Reading Groups

Today we had our reading groups and we did such a good job. We are learning to come in to class and sit behind our groups reading box on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays without fuss. It means that we can start groups on time. We then began a new novel today, made connections with our text and even drew an image of the main character from our novel. We added key words to describe the character and some of us even used colour. We were on task and did amazing work. Well done 3/4T and 4S and thank you so much to the lovely parents that come into our classes regularly and help out with reading groups. We couldn't do it without you!

3/4T News Report

Today we looked at another school's news report video thanks to Sienna's mum! We were so excited to see another class put together a great news report and are going to make one of our own to share with the rest of the school. We got into groups of our choice today and began to think about ideas for news snippets. We thought of everything from buddies to Captain Cook, weather, PSSA and more. 

We talked about script writing and what that looked like. We were so excited to get started on our ideas in our groups and wrote lots of notes. I can't wait to see these take shape!

Using an Atlas to find the places Captain Cook visited...

Harmony Day and Stage 3 Country Presentations

For Harmony Day we were treated with two different lessons by two groups of stage 3 students. The first lot of students arrived at our class with pearls, shells and palm trees. We learnt a lot about Hawaii, had the chance to go scavenger hunting and ended with some dancing while wearing leis.

Our next journey was to 1T's classroom where the next group was set up with a huge helmet, money and a strange looking instrument. It was all about Greece. We got to actually touch and hold notes and coins from Greece. It is called currency. We found out the helmet was a Spartan helmet. The Spartan's were one of the most feared military forces in world history. They sounded really scary. The helmet had horse hair as decoration at the top, is made of metal and really heavy! We watched a Greek story about the Golden Fleece and the Greek God, Zeus. And then finally outside for a Greek game.

What we thought of our excursion...

Sienna (3)

Yesterday we went to the Endeavour. My favourite part was when we went down the rope and saw the hammock, tables and chairs. Punishments was the cat of nine tails. We saw that too. The Maritime Museum had some scary stuff.

Prue

Yesterday I went to the Endeavour. I went with my class. We went on two ships. The boats were called the Vampire and the second boat was called the Endeavour. Secondly I saw a lot of things. I saw a boat made out of cans.

Oliver (3)

I liked the Endeavour because they used to sleep in hammocks.

Medina

THe best part of the day was when I went on the boat. It was so fun when we went there. The boat's name was the Endeavour and the Vampire and the Vampire is real and it was cool.

Sheridan

I think the best part of the day was going on the Endeavour ship because it was really big and I think it was very interseting. I also liked the cat's job because it had to chase all the mice out and it freaked me out. Then when I saw the seats and I was told that they were also used as chests. I was...amazed!

Jemma

Yesterday 3/4T and 4S went to the Australian National Maritime Museum. We went on the Endeavour (the ship Captain Cook found Australia on), the Vampire (an old war ship) and we went inside the museum to see a bit about the first fleet and Australia. My favourite acitivity of the day was when we went on the Endeavour. I liked it because it made us travel through time.

Edward

The very best part of the Endeavour excursion was the Endeavour because it was amazing. I got to hear all about what people did in the times that no one knew about vitamins A, B, C and D so people got scuvy because they didn't have enough vitamins.

Navigator and Endeavour Excursion

The excursion on Tuesday was a great success! We had 100% attendance and were so glad that no broken bones or colds kept anyone away. I must say a huge thank you to the lovely parent volunteers that gave up their day to come along with us. It means so much to have great parent and school partnerships where we are all looking out for our children. This was especially evident with the excursion where we walked your feet off and still had you smiling at the end of the day!

The bendy bus was so long and warm with all our bodies in there that we almost mistook it for a travelling sauna. Thank goodness for open windows while driving which helped to cool us down. The trip there was so exciting, especially when the bendy bus went around a corner. 

We arrived a few minutes early and managed another toilet break before being met by Joe and the other teacher guides. Everyone, including the parent volunteers and teachers had to wear two stickers which would let us come and go from the museum. One was bright pink and the other bright green. Joe then talked to us about staying safe while we were at the Maritime Museum. We were a great audience and keen to know what we could do. There was quite a long list of museum rules we learnt about, like, 'no eating or drinking in the museum or on the ships', 'no running' and 'no touching unless you're told you can'. We did like the rule, 'you can take photos of everything!'

Bags, hats, drawing pads and pencils were squeezed into the bag containers outside the entrance of the museum. We got to use the large white bag containers that were numbered, 2, 3, 4 and 5 in large black numbers. The rest of the containers were being used by another school group who arrived just before we did.

After splitting into class groups and then again into groups of 10, we headed off to the Endeavour. What a beautiful ship. There was a slight breeze which made the ship lightly rock against the wharf. This was enough for some of our more sensitive tummies to feel a bit queasy. Mrs Taylor got to spend a bit of time walking those students back up on deck and then finally onto the wharf while we waited for everyone to finish. Lucikly a drink and something to eat seemed to settle everyone down.

