Visiting Author

Today we had a visit from Adam Wallace, an author of children's books. It was great to see him share his stories and involve the children in a creative writing workshop. He also showed us how to draw different animals. You can buy his books or his cool t-shirts from his website.

To tessellate or not to tessellate...

This week the students in Learning Neighbourhood 2 went out on a shape and tessellating pattern hunt. Here are some patterns we found, do they all tessellate?

Puzzle of the Week

How did you go with the sliding puzzle? Try this one out...

Leap Froggies » Brain Games

Song we are learning

Today, the students in Learning Neighbourhood 2 began to learn a song called "Twinkle, Twinkle, Vegemite". We looked at the structure of the lyrics and the rhythm. We hope to perform it next term at assembly.


Twinkle Twinkle Vegemite

Excursion to State Library

Don't forget this Thursday the students in Learning Neighbourhood 2 will be going on an excursion to the State Library of Victoria. We will be leaving around 9am so make sure you are at school on time!

View Larger Map

Family Trees

As part of our Learning Agreement there is an activity that involves creating a family tree. Here are some examples to help you:

Puzzle of the Week

The answer to last weeks puzzle was... the moon!

Here is a sliding puzzle:

Chichen Itza is a large pre-Columbian archaeological site built by the Maya civilization located in the northern center of the Yucatán Peninsula, in the Yucatán state, present-day Mexico.

Learning Agreement Time

Today we started our new Learning Agreements! Here are some pictures of the children doing some of the activities and tasks. Can you guess what they are doing from the new Learning Agreement?

Click on "View all Images" for a closer look...

Newton's Cradle

We have one of these on our "tinkering table" - called Newton's Cradle. People have these on their desks all over the world! Yes, you can turn the sound off... you will see what I mean!

JSC Representatives

Our JSC (Junior School Council) representatives in Learning Neighbourhood 2 are:

Grace, Theo, Sam and Simona 3/4T

Alice, Harry, Min-hyeon and Dom 3/4K

Learning Agreement

Here is the Learning Agreement for weeks 7 to 9 (until the end of this term).


Learning Agreement

Webquest

A Web Quest is an activity that involves students visiting a variety of websites for a particular project. This one is called “Happy Holidays!”.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS WEB QUEST - Learning Agreement Activity

Feel like a holiday? Then have a go at this Web Quest. Record all your information in your learning journal or on a sheet of paper and put this in your black folder.

Step 1

Decide where you want to go for a two week holiday to an overseas country. Visit google maps and find your destination. Name your destination and name some nearby towns, cities or countries. Use the “Satellite” and “Terrain” options. Describe what you see. (Side quest 1: Find out what “terrain” means using dictionary.com).

Step 2

You are going to have find out what the weather is like where you are going so you know what type of clothing to pack (remember the seasons are the opposite in the Northern Hemisphere). Visit Yahoo Weather and record your findings. What clothes will you need to bring? What types of activities might you be doing, i.e. skiing, swimming, etc?

Step 3

You are now going to find out how much it costs to fly to your destination. Visit “Flight Centre” and put in the necessary details. Write down how much the flight is going to cost – remember you need a “return” ticket or you will be stuck overseas!

(Side Quest 2: Go to “How far is it between?” and write down the distance in kilometres, make sure you check it is not set to give the result in miles!)

Step 4

I am going to give you $2000.00 Australian dollars as spending money! Visit the currency converter website and write down the name of the countries' currency and how much you will get.

Step 5

Go to Wikipedia and find out some facts about the country you are going to. Draw a picture of the flag.

Blog List

Check out the new "Blog list" under the "Useful Websites" list. Katrina's blog from 3/4K is well worth a visit, great layout and impressively written posts.

Poetry

It was great to have Lexi's mum come to visit us this morning. Helen came to talk about herself as a poet and her love of words. We really enjoyed listening to her read some of her own poetry, describing her inspiration, as well as reading some other author's work. Helen read a funny poem about broccoli by Michael Rosen - very funny! He has a great website - click on the links.

Helen ran a workshop using a poem by William Carlos Williams whereby the children had to create their own version. Some fantastic prose was produced and shared with the neighbourhood (see Talking Point for some samples - also children can share their poems here by publishing them as a comment - don't forget to leave your name!)

Thanks so much to not only Helen, but to all the parents who have come in to talk about themselves as writers and also other parents who have assisted in Learning Agreement time and workshop sessions. It is great to see the community involvement in our neighbourhood - remember you are always welcome!

DON"T FORGET TO LEAVE YOUR FIRST NAME IF PUBLISHING A POEM

Tesselations

Hi everybody,

Today all the children did a workshop about 2D shapes. We looked at the properties of lines including parallel and intersecting lines. After brainstorming a range of common shapes we began to look at their properties. We then looked at manipulating shapes, sliding, flipping and turning. This in turn helped us understand tessellating patterns. Here is a slideshow of the images we discussed and a few more!

NOTE: CLICK ON THE SPEAKER FOR MUSIC!!!

Puzzle of the week

The answer to last week's puzzle was... a clock - but how does it work?

This week's puzzle was given to me by Alison, Nic's mum in 3/4T:

It’s been around for millions of years but is no more than a month old. What is it?

Parent Reps for Learning Neighbourhood 2

I would like to thank George's mum, Dianne, and Josh's mum, Lisa, for offering to be our parent reps in Learning Neighbourhood 2.
We would like to get a contact list together for the community and here is a copy. One will be handed out later in the week:


Class Info

Online Learning

You will notice two more sites added to our link list. You will be using them for your learning agreements over the next three weeks.

The first is Spelling City. I will show you how to use this site and you will be putting in your own spelling list.

The second site is Tutpup, a great site especially for practicing your times table. Ask your parents if they can sign you up and get your personal username and password.

Puzzle of the Week

The answer to last week's puzzle is... a sponge!

Here is a machine. What does it do? How does it work?

Information Night

Here is a copy of the letter home about our Information Evening on Thursday, March 11th at 7.00pm. Students in Learning Neighbourhood 2 are welcome to attend to share their learning.

Information night