From the Foundation and 1/2 Classrooms
Legoland excursion:
Legoland here we come! On Wednesday 10th December students in Foundation, Grade 1 and 2, teachers and wonderful parent helpers, boarded one bus and headed to Chadstone. Although there wasn’t any shopping on the schedule, there was much excitement walking through the Fashion Capital buildings!
In our groups, we spent the day exploring the different playgrounds, zones, rides and areas of Legoland. The busyness and excitement was enormous!
Each group participated in a Lego workshop where we worked in small groups to build a little car to be pushed using a spring rather than a motor. Students had to build a platform for the spring piece to attach to and then using push and pull motions, the spring allowed the car to move forward without using a motor!
We got to experience a Lego 4D movie in the cinema. The effects were INCREDIBLE! We had bubbles blown at us, water sprayed from the ceiling and smoke from a smoke machine, all while 3D characters were coming out of the screen towards us (well it felt and looked like it at least). Some groups jumped on a ride where we had to aim our targets to fight off evil spiders and skeletons while zooming around in little carts.
Exploring the Miniland Lego display was definitely a highlight! In this replica of Melbourne’s famous buildings and landmarks, we saw Luna Park, Flinders Street Station and Eureka Tower. Did you know that the Miniland Melbourne Lego display was built from over 1.5 million Lego bricks?! We even got to spot the mini Santa lego figures on display for Christmas.
The excursion to Legoland encouraged problem solving, inspired creativity and promoted team work. It was such a fun and eventful excursion and we are thrilled to have been part of it. Thank you to our wonderful parents for joining us at Legoland. We are sure all of the students slept well on Wednesday night after such a huge day!
Literacy:
Students in Year 1 and 2 have been writing persuasive writing pieces in Literacy the last few weeks. We have been following a burger planning structure and looking at having three reasons to support our argument, each with 2 pieces of evidence or examples to provide further support. We have been writing about whether snow or sand is better, what our favourite food is and why it's the best and why the robot students have been making in Integrated Studies is the best.
Integrated:
This term, students in Year 1 and 2 have been working in small groups to create a robot from recycled materials. Students had to design a robot which could be used to clean their bedroom. Students brainstormed different robot parts to assist cleaning their bedrooms, such as feather duster tails or vaccum mouths, and what materials they could bring in to build it. It was wonderful to see students collaborating with their peers, sharing ideas and working together to plan and build their bedroom cleaning robots.
During the unit, students also learned about programming and coding electronics to complete tasks or move. Students had to program their robot to complete the following tasks;
- pick up clothes and put them in the washing basket
- pick up a teddy and put it on the bed
pick up a truck and put it on the toy shelf
Students then looked at coding and programming their robot to follow directional instructions. We used instructions such as forwards, backwards, left, right, pick up and put down to instruct our robots to follow instructions.
We are looking forward to sharing these in the Expo tomorrow afternoon!
Students shared their favourite part of building the robots, this is what they had to say;
- Charlie: Putting it together
- Athena: Making the head because it looks like a marshmellow
- Ruby: Working and collaborating with my team members
- Salote: Collaborting with my group
- Avnee: Trying to stick different body parts together
- Yining: Collaborting
- Myra: Making the wings and sticking feathers onto it
- Elise: Making the tail
- Zach: Modelling the head
- Amelia: Putting the feathers on it's tail
We are so excited for our final week! Thank you for all your support and care this year. We hope everyone has a restful, relaxing break and Happy New Year!
Kind regards,
Foundation and Year 1 and 2 Teachers