We had a great time on our trip to CERES. Possibly the bus trip was the most enjoyable part of the day for some kids, but on the whole it was a very interesting trip. here are some of the things we wrote about it…

CERES – by David
On Monday 1st of August the whole school went to Ceres. When we got there we all had play lunch. After, we did the health of the environment.
Then we had a chat we played 2 games, one was an animal habitat game. Madi M and James were the predators. I didn’t get tagged until the 2nd round. Next we had lunch and then we played the food web game. How we played is you get a partner and get a belt and card then hook up the belts with the posts. It was hard and fun.

On Monday the 1st of the 8th 2011 we hopped on the bus and whent to CERES. The 2nd
activaty was the habitat game and we needed 2 predators to start of with and me and james where the first predators then brett elimented some space and then more people to be the predators
And then then glen took more space and then we got every one then the game was over
By Madi M

At the Ceres excursion we played a game called the habitat game it was really FUN to play. It was really easy at the start but at the end it got super hard because there was 18 people it. I went out the in the first shot. The aim of the game was to try to survive in different habitats. The habitat was decreasing because of humans building houses.
By Tyran

CERES
On the first of August the whole school went to Melbourne for an education place called CERES. After we got there we had a break then we went down to Phillips reserve and played a habitat destruction game.
After that we did a food web game it was very tangley to show the food chain is. Then we went and had lunch. After 15 minutes we went down to Merri creek and went netting for bugs and I nearly caught 1. After that we went home.
By mike

The river looks nice because it’s in the city. Ducks would have liked it before the river became dirty. People in Melbourne litter and it goes in the river and animals eat it and choke and die. The Merri Creek had computers beside it. Ernie

We went bug fishing we only caught 2 or 3 bugs. Harrison caught a shoe. I caught a bit of metal and there was a lot of metal, there was even a golf ball. Joel was walking in the water with his shoes on. The creek was called Merri creek. One of the people said when it rains the rubbish comes down into the creek. By Tyran

Term Three is shaping up to be a great term, with lots of interesting things happening. We have already made a great start to the term, getting our brains back into learning with some maths and english revision. We have been going over the different parts of speech, or grammar, so that we can keep improving our writing, reading and of course, our speaking.

Our Inquiry this term has started very well – the whole school is learning about the environment. In the Big Room we have been focusing on how we use our planet and the effects of this for us now and in the future. We will be investigating how our actions affect our lifestyles now and in the future. We have already had an excursion to CERES in Brunswick where we learnt about food webs and habitats. We also had a great time netting in the Merri Creek – we were looking for bugs to determine how healthy the creek system is. We will keep looking at how we use our planet’s resources and some of the issues that arise from this.

In English we will be reading and writing lots of explanations – how different earth cycles function, cause and effect in the environment and lots of environmental phenomena. We have also started doing Friends and Books (FAB) sessions and that is kick-starting our interest in reading again. Some students have been having some great conversations about the books they are reading.

In maths we are going to be doing lots of measurement – length, area, perimeter, volume… the list goes on! Hopefully we will be able to do some problem solving that ties in with our Inquiry. Maybe we will find out how many square kilometres of forest are destroyed each year or the mass of the waste produced at Malmsbury Primary School. Maybe we will come up with some creative solutions for some of the environmental issues our society faces, who knows we could have the world’s future problem solving right here in Grade 4/5!

Other important news this term is about the Preparation for Puberty program which the grade fives and sixes have just begun. Although some people were a bit nervous before the session, there was a lot of laughter ans I think some kids may have been surprised at how much they enjoyed it. Maybe, maybe not! Sometimes we may have some P for P homework that we might need to talk to parents and family members about, hopefully it won’t be too embarrassing for anyone! We have a question box in the room so any questions you don’t feel like talking about at home can be answered at school by Carol Waddington, our EXPERT P for P educator.

Now we haven’t forgotten about our grade fours. Obviously they are not involved in the P for P sessions this year, so they will be working with Tara’s grade during these sessions. We are hoping to get them working on a special environmental project with some of the 2/3s – stay tuned for more details.

On the 14 of June some 5/6s went to camp to Anglesea. But only 20 of about 35 kids went.

Day one
The day started with the bus being late. The bus arrived about 10mins late, we loaded our luggage on to the bus and hopped on the bus the time said 9:00 so the driver had thought he was on time. The long trip to Anglesea took 2 hours to entertain myself I write in my camp dairy. Half way we stopped at a park and had break.
When we got to camp we went to our rooms. I was in in a room with Misha, Miranda and Maddison. Then we went to a lake were we would go canoeing and a question set. We had to walk across the Great Ocean Road. Canoeing was fun we I got a bit wet. Then we went home to diner.

