Royal Botanical Gardens Excursion

The Grade 3 students had an amazing time exploring the beautiful surrounding of the Botanical Gardens on Friday. This term, the Grade 3’s have been learning about different types of biomes and ecosystems in their Inquiry unit.

The day was filled with lots of walking and exploring the different types of environments and plants that the gardens have to offer. The students compared biotic and abiotic features found in wetlands, arid landscapes, Australian forests, bamboo forests, tropical environments and rain forests.

Pen Pals – Italian

Last week the Grade 5 and 6 students met their pen pals through a Webex meeting at school. We went into the staff room and called Avondale primary using the Webex technology. Students were able to see and hear their pen pals and had a short conversation with them in Italian!

It was exciting to finally meet!

Sports Skills in Grade One and Two

The Grade One and Two students have had a great start to their ‘Striking and Fielding’ unit of work. The students have experienced success in hitting a ball from a T-ball stand. They have learnt to stand sideways, with their knees bent and shoulder-width apart, looking at the ball, lifting the bat behind their body at hip height to enable them to swing the bat and strike the ball. This skill will later transfer into the games of softball, T-ball, rounders and cricket.

Stadium Maths

For the rest of the term on a Friday, Maths number sessions are being held inside the stadium for ‘Stadium Maths.’ This is being run with all of the Grade 4 students and teachers. The students have been given a list of maths number goals that they need to work through and achieve. These goals have been targeted to their learning needs. Throughout the Maths sessions, students will participate in at least one workshop run by the teachers. While students wait for their workshop, they rotate through a range of activities that are targeted to their maths goals.

Once students feel they have mastered a math goal, they will demonstrate their new skills to one of the Grade 4 teachers. The teacher will sign off the goals once the students have demonstrated their understanding. Last Friday was our first session of ‘Stadium Maths’ and we have received positive feedback from the students. They have exclaimed that they like having lots of choice on their activities, interacting with students from different groups, partnering up with different learning buddies and they enjoyed that their activities are game based.

Students have taken a photo of their goals on their iPads so that they can practise their goals at home as well.

Scienceworks Excursion

Last Friday we visited Scienceworks, because we have been learning all about Wild and Wonderful Weather in our Inquiry Learning Unit!

First we went to the Lightning Room to watch a show called ‘What’s With The Weather.’ We learnt that weather is controlled by three factors: temperature, moisture and changes in the way the air moves (wind). We got to see some wacky weather experiments like how to make a cloud in a bottle and how to make rain and… we even got to see real lightning flash before our eyes!! It was really cool. We also visited the STEM Lab where we transformed and turned into engineers, our mission was to work together to build and test solutions to the challenges faced by Dot, the main character in an interactive story. We worked really well and came up with some creative designs!

After that we explored the museum and exhibitions, some of our favourite parts were: racing our friends at the Cathy Freeman running race, experimenting with different sounds in the sound room, seeing one of the first ever computers which is the same size of our classroom and playing the exercise and diamond game.

We had an awesome time at Scienceworks, it was a spectacular experience for all!