Specialists

FRENCH

On the last Thursday of Term 3, the whole school participated in our annual French Day event, which was a lot of fun. In the kitchen, the students prepared and tasted 'crème diplomate'. You can find the recipe in their Google Classrooms. They learnt about the life and work of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry and studied important life lessons from his famous book, The Little Prince. They also used some drawing and craft techniques to reproduce the main characters of the book. In the hall, they played a fun card game related to the story.

That week, Grade 2/3S students also sang at assembly and gave us an amazing performance.

Their song was 'Caresse sur l'océan' (Carress on the ocean) by The Choristes:

Grade 3/4 students also sang beautifull,y 'Nous on sait' (We know), by Pierre Garnier. What a great performance!

Sport

On Wednesday 8 October, 14 students from grades 3-6 earned a place in 17 events at the District Athletics competition. Each student should be proud of themselves, they worked hard to achieve their best and support each other. 

Congratulations to Imogen for placing 2nd in high jump and Leela for achieving a first in long jump. We wish both students all the best at the Regionals competition on Thursday 23 October.

STEAM

Weeden Heights Primary School students have been developing their observation and scientific explanation skills in STEAM!

In Term 4:

• Prep students are beginning to explore coding, first by understanding basic commands for moving objects on a grid and then ordering these commands into a basic sequence of steps (otherwise known as an algorithm).  Students are using command cards and will begin to write their own code by hand.  Towards the end of term students will be creating simple algorithms to program Blue Bot.

• Year 1/2 have been learning how family and community needs can lead to new designs and refining of existing designs, for example how to make a two-wheel toy roll more evenly by adding another wheel.  Through picture books and discussion, students have explored how materials such as those made from plants and animals.  This knowledge will be applied by students later in the term to solve a design challenge such as a new toy or clothing or shelter.

• Year 3/4 are learning about how all matter in the world is made of particles and how it can exist in one of three states – solid, liquid or gas. They are learning how we can change matter’s state by melting, refrigerating or freezing, using everyday matter such as water, honey and chocolate. 

• Year 5/6A are investigating the differences between physical and chemical changes and reversible and irreversible changes.  Students designed their own investigation to explore which treatment can melt a frozen block faster – a hairdryer, their hand or warm water.  As students deepen their understanding of what can cause a change in states of matter, they will also learn how the particles in matter behave and are arranged.

• Year 5/6C are refreshing their skills in block coding to solve problems using repeats/loops, variables and conditional (if/then) statements.  Importantly they are learning to annotate their code to develop their ability to use appropriate terms in their algorithms.  Next week they will begin to apply these commands to code the Sphero robots to solve problems.