Day two
After breakfest we went to Point Road Knight. The walk took 1 WHOLE HOUR. By the time we got to the beach we were all tired. The 5/6s played in the water and played games on the beach.by that time we were all wet. I went with Madison to the toilet. At the toilet I took off my pants and made my jacket in to skirt. On the way back we stop at a different beach to have beach carnivel. A beach carnival is a series of games. There are two teams pink and yellow. I was on the pink team. Sadly the yellow was the winner. After that we went back to camp and had dinner. After dinner we had a camp fire and told scary stories.

Day three
Day three was the best day SO FAR we went on the giant swing and the vertical challenge. The giant swing was a bit scary but not very scary so I went all the way to the top twice.The vertical challenge was a lot scary I thought I was about to faint I thought about stopping but I did not stop.that night we had a talent show and trivia. Misha Miranda and I sang Ke$ha tic toc . THE NEW SPICE GIRLS we won yay!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!I was in a trivia group with madison , holly and piper. Our group was called happy monsters playing arcade games.

Day four
Today was the last day of camp I was a bit sad but excited because I was going to see my family.
Then we went on the bus home. On the bus I was near misha and Miranda and next to James and Harrison. When we got to school we went to assembly then home.
Camp was so fun.

During the last few weeks of Term 2 Grade 4/5 was spending a lot of time writing, writing, writing. Having recently received our first letters from our penpals at Debney Meadows Primary School we were pretty keen to get our replies written, so that was a focus for everyone during our writing sessions. We were also practising our creative writing skills. Some of the Grade Fives had recently been on camp to Anglesea (and what an excellent time they had!!) and were busy writing about their experiences, while others were working on poems, short stories and recounts all for the purpose of our blog. We hope you enjoy our efforts!!

‘The Doctor’ and ‘Soldiers’ by Damon

Sovereign Hill Camp

Gold Panning

Hi everyone!

Well this term has been incredibly busy – hard to believe we are less than two weeks away from holidays! So many exciting things have been going on, it has certainly been an action packed term. Both the Grade Fours and the Grade Fives have been on school camps (the Fours to Sovereign Hill and the Five’s to Anglesea) and had a great time. We have posted some of the grade four’s recounts and there will be some updates from the Grade 5′s about their camp in the next few days.

As well as camp we have been very busy in our classrooms. We have been doing lots of problem solving in maths and have been starting to look at fractions and applying our knowledge to real life situations. We worked out that 3/4 of the students were doing construction activities on Tuesday, one eighth of the grade was building with Lego, one-sixteenth of the class was writing and one-sixteenth was playing with tangrams. Who would have thought there could be so many fractions right here in our classroom?

In Literacy we have been writing explanations about how things work or why things happen. We need to do some more thinking about this as it is sometimes hard to recognise the difference between explanations and procedures. We have also been writing letters to our penpals in Melbourne – it was very exciting getting our big bundle of letters this week. We all know a little bit more about our penpals now.

Our Unit of Inquiry has also got us thinking hard. We have been talking about why different people came to Australia, the different connections people have to the land and what sort of things people bring with them to start a new life. We have also been researching our own family histories. Thanks to all the mums and dads and family members for sharing your knowledge and history with us – our family trees are going to be great.

Stay tuned for more adventures…

Today all the Grade 5 and 6 students had a preview of high school life at Kyneton Secondary College. Excitement levels were high as our kids boarded the bus, looking forward not just to a taste of high school life but also a taste of the tuckshop!

On our arrival at KSC we were greeted by some familiar faces – Ilona and Tahlia (Grade 6 2010) were waiting to meet us and show us around. The kids were quickly sorted into two groups and disappeared into different parts of the school, ready for a whole new experience.

We experienced a heap of different activities including music, humanities (that’s history and geography, in case you don’t know!), science and technology. Apparently drumming is hard, quizzes are fun, making glue is sticky and a wooden key hanger is handy!

By the end of the day everyone was a bit worn out, but had enjoyed a great day. Some kids were unhappy at leaving a place with such a great canteen (cheeseburgers for lunch anyone??), but everyone seemed to be feeling a little better about the prospect of high school. We certainly made a great impression on the teachers at Kyneton Secondary College – lots of teachers told Siobhan and Miss Paull how fantastic our kids were and how well we behaved. A great day for everybody!!

What is happening in Grade 4/5 Siobhan?

This term we have started some exciting work. During the last week we have started writing letters to penpals! Our penpals are grade 5/6 students at Debney Meadows Primary School in Flemington. We had a look at their school website to learn a little bit more about them before we wrote our letters and what a surprise we got! Siobhan had told us that most of the children at Debney Meadows come from African or Asian families so we expected them to be quite different to us. However, when we looked at their photos and read about the things they are doing we realised that they were more like us than we thought. They may look different and come from a different part of Victoria but when it comes to school we have lots in common.

We have also been having lots of fun with the grade Preps. We have a games session with them every Tuesday and we have been teaching them lots of bluearth games. Last week they joined us for a persuasive writing session. We helped our Prep buddies to write some convincing arguments about why they are special.

Hard at work!!