We then had some time looking at the 'Navigators' section of the museum on dry land before heading off for a lunch break. This was time to catch up with friends for a chat, eat lunch and draw fabulous pictures of the ship, city and more.

The afternoon was spent looking at the Aurora Aboriginal artefact section where Joe guided us through some of the bark paintings and then onto the HMAS Vampire (an old navy ship) for a quick tour.

It was suddenly 2:30 in the afternoon and time to head back to school. We met back at the entrance to the museum to grab our bags and have our names marked off the roll before walking to the bus stop where we were being picked up. We were rather subdued on the trip back and I'm sure would have all slept well that night. We made great timing arriving back at school 2 minutes after the bell. What a wondeful day! 

Endeavour Excursion Part 1 on PhotoPeach
Endeavour Excursion Part 2 on PhotoPeach
Endeavour Excursion Part 3 on PhotoPeach

Assembly

Today not only did we get our normal fortnightly awards but we also had all the swimming awards from the swimming carnival. We had so many certificates and ribbons that Mrs Taylor had to take a photo of those lovley smiling faces! We even had a trophy handed out! Wow!

Look at those fabulous smiles!

100WC Team

We are very lucky to receive comments from around the world through the 100 Word Challenge Team. There are usually about 1000 posts from schools around the world and all of these will receive a comment from the 100WC Team. The children absolutely LOVE these comments. If anyone is interested in joining the 100WC Team and commenting on approximately 10 students' stories a week they'd love to have you sign up. No experience necessary! The stories are only 100 words long and don't take long to read but the comments mean so much to the students. If you have time or know someone who does. Please follow the link below and join up.

http://100wc.net/team-100-wc/

More comments on our 100WC Posts

We've started putting our 100WC posts on our class website because students from other schools couldn't comment on them through the school's portal unfortunately.

Check out some of this weeks 100WC posts at:

http://www.mrstaylorsclass.com/100wc-posts.html

Here are some of our recent comments:

Hi Justin - thank you for this exciting 100wc! I'm particularly impressed by the punctuation you've used - you're clearly very confident when using speech marks! I'd have loved to hear a bit more description of the asteroid - perhaps include that rather than squeezing in that ending. :-) Mr K (Team 100wc)

I like this story, it has a good plot, and it is hard with 100 words, but I think the sentences maybe should vary a bit more in length, or need some commas to break them down a bit, its an amazing story though, well done! from Georgia 

Fulneck school Leeds  Yorkshire, United Kingdom

Hi Sheridan Your story could have so easily developed into a long adventure story. Well done. I am very inquisitive and would like to find out more about your flower and what it actually looked like. I particularly like the phrase such crazy news. Keep writing.

Mrs Lynch (100WC Team)

Art and Paint

Today we painted for the first time this year. What an exciting activity! We have some artists in the making in our room! Our class and especially Mrs Taylor would love a parent who is able to come and help us during art lessons when we're painting. Art lessons are on a Thursday in the half hour before and after lunch. Please email me if you're interested. 

We still don't have all our paint shirts in. Any old t-shirt will do. One of mum's or dad's old t-shirts will be perfect. They're easy to slip on and off and usually protect uniforms well.

For those that come home with a little bit of extra colour on them here are some washing tips:

http://www.kidspot.com.au/funzone/Stain-removal-How-to-remove-paint-stains+5735+575+article.htm

We're looking at Jackson Pollock at the moment and will be creating some art in his style both digitally and with paint. Here we are below adding some paint to our Mondrian inspired works and painting the backgrounds for our own 'Jackson Pollocks'!

More Terrific Projects and Presentations

The Aboriginal Artefact presentations have taught us so much about Aboriginal culture. We have listened to Dreamtime stories, seen Aboriginal art and dot paintings, had intricately painted spears, clap sticks and more shared with us, and even ended up with a canoe and bark humpy in our classroom.

The presentations have been intereseting and 3/4T have made a great audience. Eyes have been opened wide while some of the presentations have been on and even a few 'oohs' and 'aahs' have escaped our lips. We have really enjoyed finding out facts we didn't know and also how to make some of these amazing objects. I hear that mums and dads have been helping out. So thank you. These projects have been well received and mean so much to all of us!

Reading Groups

Mr Smyth and myself are so grateful for all the parent helpers that we've had this week. It gives us a chance to work with a small group on the specific skills and strategies they need without interuption. All children are not only getting the chance to read to someone, but also have an adult there to help complete tasks when they're not with Mr Symth or Mrs Taylor.

Thank you!!

Buddies

Today was our first day of buddies! What an exciting afternoon!

More Great Aboriginal Artefact Presentations

Pancake Day