Earth Art

Today was such a lovely day (after a grey and dreary Winter) and so we headed outside to create some Earth Art pieces. We collected leaves, blossoms, bark, stones, gravel, sticks, flower petals, bark chips, sand, dirt and anything else we could find. We worked with a partner and discussed what we’d like to create and then we got started.

We loved sharing each groups creations and thought they looked wonderful – each of them was very different but showed lots of thought and great thinking.

We’d love to know what you think of our Earth Art creations – please post a comment.

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Inquiry – Dream Gardens

Our current Inquiry unit is about sustainability. We are investigating lots of different areas: learning about different plants, what plants need to survive, how plants grow and learning about our responsibilities when caring for the environment.

One of our learning tasks was to create a ‘dream garden’ and  to explain your choices.

We had lots of very interesting gardens that would supply food for families and communities, special features for fun, different varieties of plants and animals were also included.

Many of the students created posters which are on display in our classroom and some chose to create their dream garden using the Minecraft app or website. It was fantastic to see and hear how these students created their very detailed dream gardens.

Here are just a few photos of their creations.

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Setting up a worm farm

The 3 Year 2 classes are learning about sustainability through different inquiry tasks relating to plants – their needs, the parts of plants, varieties of plants and how we care of the environment. We had helpers from each of our classes to create the worm farm and then they are reporting back to their classes to explain how we set up the worm farm.

We have made a worm farm so we can see how worms use our food scraps to create compost and worm wee. We can then use the worm wee to fertilise our garden beds in the ELC (Environmental Learning Centre).

We followed a procedure to make the worm farm.

First, we made some mulch by soaking a mulch brick in some water overnight.

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Then we put the mulch into the worm farm and Jessica ripped up newspaper to add to the mulch. (Worms love to live in mulch and newspaper.)

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Next we opened the box of worms and added them to the mulch/ newspaper mix.

 

 

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Using our hands we carefully mixed the worms into the mulch mixture.

 

 

 

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Finally, we added some food scraps so the worms had something to eat.

 

 

 

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We need to make sure our worm farm stays cool – worms die if they get hot. We need to add food scraps like banana skins, apple cores and other fruit and vegetable scraps. We won’t add any citrus scraps (lemon, mandarine or orange) as worms don’t like them and they don’t rot into the mulch mixture.

 

 

 

 

Police Visit

As a part of our inquiry into Community Workers  we had a visit by Officer Jackson from the South Australian Police Force. It was great to learn about how the Police work to keep us safe in our community.

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Mini Microscope Investigations

On Tuesday we did some very special investigations with Mrs Nelson.

The class used the iPads and iPods and clipped a mini microscope onto the edge of the device. As we were working inside we needed to switch the light on so that we could see items under the microscopes more clearly. We all had a partner to work with and share ideas.

This weeks  challenge was to explore ‘man-made’ in and around the classroom. After exploring the classroom and finding items to magnify the pairs then looked thru their pictures and chose one each to share for a ‘What do you think this is?’ whole class culminating activity.

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What did you discover under your microscope?

Community Worker Visitors

As a part of our Inquiry about our people who live and work in our community we had 2 visitors this week.

We had a lady from the RSPCA who talked to us about how they save and help animals. It was interesting to hear about all of the different ways that the RSPCA works in our community.IMG_4131

Today we heard from Bev from Minton Farm.  It was great to hear about how Bev and her husband have over 300 animals living on their Coromandel Valley farm at the moment. Their work at Minton Farm centres around rescuing sick or injured animals, helping them back to good health and then releasing them back into their natural community if it is possible.  Sometimes animals can’t be released to live on their own so Bev keeps them on her farm to make sure they live a long and happy life. Minton Farm is quite close to school and a part of people in our community.

Bev brought twin possums along for us to see and learn about- they had been abandoned in the recent bushfires in the Adelaide Hills.

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Heroes – Australian of the Year

As a part of our  current Inquiry topic about Heroes in our Community we have researched different Australian’s of the Year.  The children did their research as part of their preparation for Sharing Time and presented their understandings to the whole class.

It was very interesting to hear about all of the wonderful Australians who have won Australian of the Year and how they contribute to our country. Some of the people were: Adam Goodes, Paul Hogan, Tim Conolon, Arthur Boyd, Fred Hollows, Steve Waugh, Dr Fiona Wood, Sally Goold, Dawn Fraser, Jessica Watson, Cathy Freeman and General Peter Cosgrove. We had some people repeat that same Australian of the Year but they chose different information to present.

A major part of our conversations about these famous Australians was why they were chosen by the students in our class and how each of our students related to their choice. We really valued what they’ve contributed to Australia – in so many ways. The children think we are lucky to live in a country that has some many wonderful people contributing to it’s rich diversity.

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The Water Cycle

Our class has begun investigating water:

  • the uses of water
  • sources of water
  • the world’s access to clean water – not everyone has access to clean water everyday
  • ways of making water safe to drink
  • the effects of not having access to clean water

This week we have looked at the water cycle and used a YouTube clip to explain it to us. We’ve also made it rain in our classroom!!

The children have also planned some experiments to test how quickly water evaporates – stay tuned for our results!

Here’s the YouTube clip – we just can’t stip singing it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YswL4dIDQuk

Can you tell us what you’ve learned about the water cycle?

 

Sharing Picture Books

As a part of our latest inquiry unit we are learning all the different ways stories can be told. We kicked off our inquiry by bringing in our favourite picture book to share with a small group.

We needed to remember the important skills of reading a book to others, like-

  • speaking clearly
  • using expression to make the story sound even more interesting
  • showing the audience the pictures
  • stopping at full stops and taking a breath – don’t rush a good story
  • asking what people understood from the story – checking for understanding.

We’ve been learning about these reading skills through our Daily 5 work.

We had a huge variety of books brought in – it’s always interesting to see what kinds of books are interested in sharing.

This was also a great way to prepare for Bookweek, which is this week. There’s lots to see and do in our Library with Mrs Langham.

Here are photos from our Sharing time reading activity last week.
Picture book sharing on PhotoPeach

What books can you recommend to us – we love to hear about new books to read.

Technology

As a part of our Inquiry unit into Structures the students had a model making challenge this week.

Their task was to create a strong and sturdy 3D structure that could stand some pressure (without falling apart).

We had very busy design, make and appraise sessions to complete this task. Most people worked in pairs to crete their models. There was quite a variety of structures created. The groups needed to roll and fold the pieces of paper and could only use masking tape to stick parts together. They also needed to recall some information about structures and bridges that we’d be researching and discussing during our investigations.

Here are photos of our final sharing session today
Technology on PhotoPeach


Can you tell us – what is the strongest shape used in buildings and structures?