Today our school will commemorate Sorry Day.
Here is a video of students in Australia forming a giant human SORRY on their school oval with 'Sorry Song' by Kerry Fletcher as musical backing, in preparation for the Australian Government's National Apology to the 'Stolen Generations' on 13th February 2008.
A good explanation of what Sorry Day is can be found here. A more comprehensive Stolen Generations factsheet is also available.
Some moving personal stories can be found here.
Teachers can locate a list of suggested classroom activities here.
For Stage 2 readers a text called 'Stolen Girl' by Trina Saffioti would be interesting to share with the class.
An engaging narrative for more able readers to access is 'Who Am I? The Diary of Mary Talence, Sydney 1937' by Anita Heiss. This is the fictional diary of a 10-year-old Aboriginal girl taken from her family as part of the Stolen Generation.
This book is aimed at readers aged 10 or 11+.
Of course the excellent 'My Place' by Sally Morgan is an appropriate text for discussion, but is aimed more at late Stage 3 readers.
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Monday, May 21, 2012
Music: Ding Dong the Wicked Witch is dead
For our Year 3 performance we will all be singing 'Ding Dong the Wicked Witch is Dead!'
It's very hard to find a good version with clear lyrics for the students to sing, mainly because the movie is now so old! (But still so good...)
I like this version because the lyrics are subtitles, making it easy to learn the song:
A much faster version here (with moderate sound quality) is here:
And finally, terrible quality, but the real version from the film:
The Lyrics:
Ding Dong! The Witch is dead. Which old Witch? The Wicked Witch!
Ding Dong! The Wicked Witch is dead.
Wake up - sleepy head, rub your eyes, get out of bed.
Wake up, the Wicked Witch is dead. She's gone where the goblins go,
Below - below - below. Yo-ho, let's open up and sing and ring the bells out.
Ding Dong' the merry-oh, sing it high, sing it low.
Let them know
The Wicked Witch is dead!
It's very hard to find a good version with clear lyrics for the students to sing, mainly because the movie is now so old! (But still so good...)
I like this version because the lyrics are subtitles, making it easy to learn the song:
A much faster version here (with moderate sound quality) is here:
And finally, terrible quality, but the real version from the film:
The Lyrics:
Ding Dong! The Witch is dead. Which old Witch? The Wicked Witch!
Ding Dong! The Wicked Witch is dead.
Wake up - sleepy head, rub your eyes, get out of bed.
Wake up, the Wicked Witch is dead. She's gone where the goblins go,
Below - below - below. Yo-ho, let's open up and sing and ring the bells out.
Ding Dong' the merry-oh, sing it high, sing it low.
Let them know
The Wicked Witch is dead!
Science: Feathers fur or leaves?
In Science today our class has looked at how to classify different types of animals.
This presentantion outlines exactly what we have been learning today!
This presentantion outlines exactly what we have been learning today!
Music: Write your own sheet music!
Today I found this free fun online tool, where you can write music yourself using the skills you have learned in class!
A free 'sheet music editor' can be found here. You can even print out your piece of music to keep and use later!
Thursday, May 10, 2012
Bullying: Take a stand together
Today during our class Circle Time and Bounceback lesson we visited the 'Bullying: Take a stand together' website.
There are lots of helpful facts about bullying and also some further information on topics such as what to do if you are bullied or how to help a friend that is being bullied.
You can visit the website here.
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
Science: How to draw a scientific diagram
This week in Science we will be looking at how to draw an accurate scientific diagram. Some steps are shown here:
Scientific Diagram
The communication of ideas is an important part of our everyday lives. One of the ways that scientists communicate is to use drawings. It is important to make a scientific drawing clear, neat, and accurate.
What To Do
- Use unlined paper and a sharp pencil. You will also need a ruler and make sure you use a good quality eraser to make your corrections.
- Give yourself plenty of space. Your diagram should be at least 1/2 page in size. Even if you earthworm is small, you still want to have the space to add labels and captions to your drawing.
- Labels identify the parts of the object you are drawing. Place labels on the right your drawing unless putting them all on the one side would make your drawing cluttered. Use your ruler to draw lines to the different structures. Make sure none of your label lines cross.
