I like Grandparent’s Day because I was able to show them what we do in class.  I loved being able to show my grandparents the computers we use.  I showed them our class blog, Edmodo, Spelling City and Study Ladder.  They were amazed to see how different we learn in school these days.  I loved spending a day with my grandparents.  It is just a shame that this will be the last one for me as I am in Year 6.  Another treat that we gave them was our wonderful voices in a song.  The song was about God creating this beautiful world and how Adam and Eve made a bad choice.  The song ended with the hope that Jesus forgives us.  It seemed as though the grandparents loved it.  I think we did spectacularly!  We all had a brilliant day.

By Callum

As part of our study of Micro-Organisms, the students have been engaging in scientific discovery.  A good scientist knows how to ask insightful questions and then conduct tests to prove theories.

One of the questions which came up during our discussion about bread was ‘How does yeast cause the bread to rise?”

We decided to investigate yeast to find out what causes it to activate.

We conducted an experiment using bottles, balloons, yeast, water and sugar.

We discussed the importance of choosing which variable to change and which to keep constant so that we could observe which ingredients caused yeast to activate.

We decided that the bottles, balloons and yeast would be constant and that we would change the inclusion of water and sugar to observe what effect (if any) this would have on the yeast.  Some students thought it was funny to squeeze the bottles and others thought swishing the water around would be a good idea.  We were able to discuss how this was adding extra variables into the experiment which could cause a varied result on the tests.

Maintaining a controlled experiment was pretty important when it comes to conducting fair tests in Science.

After leaving the bottles overnight, it was clear the next morning that the bottles containing water, yeast and sugar caused the balloon to expand the most, proving that yeast requires sugar and water to activate.

Here are some photos of the student conducting their experiments:

The students have received their reading books ready for Reader’s Circle this term.  Their first task was to make a prediction on what they thought their story would be about.  Here is Christopher’s…

My Prediction of  Monster Mission by Eva Ibbotson

I think this book is about a group of teenagers who go to a mysterious island that isn’t charted on the map. The island has some monstrous nightlife including a giant black bird that dwarfs any other bird. The intrepid teens then embark on a mission to hunt down the great beast.

On the way they would hack their way through thick forests, wade through deep marshes and bogs and finally, as the book reaches an epic climax, find the gargantuan black bird. The island is then charted on the new maps and the bird becomes a popular tourist attraction.

Year 6 are very excited at the moment as we have just received new tablet PCs for use in our classroom for Collaborative Clusters.

Each Collaborative Cluster now will use a HP Envy x2 which runs Windows 8 and gives the added functionality of a tablet to make it easier to share information and engage in learning.

Here are some photos of the students having a first look:

To conclude our Science and Technology Unit on Natural Disasters, the students worked in pairs to design and make a board game.

The design brief was as follows:

• The game must be suitable for 4 or more players
• There must be approximately 50 squares
• It must be colourful, neat and accurate (no spelling mistakes or grammatical errors).
• Rules must be written out clearly.
• Equipment needed for the game must be provided (or listed)
• Information about Natural Disasters should be included in the game (quiz questions, information squares, etc.)

Once students completed their board games we spent an afternoon playing them and reviewing them using the following guide:

Here are some photos of the students playing the games:

After the reviews had been collated and added up, we discovered that we had 2 groups who achieved the same score.

Congratulations to Callum/Laurence and Zac/Jemma for presenting the best board games to the class.  Well done!

Don’t get excited by the heading of this post.  We are not GOING on holidays.  We have just come BACK from holidays.

We have begun Term 2 and I always love to hear what the students have done with their friends and families during the holidays.

I would probably get a riot on my hands if I asked them to write a recount of their holidays (I think they have done this after every holiday since Year 1) so I decided they could tell me all about their holiday in a Comic Strip.

Here are the results…

 

Each year our College sends a team of students (with teachers) to Cambodia to assist the Tabitha Foundation in building houses for families.  Click here to learn more about this.

To help raise money for this wonderful initiative, the Junior School students brought in a bag of loose change and we tried to build some houses using the coins.  Each Junior School class took part in this.

Here are some photos of 6L working on their house

At the end of the day we were able to raise $2365.85!!  This is enough money to build 1.5 houses.  It is great to think that we were able to provide at least one family in Cambodia with a new house.  (Apparently it took the bank over 2 hours to count all the money!)