2013 brings a new 5/6 class and a new blog, come and join Miss Spink and 5/6 B at:
Thursday, January 31, 2013
Sunday, December 16, 2012
Delicious Delights
Wondering what to cook for dinner tonight? Grade 5/6 has it covered!
Download "A Delightfully Delicious Book Of Recipes to Tantalise Your Tastebuds" on your iPad, now in the iBook store!
Download "A Delightfully Delicious Book Of Recipes to Tantalise Your Tastebuds" on your iPad, now in the iBook store!
If you don't have an iPad read the book online-
Friday, December 7, 2012
Greed- By Celine and Kyla
It is very exciting to announce that two students from 5/6 A have just finished creating their very own iBook- the first one published for our grade.
Greed, written by Celine and illustrated by Celine and Kyla is now available for download in the iBooks store. It is a story set in the African savannah, where elephants are being hunted for their tusks. A brave elephant triumphs over the poachers!
Download this book on your iPad now! It's FREE!
Click here to download from the iBooks store.
If you do not have an iPad check out this Flip Snack book-
If you do not have an iPad check out this Flip Snack book-
Thursday, December 6, 2012
Tweeting the Prime Minister
Hi my name
is Campbell and I was recently in the The Saturday Age newspaper. The article was about
teachers and how they use social media in the classroom, I was in the article because I
sent a tweet to the Australian PM. I asked her the question, “Why do I have
to wait so long for my NAPLAN results?” “What is the point?”
This is the photo
from the article and the link.
 |
| Photo: Jason South http://www.theage.com.au/national/t-is-for-teaching-20121130-2amd9.html |
I love to
use Twitter and other social networks in the class like Edmodo and blogging because you can talk to class mates and other people from
around the world. I have tweeted to the PM and I eventually got a response.
This is Julia Gillard's and Peter Garret's responses.
It’s not
every day a PM tweets an 11 year old. Peter Garret soon replied and I hope one day I can get someone even bigger
to tweet me. I believe tweeting is a big part of learning because it teaches us about cyber safety, how to use social media responsibly and can also teach us in writing. I
believe my teacher, class and I are very important in the social networking
world. We tell the world about our learning and show the world that little people can do
big things.
By Campbell Walsh
Grade 5 - ACPS
Do you use Twitter in your classroom?
Why do you think using Twitter is good for education?
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
3-6 Camp Lake Dewar
On the 14th
of November 34 students from Learning Neighbourhood 3 left school to go
to camp at Lake Dewar Lodge. Around 9:20
AM we left the school and arrived at 10:30 AM at the camp site. From there we meet some of the camp
instructors and they told us about some of the areas inside the camp. They also
told us about some of the activities.
We then
settled into our cabins, and got put into our groups for activities. We had
three groups; group one was called Sharks, group two was called Dolphins and
group three was called Stingrays. Over the next three days we did many fun
activities including the flying fox, adventure tunnelling, kayaking, geo
cashing, campfire cooking, hut building and the Lake Dewar Lodge amazing race.
At the camp they had two dogs named Lux and Simba. The food was fantastic
especially when our very own school captain Campbell Walsh got cream pie in the
face by Miss Likos. That night, he gave her, her own dose of the pranking by
splashing a fully filled water bottle on to her face. She repaid him by
unscrewing the lid and dumping the rest of the water over him.
Kayaking:
Kayaking was
awesome, we got wet and had a bit of a work-out, turning was hard at first but
then we got used to it and it became easy.
Adventure
tunnelling:
The
adventure tunnels were dark and gloomy, it scared many people especially
Makeelly Chappell. At the adventure tunnel each stage had a different challenge
you must complete to win the key. Only a few people had lights to go on their
helmets to guide the way through the pitch black tunnels.
Campfire cooking and hut building:
Campfire
cooking and hut building were both taken by our teachers and not by the camp
instructors. They also both were a survival challenge, we had cook damper in
the campfire, we cooked the damper on a stick.
At hut building we started from scratch and had to find your own
resources for building the hut. The huts needed to be water proof. At the end
of the hut building our huts were tested by the teachers by pouring water on
top of the hut. Some of us got drenched.
The duel
flying fox:
This
activity was exhilarating, when you jump of the edge it feels like you are
actually going to fall! Miss Spink was dared into going on the flying fox or
she would be called Miss Chicken. In the end she gave in and went on the flying
fox, but only once. Some of the things that we did to make the flying fox even
scarier were the leap of faith, running and jumping of the platform, letting go
of the rope and going upside down. This is what Celine Cleveland did on the way
to the other side she did this without fear and became a flying fox warrior.
The flying fox was a hair raising experience which was one of the highlights of
camp.
Geo Caching:
Geo caching was very tiring, we had to run up and down hills
through bushes and over tunnels. The point of geo caching is to use a GPS to
locate and gather different items. We had around an hour to locate and collect
items that were worth points. Each item was hidden in different places and was
challenging to find.
Lake Dewar Lodge Amazing Race:
On the very last day we got together in our
groups and were to take part in the Lake Dewar Lodge Amazing Race. We were
given a map and a card to hole punch once each activity was completed. There were
8 activities in all and the Stingrays won.
