesterday we had to become engineers and construct our own garage that would fit exactly 4 cars in it.  Some of us were spot on, and others have a bit of work still to go.  Read on to find out how we went.

A Day At The Races

The Jazz festival may have wrapped up, but that didn't mean the good times were over for us this week!  With only one day of school before another day of the junior school decided to let their hair down and head to the races!

We've got the Blues!

Wow, what a big weekend of Jazz and blues in Wangaratta this weekend!!  All the students had been busy in the lead up with heaps of art projects that were put up across the town.  We also had some of our grade 1/2 students performing! Great job guys!  Just thought we would share a few pics sent through from one of our local businesses that got some health tips from 1/2L to help them 'Jazz Up' peoples health.
Did you see any of our other masterpieces around town? What did you think?

As everyone by now should know, Mrs Fahey is retiring into the good life at the end of term and Mr Murphy will be our new acting principal for term 4.  But who exactly is this Mr Murphy?  We've seen him around, but the 1/2's wanted to know a little more.  So we sat down and came up with a few questions that would give us an insight into our newest staff member.  The good news is that Mr Murphy has passed the test with flying colours (although we think his jokes might need a bit of work!).  Read on discover a little about Mr Murphy...

Emily Eye Finger

On Tuesday the 3/9 we went to the Performing Arts Centre.  We saw an act called Emily Eye Finger.  My favourite part was when the Mummy came out.  I liked it because it looked funny and scary.  Danny was the character in the act that I like the best.  I think that it was one of the best acts ever!

Written by Hannah

Cyber Safety... it's important!

Late last term we held a fantastic Cyber Safety Presentation along with ACMA (Australian Communications and Media Authority).  The night highlighted how to manage the risks associated with living in the digital age and broadening our knowledge of websites and apps that are commonly being used socially, including games, and social platforms.

Poetry

This week we have started exploring poetry during our writing lessons.  We have learnt that there are lots of different forms of poetry and are looking forward to exploring them over the next few weeks.  We have only just started, but already are feeling proud of the work we are doing and wanted to share some Onomatopoeic Poems with you, so please read on...

Mamma Mia! It's Fraction Time!

This week we gave the classroom the flick and headed to the Masterchef Kitchen for our maths lessons!  With chefs hats at the ready we were looking the part and set to explore the use of fractions in the pizza world.
First we had to plan our pizza.  What would we put on it? What would we call it? And what fractions would we use? And equally as important, how good do I look in my chefs hat?

Exploring Patterns In Aboriginal Art

This week we will be exploring the use of patterns in aboriginal artwork.  Aboriginal artwork uses symbols and patterns to tell a story. Have a look at the collection below and see what patterns you can find. What story do you think is being told?

Please leave a comment with your discoveries, and the picture number you are talking about.

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Whole School Performance

Last week our whole school was lucky enough to have an artist in residence to teach us all about dance, family, culture and much much more! Bernard brought with him many cultural dances and equipment so everyone could learn something new and also challenge themselves.

The grand finale on Friday night was our whole school performance held at the High School which had a fantastic turn out and even got a few parents up on stage to show their moves (encore please!)

Twitter and what we've learnt

With the end of term fast approaching we're taking a step back and reflecting on what we've achieved and all the things we've learnt.  We've been using our blog to share some of the activities for some time now and have really appreciated all the comments, and feedback from everyone.  We really hope that you've been enjoying these glimpses from our classrooms, and would now like to share a little more with you.

After each lesson we spend some time reflecting on what we covered, strategies we used to help us, what we had trouble with and what we may have discovered.  Today we wanted to share some of our thoughts with everyone, and are trying something new to spread the word, so let us introduce you to our Twitter account!

Lets go shopping!

This week we've left school behind, taken a step into the future and entered the work force!  Funnily enough we've all ended up as shop owners, working hard to attract customers and sell our goods. It's been hard work of course, but we all earned some money!