HEADING 8 9th August, 2019

1

LEARNING IN THE CLASSROOM

FOUNDATION: WHERE WE ARE IN PLACE AND TIME

As part of our unit of inquiry, we have been learning how the

interpretation of artefacts contributes to our understanding of

peoples’ histories. We have been learning about perspective and

how some people might hold special

meaning towards something and

some people may not. This is how

memories are unique to a person.

We read the story ‘Molly’s memory

jar’ which is about a girl who lost her

dog and reminisces about the special

memories she had with her. The

students then created their own

memory jar filled with special

memories that they hold in their

hearts.

As part of our SMART spelling program, students have been practising

reading and writing consonant blends. As teachers, we have been so

impressed with the words that they have been able to come up with that

start with each blend! Alongside many oral

language games and activities, they have

also been using stickers in their SMART

spelling books to record the letters that

make each sound in words that contain

blends.

Writing

Students in Foundation have been learning to write personal memoirs. They learnt that the story

needs to be important to the writer.

It focusses on a small moment in time. The story has a beginning, middle and end and students

refer to the first person ‘I’ when writing.

Also the memoir explains how the writer feels. Here are a few examples of memoirs written by

0OA students about a time they helped someone.

9th August, 2019

2

Exploring 3D Shapes

Foundation students have been identifying, describing,

naming and discussing the attributes of 3D shapes. They

have used language such as flat, curved, pointed to

describe the form of shapes, and learned about terms to

name features such as edges, faces and vertices.

Students explored which shapes could be stacked and

which couldn’t. They created 3D shapes using match

stick and playdough, and named the shapes of objects

around the classroom. Yaas from 3D discovered many

cylinders in her classroom; a gluestick, whiteboard

marker, a plastic cup and the counter container. What do

you have around your house that is a cube, sphere,

cylinder or cone shape?

9th August, 2019

3

JUNIOR SCHOOL: HOW THE WORLD WORKS

Excursion to Healesville Sanctuary

On the 29th of July the Junior school went on an excursion to

Healesville Sanctuary. We saw lots of native Australian

animals and learnt about their habitats, how they live and

what we can do to help endangered animals.

One of the highlights was the bird show. We saw a huge

wedge tailed eagle swoop past the crowd, there was a

Corella called Kevin who could talk and the pink and orange

Major Mitchell was beautiful.

A huge thankyou to all the parent helpers who came on the

day and Cintia who took these fantastic photos– we couldn’t

have these great excursions without you!

9th August, 2019

4

The Chickens

Our unit of Inquiry has been all about lifecycles

and how living things change over their lives. Over

the past fortnight Mrs Ks class has been looking

after some baby chicks so that students can

observe and learn about the changes that take

place. Students were lucky enough to see many

of the chicks hatch from their eggs. When they

first hatched the chicks were wet and tired but

after a while under the warm light they became

active and very fluffy. It has been amazing to see

the chicks hatch and grow!

MIDDLE SCHOOL: WHERE WE ARE IN PLACE AND TIME

The central idea for our current unit of inquiry is

Exploration leads to discoveries, opportunities and new understandings.

Students have been researching and reading about many different explorations including Captain

Cook’s voyages, The First Fleet, ocean exploration and space exploration.

They have looked at why people explore and what the consequences of exploration are.

9th August, 2019

5

Our text type is discussion where both sides of an

argument are given. Some students researched and

completed a text piece on

Was it a good idea for England to send convicts to

Australia?

To the right Ben has started writing his discussion

piece

Some student’s reflections on the unit so far

Nicola – We are learning about the history of people

who explored new lands and some of the disasters

they had.

Nicole – I enjoyed learning about people who explored

Antarctica and about Neil Armstrong.

Ryan – I enjoy learning about how Neil Armstrong

landed on the moon.

Numeracy

Our maths focus has been on fractions and decimals. Students have practised putting decimals on

number lines and converting between decimals and fractions.

Students enjoyed making their own fraction war game. They made cards with decimals, fractions

and percentages working at their own level of difficulty. They then played a card game with a

partner.

Some reflections on decimals after our unit.

