Year Four

Term One

Excursion to “Rethink” Education Centre 

On Monday the 21st of March 2016, the Year 4s went on an excursion to Banyule Rethink Education Centre in Heidelberg. We had to bring a rubbish free lunch and a nice cold drink bottle. It was also very important to bring our hats. We went on a bus called Panorama Coaches.

When we arrived, we went in a door that led us inside the entrance. We went up the stairs and sat in front of the instructor, Douglas. He told us that he was talking way too much and he introduced us to the Material Girls “Polyester and Organza”. They introduced themselves by singing a Recycling song. It was fun to listen to and we all enjoyed the song. The first activity they did was shopping in their own shop. There were two Year 4s from each team and they had to buy materials that could be recycled and reused. They told us it was always best to shop in BULK. The teams were called “Bin Busters” and “Waste Watchers”.

Next we played trivia, one person from Bin Busters came up and one person from Waste Watchers came up. They had a trolley and there was a mini buzzer to answer questions. During the game they showed us a big box chart and all the processes that plastic, glass, steel, paper and aluminium go through in order to be recycled. All the products that shouldn't be in these materials floated to the top and all the products that need to remain in these materials dropped to the bottom. When the trivia finished each contestant got a gift which was a reusable shopping bag.

Ethan's mum also had a big garage sale and she said showed us how you can reuse old things from around the house and make some extra money.

After the trivia we got a chance to go inside the factory and see a big machine called a MRF. It was very dusty and in front of us was the paper separating machine. There were really big bundles with plastic and paper that were stacked up around the factory. There were factory workers that sorted through the materials and took out materials that could not be recycled. Douglas told us that he had found 2 hand guns, a knife, a horse’s head and 2 urns with people ashes in them.

When we went back inside the Material Girls asked one of the teachers to come up and dance with them. We all chose Dave! They showed him some groovy dance moves and Dave followed. The Material Girls asked us to stand up and all join in. Then it was time for the Material Girls to leave and we also left. 

When we arrived back at school, we were exhausted!

The Year 4s watched “The Mighty Ducks” back at school and took some time to relax.

We all enjoyed our excursion.

We hope you enjoyed reading about the exciting day we all had.

Eliza and I had an outstanding day.

If you were there you would agree.

By Eliza & Sara.

Term Two

 Inquiry

The Earth and Its Surface

Our names are Piper and Ane and we are going to be talking about our term 2 inquiry topic; Earth and its Surface. We started our topic with watching a documentary about the history of the earth. We took the information that we learnt from the film as well as our own prior knowledge and put it in a KWL chart (know, want to know, and learnt). It was a good way for us to share our ideas with the class and think about which questions we wanted to find the answers to.

Bit by bit we watched the rest of the documentary and began to learn more about the Earth and its Surface. With the knowledge from the documentary we started to investigate the Earth in greater depth and began to do activities about the different layers of the earth and what made them special. We learnt that the Earth is made up of the Inner Core, Outer Core, Mantel and Crust.

We used plasticine to made models of the Earth and its layers. We used red plasticine to represent the inner core, orange for the outer core, yellow for the mantel and brown plasticine for the crust. We were also able to use blue and green plasticine to replicate the oceans and land. Finally we cut a cross section into our model and were able to label each layer of the Earth.

 We also did an experiment where we made our very own sandstone with died sand, water and cementing solution. We put together a chart explaining what happened with our experiment and our observations. We were able to draw pictures and illustrations that described what happened. 

The Year 4 cohort also had an incursion where ‘Star-lab’ came and set up a big dome in the cola. We had to wait our turn to go in. Inside the dome there were projectors set up in the back of the room. It reflected off a plastic shield shaped like the dome which made it seem like you were looking up at the stars. The presenter talked to us able the different types of natural disasters and types of weather. Our favourite part was when they showed us a clip with dinosaurs and the meteor that wiped them out. When we came out we could not stop talking about what happened inside... we were AMAZED!

We made diagrams and illustrations of the few natural disasters that we saw in the dome, tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes and tsunamis. After that we researched some facts on our iPads that would hopefully be useful in our inquiry books. We watched more documentaries and looked at more diagrams that gave us lots of information, for example did you know that Tsunami is the Japanese word for Harbour Wave? Probably not.

The Year 4 cohort has had a great term and enjoyed learning all the new and interesting information about Earth and its Surface.

Semester Two

CAMPING IN PORTSEA!

Honk Honk! Beeped the bus as we drove to Portsea Camp.  We were incredibly excited to go to the beach. After a boring 2 hour bus ride we finally arrived.

Once we arrived we jumped of the bus and went straight for the hall. We were PUMPED! In the hall, they told us TOO much information for our brains to handle. We were losing it until they announced the cabins. Mia and I were both in the same cabin and we also had Sarah, Hollie, Jessica and Shaylani. We got our bags and ran to cabin 5 to get ready for our first activity.

It was kind of cramped in the cabins, but it was ok. In the cabin we were both on the same bunk. (Abbey on top, Mia on bottom.) Once we got set up, we got ready for our first, which was Beach Game with David. We tiredly walked to the beach with our activity group.

When we got there we all dived into the water. It was really entertaining. After that we went back to the hall for a snack. It was delicious. Then we had our second activity which was Orienteering, so we headed to Simon. We got our maps and started to explore. There was this creepy temple, I was scared of it but we still went into it, it was kind of exciting in the end.

Later that day we had free time, so I just stayed in my cabin and played games. We ate dinner then we started walking to the camp fire to roast MARSHMALLOWS! We both ate around 3 marshmallows. I was full after that and I was also tired. We’d had a very long day, so we went back into our cabins for lights out.

We both had a FANTASTIC time and had so much fun. We couldn’t wait for the next 2 days of camp. Our favourite activity was the beach games.

by Abbey & Mia

PRODUCTION

BOOM! The light hit me as I went on stage. Oh sorry let me back it up a little, I just got home from school and I was about to get ready, sorry I guess that was a little bit too far. I’ll start from…. Here! I just arrived, I could hear the music and people rehearsing, I couldn’t wait to get on stage.

Night one:

The first night Mia was singing ‘Bare Necessities,’ because she is in the choir. The year 4’s danced to a song called ‘Beat It’ by Michael Jackson.  Abbey wasn’t here because she is in L-Z and Mia is in A-K. The choir was the second performance of the night. It was really fun and exciting to perform to such a big audience. A while later the year 4’s did their dance, it was so much fun and I had a great time. Our teachers said we ‘Nailed it!’

Night two:

Second night Mia & Abbey are here together, you might be wondering ‘why is Mia here’ it’s because of the choir, the choir is preforming at all 4 performances. Once again, the choir performed their song. It was basically the same thing the L-Z group then got to do there dance which was the same as yesterday. Some of us were lucky enough to perform our Beat it song twice. It was so awesome

Day three:

This time there was 2 performances in one day, but there was no Early Years, it was all Middle Years students, but you guessed it, there was still the choir. This session was in the afternoon, so it was a little bit quitter than the night sessions.

The final night:

The last performance was so exciting, it was our last chance to be up on stage. Kerrie was talking about how far the school has come and how this wasn’t just a story it’s about the school and it’s all a true story. It is our 10th birthday after all, so everyone was feeling pretty proud to be a part of it.

So that’s behind the scenes of the production. It was a lot of fun and you just know that’s the school has been through a lot, but it is better than ever. 

by Mia & Abbey