- Draw only what you see and keep your drawing simple.
- Shading or colouring is not usually found on scientific drawings. If you want to indicate a darker area, you can use stippling (a series of dots).
- If you do use colours, try to be as accurate as you can. Choose ones that are as close as possible to the colour of the earthworm. The only bright blue worms you see are the candy ones found in stores.
- Label the different structures carefully. Go back to the Key Terms in the investigation if you are not sure how to spell the names of the different structures.
- Give your drawing a title. You can also include the scale of your drawing. Is the drawing of your earthworm twice as big as the real worm? Or is it the actual size of the earthworm -- the person looking at your diagram needs to know.
A good example of a scientific drawing produced by a student (from NSWAGTC):
Another example:
A good online example of how to draw a scientific diagram:
Adapted from: http://www.naturewatch.ca/english/wormwatch/resources/drawing.html
http://nswagtc.org.au/blogs/science-guru/1078-scientific-diagrams.html
Scientific Diagram
The communication of ideas is an important part of our everyday lives. One of the ways that scientists communicate is to use drawings. It is important to make a scientific drawing clear, neat, and accurate.
What To Do
- Use unlined paper and a sharp pencil. You will also need a ruler and make sure you use a good quality eraser to make your corrections.
- Give yourself plenty of space. Your diagram should be at least 1/2 page in size. Even if you earthworm is small, you still want to have the space to add labels and captions to your drawing.
- Labels identify the parts of the object you are drawing. Place labels on the right your drawing unless putting them all on the one side would make your drawing cluttered. Use your ruler to draw lines to the different structures. Make sure none of your label lines cross.
- Draw only what you see and keep your drawing simple.
- Shading or colouring is not usually found on scientific drawings. If you want to indicate a darker area, you can use stippling (a series of dots).
- If you do use colours, try to be as accurate as you can. Choose ones that are as close as possible to the colour of the earthworm. The only bright blue worms you see are the candy ones found in stores.
- Label the different structures carefully. Go back to the Key Terms in the investigation if you are not sure how to spell the names of the different structures.
- Give your drawing a title. You can also include the scale of your drawing. Is the drawing of your earthworm twice as big as the real worm? Or is it the actual size of the earthworm -- the person looking at your diagram needs to know.
A good example of a scientific drawing produced by a student (from NSWAGTC):
Another example:
A good online example of how to draw a scientific diagram:
Adapted from: http://www.naturewatch.ca/english/wormwatch/resources/drawing.html
http://nswagtc.org.au/blogs/science-guru/1078-scientific-diagrams.html
Sunday, May 6, 2012
Visual Arts: Vivid Festival
Sydney's exciting VIVID festival is about to launch for another year. It's such an exciting event for everybody and most of all, it looks amazing!
We ran this presentation on our electronic whiteboard while the class created their artwork.
You can visit the VIVID website here. http://www.vividsydney.com/
We ran this presentation on our electronic whiteboard while the class created their artwork.
You can visit the VIVID website here. http://www.vividsydney.com/
Friday, May 4, 2012
Helping your child with reading
Our school is blessed with a helpful population of parents and friends and I always look forward to further supporting our families and community, especially when it is going to help our learning in the classroom!
This NSW Department of Education and Communities web article covers how to help your child when reading at home.
Home reading is a vital part of the Stage 2 program and this article is full of simple and useful tips to assist with your child's development in reading fluency and comprehension.
Thursday, May 3, 2012
War Animals
Today we watched this clip as part of our 'Being Australian' COGS Unit.
My apologies for the screen size, unlike youtube, the ABC does not offer embed options, so yes, the size of this screen is a little big.
Pygmy Possums
BTN this week had an excellent story on the Pygmy Possums of Australia's Alpine region. This week in COGS we have been 'Mapping Australia' and this story offered us some excellent insight into the terrain and features of this part of Australia.
You can also download and read/print an excellent factsheet about Pygmy Possums here.
You can also download and read/print an excellent factsheet about Pygmy Possums here.
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
Science: Feathers Fur or Leaves
As part of this Science unit we will be looking at living and non-living things.
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