Abby - Before I was scared of them because I didn’t know what they were. Afterwards it wasn’t as

scary because I had learnt a lot.

Xavier - I learnt that no matter how many zeroes are after

the decimal point it is still the same number. 0.5 is the

same as 0.500000.

A

9th August, 2019

6

SENIOR SCHOOL: SHARING THE PLANET

Biodiversity relies on maintaining the interdependent balance of organisms within

systems.

The lines of inquiry are:

Ways in which ecosystems, biomes and environment are interdependent.

How humans interaction with the environment can affect the balance of systems.

The consequences of imbalance within ecosystems. Exhibition Update by Lachie This week we are starting our research on our exhibition topic e.g. pollution, plastic in the ocean, deforestation etc. We get to investigate an area that we are really passionate about and we can take action. Action is a way we can make a real difference on the issue such as helping the environment and the community, saving our oceans. Make sure you stick around for more information about our exhibition in the newsletters. Exhibition Thoughts

Sam: I think we can all safely say that we all feel excited but also a bit nervous about exhibition due to the fact that there will be heaps of people looking at what we’ve learnt over the past few years. This exhibition unit is about maintaining the interdependent balance of organisms within systems. This basically means humans need to have certain things or we won’t be able to survive. These things include bees and water which are getting polluted by………US! Did you know pesticides kill bees? Overall we are definitely excited and extremely enthusiastic. Emma: We will be holding an exhibition on the 4th and 5th of September and we will be focusing upon the transdisciplinary theme Sharing the planet. For us as students’ exhibition is a chance to showcase our learning to the community and future high schools, it is a transdisciplinary unit that we can relate to and take action on to benefit the community. This year’s exhibition is focused on the idea that biodiversity relies on maintaining the interdependent balance of organisms within systems. I would like to design a presentation that is creative and different from others to give myself a chance to stand out and celebrate my learning in a unique way.

I Sea I Care excursion to Banyan Reserve in Carrum Downs, Frankston Beach and Kananook Creek:

On the 6th of August, the I Sea I Care ambassadors went to Banyan Reserve to watch Melbourne Water empty litter traps. The litter trap we saw being emptied was connected to the drain via hooks. The litter trap was a huge net made of green material with medium to large diamond holes to let water run through. The negative of this method is that some rubbish can still

escape the litter trap.

9th August, 2019

7

The Australian Government spends around $2,000,000 (two million dollars) a year on JUST emptying litter traps. With this money, we could build a proper recycling station or a system in Victoria where you take your bottles and get 5c back for each bottle recycled. Or even just making sure we dispose of our rubbish correctly, that’s not a hard task, is it? We could make even more of an impact by reducing the plastic and packaged items we actually buy, instead of finding solutions to our problem, stop the problem.

We also tested the quality of water of Banyan Reserve and filled a tube with the water and looked at and tested the PH levels of the water, electrical conductivity, reactive phosphorous and phosphate levels. We then looked for Macro- invertebrates in the water to see what kind of creatures live in the water.

Next we went to Frankston beach, we participated in a beach clean-up and some of us had a dedicated metre square area to try to find as many pieces of rubbish as we could in 5 minutes. Some groups were closer to the shore and some further so that we could see the difference between the amount of pollution found in different areas and what kind of plastics

and litter was found.

Many small pieces of plastic were found, we learnt that nurdles are small pellets of coloured plastic that can be found in the sand. Nurdles are bought by companies and melted down and used to create plastic objects and items.

To finish off the day, we went on a 2 km walk along Kananook Creek where we saw another litter trap, this time it was just a floating trap to catch all the litter. It was a long walk from the beach before we came to the litter trap. This means that everything that is going in the creek further down from the trap is going straight into the ocean. We saw 216 pieces of rubbish before we came to the litter trap. That is 216 pieces of rubbish potentially making their way to the ocean.

It was a great day for the I See I Care ambassadors because we could really see the problems our environment faces but also see the efforts being made by Melbourne Water, councils and volunteer groups to help. Most importantly we have more ideas about what we can do back at Heany Park and in our own homes. Nude Food is a great start and will really make a

difference and we are thinking of more ideas to put into place every day.