Learning Community 3

We wish to thank Noel Mollison and Janice Tourk for giving up their time to help us with supervision on our Sovereign Hill camp. The camp was a huge success and we wouldn't be able to run these programs if we didn't have the assistance of extra people. 

Also...huge thanks to Leanne for looking after the first aid needs of our students and managing medication!

 The following are excerpts from student recount writing:

 We explored for a little then our class ( Mrs Howard) met up at the bakery to go to sweet making. It was soooooo satisfying we even got to taste the lollies. After the sweet making Mrs Howard and Mrs Stark's class met up and walked to the candle making. After that we did more exploring, and we even went bowling. For dinner we had a subway.

Tyson Fowler

My favourite bit about school was when we had writing, the cursive writing was really fun, especially with the ink. The practising was fun and writing my name on my sheet with the ink was something I was really proud of. My teacher listed the two best ways of learning: discipline and repetition. When I heard discipline I kind of freaked out (luckily, no poor student was harmed). The toys outside that the boys got to play with were really fun, and… I was really good at them, (I hope). Boys weren’t allowed to talk to girls, which I found a bit strange, but knowing the women's and men's rights back then I could understand a little bit more.

Tyler interlandi

It was the first day of camp! We got on a bus and made our way to the 1800’s. When we got to Sovereign Hill we collected our stuff and went to our cabins. Once all of our stuff was in our cabins we took our lunch and ate outside. After we ate lunch we went to explore Sovereign Hill in small groups of 3-5. I went down and did some gold panning. I found a bit of gold. After going around Sovereign Hill some more we went to have dinner. For dinner we had subway. Once we ate we went to the light show. It was really cool! The show was in different sections. We started with a 3D video thing. We also saw a video that was projected onto a rock or something. Another thing that we saw was an open theatre. We had to move from place to place to see the different shows. After the show we went back to our cabins.

Holley Newey

Our teacher (Ma’am)was a bit scared. She carried a bamboo stick. Girls had to walk around with their hands clasped together and boys had to hold their left hand with their right hand!

 Firstly, we learnt about each other’s journey to the gold fields and how discipline and repetition are the best ways to learn. We then had a break. There were toys for girls and toys for boys, they were NOT ALLOWED TO BE MIXED and girls could not interacted with boys! Ma'am then told us we are to be engaged by 13, married by 14 and have a child by 15!

We also learnt the three S’s and the three R’s ‘Slope, shape and size’ and the three R’s ‘reading, writing and arithmetic.’

We learnt our 17 times tables and had to recite a poem called “The Village Blacksmith" by Henry Wordsworth Longfellow

 For our final task we learnt how to gold pan!

Meg Ockwell-Payne

On our second day we woke up early so we could head off to the cafe for breakfast. We then walked back to the cabins to get our stuff ready for our first day of 1854's school. We met our teacher and got into our school, then we walked into the ‘in the middle room’ where we got our 1854 school clothes on. After we got our old clothes on we lined up and walked to see our school. We had to look at the person in front of us and also had to have our wrist in our fists while we walked. 

Then I got chosen to be our teacher's ink monitor, which means I had to collect and give pencils and stuff! I also got a cool medallion to wear during the school day. Then the teacher tested us with our 17 timetables and I'm going to be honest, I mumbled and twitched the whole time! Then we had to do some writing off the chalkboard which was pretty easy. On our lunch break we got some meat pies and sausage rolls.

Max Clark

At Sovereign Hill you can go gold panning and if you find gold you don’t have to give it to anyone. We also got to go down into a mine, and it was very dark and part way through there was a water fall, and there was an illusion in a cave to show when they found the world’s second biggest gold nugget. It was so fun, and I was so sad that we had to leave but I think it was worth the trip. I can’t wait to go on my next camp!

Charlie Chrisfield