Specialist Subjects

PHYSICAL EDUCATION

The whole school is currently enjoying developing their Dancing skills. 

Our Middle and Senior students have participated in a range of individual dances such as Nutbush, Macarena, Cha Cha Slide and Cotton Eye Joe. They have also attempted the 'Heel Toe Polka' as an introduction to partner dancing. 

The Prep students have started working on whole body movements and part body movements by creating and exploring the different ways they can move their bodies. A key feature has been ensuring our movements are matched to the beat of the music.

All grades have loved finishing each session with the 'Just Dance' game that encourages students to synchronize their movements in small groups. 

Our Sporting Schools grant has equipped us with brand new Volleyball nets in which the Senior students have enjoyed using. 5/6 JDZ were awesome in assisting to unpack the nets! 

LOTE - AUSLAN

Our Middle and Senior students have loved learning to communicate about items they would buy when they go shopping. Items included food and clothing with a variety of prices attached to them. Students were able to extend their knowledge to asking and answering questions related to their desired items and how much they cost.

Our Junior students extended their food knowledge by associating prices with the ingredients on their pizza and burgers. They were able to create sentences that described the price of their food, including whether the ingredients were cheap or expensive.

We are currently completing a unit focusing on describing the people in our Family. It's been great getting to know the variety of family strucutures and of course, what pets each student has!

STEAM: Science, Technology & The Arts

Term 3 week 6

Science Week - We celebrated Science Week with a focus on important discoveries by scientists to help our world. The Wright Brothers gave us the first flying machine and with the appreciation of combining different materials around them. These men were able to follow the Scientific Method to create the first 12 second flight. The Scientific Method means that we look at the world and ask questions and make predictions. We record our observations and share what we have found out. Without this view of the world, inventions like the Dyson bagless vacuum would not have been created. 5127 prototypes of the familiar vacuum style were created and we learned that persistence is incredibly important when scientists are learning about the world. 

We also learned about some young Australian inventors who asked questions about their world. A young girl with leukaemia was worried about her mum struggling with bandaids so she used materials around her to create a bandaid dispenser. A young boy was motivated by water being wasted by lawn sprinklers. He designed a system whereby the sprinkler watered the grass and not the footpath using digital technology. 

All grades worked on investigations and experiments involving predictions and the recording of observations inline with the use of the Scientific Method. 

Juniors - Topic - Materials Around Us and Combining Materials. 

We learned that everything is made of materials including paper, fabric, metal, glass, wood, rubber, and ceramics. We looked at the properties of materials and designed tests to decide which material is the strongest. We learned that tests need to be created to be Fair for the results to be equal. We decided on various roles for group members so that everyone is included, for example recorder, adding the marbles or holding the bucket. We worked in groups to design a monster in pairs and chose materials that offered the best properties to be able to create the look that was desired. Some groups chose pipecleaners for arms because they were bendy, or tinsel for hair because it was shiny. It was great to see how similar the monsters looked to the designs!

3-4 Topic Changes in States of Matter and Materials - 

We looked at how adding heat to solids can change their state of matter. Ice melts and turns to liquid, with greater heat it becomes steam and once cool, it condensates and becomes liquid again. We looked at solids like crayon, and a burning candle to see they became liquid with heat and once the heat source was removed they became solid once more.

We looked at the materials around us similarly to the juniors and did an investigation to appreciate everyday items around us. We looked at the materials used in our shoes, backpacks and drinkbottles and the properties each of them had. For example, rubber is chosen for the bottom of our shoes for comfort and grip. We looked at the benefit of shoelaces over elastic in shoes for safety versus simplicity.  

5-6 Topic - Changes in States of Matter, Mixtures and Solutions, Reversible and Irreversible 

Like the 3-4’s we reviewed adding heat to solids and the changes it makes. We worked in pairs to explore mixtures and solutions and made predictions and record observations about what would happen when combining substances like salt, sugar, oats, coffee, cocoa powder and others. We enjoyed making popcorn as an example of an irreversible change whilst sorting and discussing many examples of changes including making pancakes, burning paper, boiling water or cooking an egg.