Tuesday is traditionally Party Day here at Grange Primary School. A time for classes to have their end of year class parties and have a fun day. Given we are a class that works together, thinks together and acts together. This day was not going to be an ordinary class party!
Ellen actually doesn’t do “class parties”, instead this was a chance for teams to get together to organise a festive shared lunch. To be a collaborative effort it meant that there was lots of negotiating, discussing and organising. As our school doesn’t endorse red foods, the menu needed to be healthy and foods that all team members could eat. Mind you as it was also a celebration, one red food per team was permitted (choose wisely).
There was lots of decision making as they realised planning menus can be tough, some members had allergies or were fussy eaters. Now they know the dilemma parents regularly face! This was also not a time to put demands on parents to cater, food needed to be organised or made by the students too.
Being nearly Christmas, they could bring decorative utensils, write up menus, placemats and bring other festive additions. I challenged them to turn our room into a festive restaurant. They were brilliant with their division of jobs and all teams worked well together to assemble a great healthy lunch with a spectacular Christmas theme.
We had won the Golden bin award for keeping our yard area tidy the week before, so we started the day using the sports equipment for some out door fun. But it was a really hot day, so we ended up back in the cool for some of our favourite co operative games.
Door Keeper ( that was a new one)
Prisoners and Guards
Freeze frame
The Queen of Hearts is dead!
Countries
Oh what fun they are we were in stitches at times. Then it was time to set up. Teams were very busy working collaboratively together. Take a look.
We even asked a neighbouring teacher to judge their efforts and he found it very difficult as the creative spirit was every where. So we decided everyone was a winner today.
After a quick efficient cleanup and our lunch play we settled back to watch the BFG.
Congratulations my lovely elves you did a fabulous job working , thinking and acting together. I am proud of you the best shared lunch by far.
What did you enjoy the most about today.
What would you do differently?
If you could change the movie which one would you pick.
In term three and four our science topic had to do with What creates day and night, so it made sense to also investigate other cosmic ideas. We had enormous fun investigating these science ideas. We had a go at recording what we thought happened in space, before learning new information.
To begin with, we had to get our heads around the different ways things move in space. You would think that we would know if we were spinning and moving on Earth, as we live here, but oh no! Our eyes can play tricks on us and our brains often get tricked too. This great Crash Course Kids clip on how the Earth moves, did help us clarify a few misconceptions.
Trying to understand the differences between and remember, rotation, revolution, orbit did make our heads spin.
So next it was our turn to investigate these celestial bodies for ourselves and really see things in action.
Space is REALLY, REALLY BIG and Things in space are really big and it’s hard to get our heads to understand that. We used these relative sizes pictures to understand that size is indeed relative. That means compared to each other. Ellen is bigger than us, we are small, but compared to a baby we are giants! The Moon is big, but Earth is bigger and when we looked at the Sun, it was the biggest… or was it? Check these out.
The terrestrial Planets
All planets including Gas Giants
The Solar System
Our Sun compared to Arcturus
Arcturus compared to Antares
Still, hard to get our brains to think of anything that BIG! But distance in space can affect the size of what we see too.
So getting back to the three objets we were studying Sun, Earth and Moon we checked out their sizes. We used a basketball for the Sun, tennis ball for the Moon in this activity. Using our eyes to measure and working in teams we took turns to see how far the Sun would have to be moved away, so that the Moon and the Sun appeared the same size to the observer.
Now I told them that even though we know the Sun is enormous, it is also far away and that it appeared the same size as a full Moon in the sky. Just as their basketball looked the same as the tennis ball from their activity… they weren’t convinced.
It was time to prove it to them. Luckily I had my eclipse glasses and making sure they operated within the safety rules, they each checked out just how small the Sun actually looked in the sky.. it really is no bigger than a full Moon. Cool! Amazing, they even saw the Sunspots.
So it is true, the Sun and the Moon appear to be the same size! Incidentally that’s why we get Solar eclipses. These are fascinating events indeed. If ever you can, be in the path of totality.
What do Shadows tell us?
Well a lot really and it turned out we already knew a lot about shadows.
Ah, so now it was time to investigate light and shadows. It was tricky to get our room dark enough, but we experimented with torches and making shadows. Some of us were exceptionally talented at shadow puppetry.
From our observations, we reconfirmed many of our scientific ideas about how light works and what created a shadow. Light does travel in a straight line and anything getting in the way of the ray of light blocked it, creating a shadow. This gave us lots of information to get us thinking of what we could investigate.
Getting back to the sun and the shadows we saw around the school, we decided to set out an investigation on how these shadows in the school changed over the day.
In our teams we planned to go out every hour on the hour and measure the length of a gnomon. ( shadow stick, much like a sundial) Each team found a sunny spot. Lined the gnomon/poster to the North with a compass and set about recording the time and length of the shadows cast by the gnomon throughout the day.
Eventually with shared team work, our boards looked a little like this.
Once we had all our recorded observations, we could look at the information closely and see if we noticed any thing interesting. This is called analysing data.
In our teams once a gain we set about analysing the information . We discussed our ideas and made our claims based on the data.
To make our observations clearer, we organised them into a table and from that, we could create a graph.
This graphic record made it easier for us read and come up with some claims and conclusions it was the proof and evidence we needed.
We claimed that:-
Shadows changed length over the day long to short then long again.