Night Activities:
On the first
night it was movie night! We got to nominate a movie the choices were Wally,
Cars, Robots and Racing Stripes. The obvious choice was Racing Stripes it won
by a mile. On the second night we held a talent show. Miss Spink and Miss Likos
sang Don’t Worry Be Happy by Guy Sebastian, reading the lyrics from their
iPhone’s, while Ms Cornish and Mrs Wade were the backup dancers. Mrs A who was
the judge gave the teachers a comment and mimicked that “It was really that bad”
and then the teachers tilted their heads in disappointment while Mr Fraser sang
“Don’t worry be happy”.
Everyone had
to participate in the talent show. Out of all the students and groups that
participated Celinemchelsky won, the runners up were the Little Rippers. The
prizes were a packet of Starburst lollies.
On the last
day we left the camp in the bus and got back to school, ready to go home and
rest.
The camp was
amazing and something that we will remember for the rest of our lives.
Mr Fraser thought a highlight was the apple pie, he even made a video about it!
Mr Fraser thought a highlight was the apple pie, he even made a video about it!
By
Celine and Campbell
Thursday, November 29, 2012
CBL Reflection
Let's Reflect!
The following prompts will help you with this process.
The way you present your reflections is up to you- you may like to create a video, record audio, tell a story, write a blog post, make a Glog, the choice is yours!
I can't wait to see what you come with!
Miss Spink
Reflection Prompts:
Reflection Prompts
Understanding the Challenge
• Explain the big idea, essential question, and the challenge.
• Why is this important to you and your community?
• Who does the challenge impact?
Guiding Questions/Research
• What were the most valuable guiding questions?
• What kinds of surprises did you encounter during your research?
• What resources were the most valuable?
The Solution
• Describe the process your team went through to come to your solution.
• What things did you try that didn’t seem to work?
• Why do you think your solution will make a difference?
Executing the Solution
• How did you put your solution into action?
• How did you measure its effectiveness?
• What obstacles did you face during this process?
Teamwork
• What challenges did you face working as a team?
• How did your group utilize individual talents?
• What have you learned about collaboration?
Review of Your Work
• Could you have solved this challenge differently?
• What would you do differently if you were to take on this challenge again?
• What is one thing you learned that you will never forget?
Connections
• What did you learn during this process that you didn’t know before?
• How can you apply this process and/or your solution to other similar challenges
in the world today?
• What skills did you learn that apply to other areas of your learning?
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
Challenge Based Learning In Our Class
In Term 4 our 'Inquiry' topic is Increasing Understanding and Awareness About Asylum Seekers. Now the reason I put
some quotation marks around inquiry was because (technically) this term we are
not doing Inquiry. Instead of 'inquiring' we are finding a solution to a
challenge. CBL stands for Challenge Based Learning.
This way of learning gives
us a more professional feel and it also helps that we each have modernised
roles which can help give us skills for the future.
Here is our challenge video-
You can find an overview of our challenge here-
There are steps to progress from our challenge to a solution. The
first thing is our guiding questions. There are two types of guiding questions.
The first types are 'over the surface' questions (OTS). These are 'easy'
questions that can be easily answered. The other type of questions are 'under
the surface' questions. These usually require more research and have a more
definitive answer. We all came up with questions and we divided them
for each group. We have formed four groups that are coming up with solutions.
The names of the group are:
- Asylum Savers
- Asylum Helpers
- Ocean Seekers
- Seek the Asylums
I'm
in Asylum Savers as a research librarian. Our group is making a PowerPoint
to document our guiding questions. After
that they had to combine all of our information to create a solution that we can do by themselves. CBL is new for all of us so when we started we were a bit shaky. It was very challenging but because we have one of the best teachers in
the school, Miss Spink, she helped us off with all the basics and then we went
off mostly by ourselves. To answer the guiding questions we participated in a range of guiding activities. Some of the guiding activities including watching videos from Behind the News and Go Back To Where You Came From, reading books (Home and Away by John Marsden was a stand out) and reading newspaper articles.
Like
most other projects, this is taking a lot of time, but now Miss Spink
has set a deadline so that should speed things up. We don't have much time to
do this only just a few weeks left. We must post our progress on a website
called Edmodo, that way Miss Spink knows what each group is up to.
The stories we have heard in our research and
the stuff Miss Spink has showed us in our guiding activities, are all sad and make us think about what is happening to asylum seekers. There was also a simulation Miss Spink found on the Go Back to Where You Came From website that freaked some of
us out. It put us in the shoes of the asylum seekers, where something happened
in Australia and we had to escape. We were deported back to Australia where the
bill of the plane ride was going to be sent to us. Wasting $3000 to go to some
unknown country and be forced to go back and we had to pay for it, during the simulation we lost all contact with our friends and family and had to pay illegal people smugglers to get us out of the country. We are so lucky that civil wars and violence that is happening in so many countries does not happen in Australia.
Our group has come up with a solution to not only make people understand about the issues with asylum seekers but help them as well. We have organised a grocery drive and will be donating our items to the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre.
By: Cheuk
Yue
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