Physical Education

On Wednesday 9 August students in grades 5 and 6 participated in Hoop Time, a basketball competition at Nunawading Basketball Stadium. All teams played a range of games and enjoyed many successes. Congratulations goes to the Boys All Star team for making it to the semi finals. All the students should be very proud of their teamwork and sportsmanship.

Visual Arts

The year 1 and 2 students are investigating dinosaurs in their Inquiry lessons this term. This means we have a great reason to enjoy making dinosaur art. Our first activity was a paper collage. The students used oil pastel rubbings to create an interesting, colourful texture for their dinosaur skin. They then used a layering technique to create depth in the habitat background. Students were able to consult books from the library to find inspiration for additional details they could include in their images. The final results look amazing! Well done.

Performing Arts

Only four weeks now until the school production. The students are busy rehearsing their songs and dance routines. Tickets will be available for purchase from next week.

French

On Sunday 15 October, the city of Whitehorse is organising a Spring Festival in Nunawading. We are planning to participate with a French choir performance. We will perform two songs on the day. Several students from Grades 4 and 5/6 have shown interest in being part of this special event and I am very excited to start rehearsing with them this week.

As you know, I use lots of games and cultural activities in class with all Grades. Learning a language should be fun and my goal as a language teacher is to ensure that all students enjoy coming to class. If they are introduced to French or any other language through play and fun activities in Primary school, I believe that they will be more likely to enjoy learning a language in high school and hopefully continue up to Year 12. Being able to speak more than one language is invaluable nowadays, whether it is for work opportunities or to travel or live overseas. Today I will show you a random selection of some fun activities we did in class last week:

Preps: 'Guess the animal"

Grade 1: Food Memo Game and Food Bin

Grade 5/6S: Miming actions and asking questions.

STEAM

The preps continue to investigate different materials. Firstly, they felt into the 'box' and described different objects and then did a sorting activity, where the students sorted the objects according to what they were made from.

The grade 1 and 2 students investigated our scientist's mixture last week, which was made up of oil, water and dishwashing liquid. They also discussed why scientists might need to investigate such a mixture.

Grade 4s did an activity where they had to measure if broken bits of chocolate would melt faster than a whole piece of chocolate. The smaller pieces of chocolate definitely melted the quickest!

The 5/6 students continued on their Mars quest and have began to code the VexGo robots, with a mixture of results! Their challenge was to move the robot to a certain location, collect a 'sample' from the soil and then return the robot to the base.

And of course, it was science week this week. I was incredibly proud of the preps, grade 1s and grade 2s who were challenged to design a 'smart' farm using our theme innovation. There were some amazing ideas which included the use of robots, drones and harvesters all helping to collect produce or take care of the animals.

The grade 4s, 5s and 6s were challenged to design the 'best' paper plane as part of their science week activity. Top marks goes to Jack in grade 4 whose plain flew the longest distance.

Maths

Grades 1 and 2 students investigating the relationship between 2D and 3D shapes.

Community

Birralee Preschool

Bunnings