Student Voice

Year 5 

The History Expo

By Daniel L and Alex D

It was a busy morning for the grade 5’s, with parents and students coming to look at our astounding and breathtaking dioramas. Everyone had worked really hard on their dioramas for the big day. We worked for five weeks to make our dioramas look the best as possible. Everyone’s dioramas were very unique and about different topics like Ned Kelly’s final stand, The Eureka Stockade, The Gold Rush, tent towns and Chinese discrimination. There were different creative ideas like Lego figures, fake gold pieces, lights, trivia and lucky dips.

During the five-week period, we learnt about events that occurred during the colonial times. We learnt about the Gold Rush, how the British were jealous of the Chinese and try to drive them away and Burke and Will’s crazy expedition, they brought bath tubs, anti dandruff brushes and even a Chinese gong. We also read a book called ‘The Burnt Stick,’ we read it to learn about the stolen generation, it was about an aboriginal child getting taken away from his mother. The history lessons were all really fun and exciting. Our teachers made our lessons feel like we were actually there.

With the diorama we also made a biography on a well-known person from the colonial period. We then made the biographies into posters or PowerPoints. There were biographies on Burke and Wills, Ned Kelly, William Buckley, Mary Bryant, Elizabeth McArthur, John Batman and Peter Lalor. We loved writing our biographies and we did our best when we were writing them.

After the history expo, everyone was really tired and we had a rest. We reflected on our work and our talking skills. We had lots of feedback from students, teachers and parents, they were all 10/10! Overall, this day won’t be forgotten and will always be remembered by the grade 5’s.