Chatham Happenings

MAD ABOUT SCIENCE INCURSION IN YEAR 1/2

Today we met our presenter Sharyn who taught us all about chemicals. The chemicals were vinegar and baking soda. We used cabbage water, which was purple in colour, to add 3 pipette drops to the vinegar, baking soda and water. Here we observed changes in the colour of the chemicals when we added the cabbage water. Acid revealed a reddish pink colour and the base revealed a teal blue colour. We also learned about adding sugar to yeast while a balloon was wrapped on top of the beaker. Yeast is dormant and by adding sugar with the water, the yeast activated. Then as it woke up, the balloon on top of the beaker started growing bigger.

We then learned about types of reactions, fast, slow and inhibitors. Finally, we made sherbet to take home. The ingredients were icing sugar, baking soda and citric acid. We can’t wait to try our sherbet at home! We all had lots of fun and enjoyed learning about kitchen chemistry.    

Ms Anita Bucciere

Year 1/2 Teacher

Dear Parents,

We have been lucky enough to be offered the opportunity to have two assistant language teachers from Meiji Gakuin University in Japan visit Chatham Primary School this year. They will be completing this internship as part of their undergraduate degree. One of the assistant teachers will visit us in Term 2 (arriving the second week of the school holidays) and the other in Term 3. I have been involved with programs like this in the past and have often observed how important it is for students to interact culturally with assistant language teachers in Japanese class to give them the opportunity to use the Japanese they have learnt in a more authentic context as well as make students feel connected to the wider world as global citizens.

As we have been asked to accommodate the assistant language teachers in homestay for their time at Chatham Primary School, I am taking expressions of interests from any families interested in hosting to take one in Term 2 of this year and another to take the other assistant teacher in Term 3. We are asking that you provide them a bedroom and three meals a day. To assist with this you will be provided $200 a week as their board.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me at james.rampant@education.vic.gov.au or find me in the Japanese room Wednesday, Thursday or Friday after school.

Kind regards,

James Rampant

Here is our first Japanese assistant who will be visiting us in Term 2.

Hello. I’m Tomomi, a university student from Japan. I’m 20 years old. I like animals. I have a bird in my hometown house. I always watch funny animal videos on my smartphone, and I sometimes go to an animal café with my friends to see pretty animals and soothe. When I go to Melbourne, I want to see the Australian animals if possible. Also, I love to travel around the world and sightseeing the country. Therefore, I want to visit many places such as historical places, nature, and popular places in Melbourne. As well, I also like eating food and sweets, especially I like coffee so much that I drink it every day. I heard Melbourne is famous for good coffee and there are a lot of cafés so I’m looking forward to going to a café to drink good coffee with delicious sweets. The purpose of this program is that I wanted to go to study abroad and have many experiences which will be my confidence. This program is hard for me, but I’m sure that I could grow through this internship. I want to experience Australian culture and I want to tell students about Japanese culture and want them to enjoy learning Japanese. So, I'm looking forward to starting this program. My expectations of the homestay experience are communicating and knowing each other and having a great time which will be my memory of Melbourne life. On weekends, I would like to go somewhere or eat dinner together.