That when the Sun is low in the sky, the shadows are longer and when it is high in the sky, the shadow are shorter.
The Sun moved from East to West over the sky because the shadows moved West East.
Our Conclusions
We know that the Sun is in the Centre of the Solar System. It rotates but doesn’t move. So that meant the Sun didn’t move, it was Earth’s rotation that made it look like the Sun was moving.
So as the Sun continues to shine light and we know the Earth spins once every 24 hours. We get day when we face towards the Sun and we are in night when we are in the shadow of Earth.
But we also know that we are orbiting the Sun and as we go on our year long journey around the Sun, we take our Moon with us. That combination of rotations and orbits does get our heads dizzy thinking about it.
Understanding how all this works is tricky, but we enjoyed learning about our near celestial neighbours and working scientifically.
We also had the opportunity to give an oral presentation on a topic to do with space. We had a great variety of themes planets, rockets, space travel, famous astronauts etc. These were well researched and shared confidently for the most part.
Space Art
For a creative challenge, we could make an alien from plasticine and perhaps their pet, if they had one.
What do you think of our modelling skills?
Somethings to think about.
What did you think of this science unit?
What didn’t you like investigating?
What would you like to do more of?
What are you still puzzled about and would like to learn more about?
These are the values that are at the core of what we do here at Grange Primary School.
Cricket Australia will be promoting the Australia Day Match soon and they will be using this picture.
The two girls proudly holding the Australian flag are Jorja and Jordan both of whom attend Grange Primary School. Jorja is a student in our class, Jordan works in our Games Day Buddy class.
Both great friends and who, in a moment of time, have captured the essence not only of what our school values, but indeed what Australia does. I think this picture speaks volumes.
Thank you Jorja for sharing this with us, now we will share it with the world.
If you could put a slogan under this picture what would you write? Let us know.
Mr Weatherill must be happy with Room 14 at Grange
We proved to the Premier that we are indeed Super Readers, because we successfully completed our Premier’s Reading Challenge. The year three and four classes got together today to acknowledge all our hard efforts and present the awards for completing this challenge.
First time participants received a certificate. We didn’t have any first timers. However after completing the challenge two years in a row a bronze medal is awarded.
Riley was our Bronze Medalist, doesn’t he look proud.
Finlay completed three years of the challenge and has earned his Silver Medal. Yay Finn.
However most of the class has received their Gold Medals for Four years of commitment.
Well done to – Ty, Hamish, Jack, Kiara, Tyla, Wil, Zahra, Ryan, Maggie, Jessica, Jorja, James Harry, Max, Nelson, Baylee, Lakeisha, Shayla, Bella.V., Bella.Z., also to Ella, Mica and Pria who were absent .
We had a special Champion Reader in Ruby who has completed the Challenge five times. Way to go girl.
But that’s not all….
Our class doesn’t just take reading seriously, we also take our fitness seriously too. So when were told we could do the Premier’s
Be fit Challenge we gave it a go.
Ty, Jessica, Jorja, Wil, Tyla, Jack, Ella, Max,Riley, Bella.V., Maggie, and Ruby all received their Bronze Medals for their first go. Whoo hoo.
Lakeisha, Zahra, Finlay, Baylee, James, and Hamish were awarded Silver Medals. Mica and Pria will get theirs on return from their holiday. Superb effort.
Our two classroom Chipmunks (they always giggle like the Chipmunks from Bugs Bunny) became our Gold Medalists. Now that’s something to smile about .
Fabulous effort everyone. Keep up that positive attitude for next year. I am very proud of you all.
How do you feel about your efforts?
What kept you going when it was a tricky thing to do?
What would you like to say to the ones who didn’t manage to complete their challenge?
Monday afternoon our class and a few others were entertained by a Musica Viva theatre group Sounds Baroque. They performed their production of How Hercules gained his powers!
Through drama, song and comedy, Sounds Baroque told the classic morality tale using authentic baroque instruments, rap, rich costuming and modern language. The audience was indeed captivated by its sheer originality of the blending of the concept and styles. (Their flyer was inspirational in this paragraph!)
How exciting it was, waiting for the performance to start. Lots of classes came to join us.
“It was interesting because there was lots of acting and music.” Nelson
“The old fashioned instruments were cool.” Bella V
“Hercules was very funny in his dance moves.” Jack
“It was funny when Lyco bopped up and used that mean laugh. Huh, huh, ha.” Ruby
“Hermione had a really good singing voice.” Ella
“It was funny when the lady did funny things with her umbrella.” Baylee
” It was a bit weird, the crow thing using the umbrella.” Wil
“It was funny when Apollo said, you are on fire and hot. (She was the Sun!)” James
“It was weird when they sang high and low, I didn’t like the sound of it.” Tyla
“I thought it was good the way they sang high and low. ” Kiara
How professional does Tyla look at the keyboard of this Harpsichord?
After the performance we gave them some great feedback. They were happy to answer any questions. One person asked about the harpsichord. The presenter told us how the sounds were made and we learnt that the sound is plucked by a piece of quill. The harpsichord is an old stringed instrument, used way before the modern piano was created. It makes an unusual sound.
He invited someone to play a tune. Our classmate Tyla was chosen and she made us very proud playing happy birthday on this unique instrument.
Let me know what you think
What did you think of the performance?
Which character did you think was dramatic?
Had you heard of any of these characters before? Where?
What do you think of opera? Do you like the way a story is told in song?
