In the classroom

Deputy Principal Learning and Teaching 

Buongiorno a tutti  

I’m on Immersion at the moment - sitting in our accommodation reflecting… thought I would share my reflection on our visit to the Perry Sandhills in Wentworth on Wednesday. 

The Perry Sandhills - Wentworth

As we travelled out of Wentworth the bitumen dissolved quickly into dirt, and within minutes, the earth ahead of me seemed to catch fire. The Perry Sandhills appeared - a 400-acre expanse of rolling, rust-red dunes that seem to have been dropped into the middle of the green Australian scrub.

Getting off the bus, the silence hit me first. It was heavy, wide, and total. Walking up the first incline, the fine-grained sand shifted beneath my shoes, the recent rain had hardened it a little although each step required a physical negotiation with a landscape that refused to stand still.

Once into the dunes, we found the "God Tree." This ancient River Red Gum was humbling. Its massive upper canopy reached into the air, while its trunk and lower branches lay completely buried under meters of sand. It has been standing here for five hundred years, slowly being swallowed alive by the earth, yet it still manages to leaf green against the stark blue of the Mallee sky.

Reflecting on a ridge looking down at my own tracks, I thought that come tomorrow or the next day, my prints will have been erased by the wind. My presence there was fleeting. Beneath this sand lay forty thousand years of Barkindji history and the fossilised bones of prehistoric megafauna.

As I sat to reflect on our visit to these magnificent Sandhills I realised I was merely a blink in time. The dunes would change shape by morning, but they would still be here. Nature held all the permanence; I was just a ghost passing through.

Ciao a Lunedi'

Rosina Gemmill 

Foundation

This fortnight the Foundations have been working on writing reports about rock pool creatures. They were very excited to share their reports to the class and to Elisha and Mr Dainton. We have also begun our unit on sharing. We completed a hands-on activity sharing skittles into 2 groups, then enjoying eating them after.

Year 1

Due to the Community Reading Day being cancelled due to the weather the Foundation/Grade 1's joined together to listen to one of the short-listed books "The frog's first song'. We then followed a directed drawing activity to draw our own frogs. Lots of fun and concentration had!

Year 2

Grade 2 students have had a great time with the introduction of our new RE topic 'Let's Care for Creation' students have created beautiful leaf rubbings and a gift tag to thank God for the gift of his creation. 

In mathematics we have finished our unit on multiplication and division we have started our unit on shape.

For writing we have been writing a writing a persuasive piece to convince our readers that 'animals should or should not be kept in zoos'. 

Year 3/4

The 3/4 class researched and composed a report on Pelicans in connection with the novel, Storm Boy. Students included a title, subheadings to support the pelicans habitat and physical appearance etc. Illustrating and pictures were also presented in their detailed report. 

Year 5/6

This week, students have been completing book activities ready for the book week parade of Friday. Our class read Dear Broccoli by Jo Dabrowski and Cate James. Students had to write letters to a food that they all HATE! A lot of them were quite passionate in their letters, making sure they would NEVER eat those foods EVER again!