Here we go! Term 2 is up and running and I’m sure we’re all energised and raring to go. This will be an 11 week term but I’m sure it will be fun, enjoyable and productive so it should fly as quickly as usual. One of our exciting subjects will be Art where the Year 5/6 students will be creating work inspired by Vincent van Gogh’s iconic sunflower still life paintings. Students will be exploring the elements of art by experimenting with shape, pattern, texture and line, with a focus on using the full space of the page to create balanced and detailed compositions. They will then enhance their work using watercolour paints, applying complementary colours for contrast and creating tints to show shadow and depth. Thanks to our incredible Mrs Harris, our Art specialist, for providing such fun and inspirational learning opportunities.

I never thought I’d say this, but I reckon I’ve found a group of kids with better dance moves than myself! After eight gruelling weeks of dance rehearsals, LA14 got to take part in the fabulous EduDance performance. Our class performed to Joker and the Thief by Wolfmother, an Australian band. The moves they’d been practicing came together beautifully and the students completely knoced it out of the park. They also looked pretty cool, in their band tee-shirts, denim shorts, bandanas, and with checked shirts wrapped around their waists. It was an incredibly energetic night and left me with a huge sense of pride in the students. Their enjoyment and their smiles were just joyous to see. Check out a few photos below.

Write a post about our EduDance concert. Include the following details:

• Rehearsals – how long and how it went
• Some of the moves
• The clothes you wore
• The music (The Joker and the Thief by Wolfmother)
• The style or theme of the song
• How you felt before, during and after
• How the audience reacted

Use plenty of descriptive language in your descriptions and remember ALL your punctuation.

This week we took the students out for a pleasant day in the local park next to the school; although some of them didn’t appreciate this kind gesture. However, that could be that it was our annual school cross country race, where the whole school runs around a course specifically set for their year level. It was about a 2.5 kilometre track in our local park for our year 5s and 6s, and they did a tremendous job. It was an exhausting but great day and all the students who took part can be proud of themselves for completing the whole course. In the end, one of our own girls, Brianna, took the year 6 silver medal – a fabulous achievement.  Check out the images below of the students being put through their horrific torture

After a lot of trial and effort, and a large number of emails between myself and the blogging people, we’ve finally started our blogs. It will take us quite a while to get things moving properly and have everything running smoothly, but the students have set their designs and are already looking at customizing them. By doing blogs, the students will learn how to remain unidentifiable online and protect their identity while still telling their own story. They will also learn to take responsibility for their own work, making sure it’s legible, structured correctly and has correct spelling and grammar. Of course, not everything will be perfect, but the blogs will give the students an opportunity to get better and better.

What a magical day it was – EXCURSION DAY! The students grabbed their iPads, put their hats on and lined up outside the classroom. The excitement built rapidly as we walked to the school gate. We’d arrived… at the car park. Not much of an excursion, I suppose, but it was a nice change from sitting in the classroom. There was a serious side to our little jolly, we were learning about rotational symmetry and the teachers’ cars provided a cool, real world experience for the students to check their learning. They looked at the patterns and tried to take photos of different orders of rotation, and they did a great job. We then integrated technology to present our observations and printed them in the classroom. Check out the examples below.

If you’re from Australia, you’re probably already very familiar with what’s known as the Dreamtime. This was (and has always been) the time during which the indigenous people beleive the land, laws, environment and the life forms within it all were created by the Ancestor spirits. This is a living process, and the stories created to explain it were handed down through time. LA14 have been learning about this process and have read and discussed some of the stories. From this process, the students will be creating their own versions of the Dreamtime stories following some excellent group work. Two stories we looked at were: How The Sun Was Made and Why The Kangaroo Walks on Two Legs.

Well, okay, the title of this post is a little deceptive. Things aren’t really going swimmingly, we are actually going swimming! Last week and this week have been all about swimming lessons, and the students are already having a great time at the local pool. It will be fascinating to see them develop their skills as they learn the techniques needed to swim with ease, grace and power (hopefully). However, the drawback to this is that the classroom work will be taking a bit of a hit, with some days being reduced to between one and two hours contact time between myself and the students. Not that I’ve heard anyone complaining! Anyway, even with swimming, we’re going to be learning about symmetry, addition, the origins of prefixes ab, online safety and security whilst getting ready for our assembly next week. Just another couple of weeks for the students of LA14.

Another new year and another new class. LA14 have begun a brand new year with a brand new set of students, and it looks like it’s going to be another good one. Once again we’re a split 5/6 class due to the odd numbers we have at school, but this has never been an issue for us, it’s always worked just fine. We’ve only had one full week but we’ve already completed quite a lot of work. We’ve looked at a famous British artist (Julian Opie of Blur fame) and created our own versions; the goal was to be critical of our own work and not settle for being just “finished. We’ve completed a number of tests, written a poetice version of the holidays using simile, and started our assembly item. There are other things too but this’ll do for a start.

Check out our art below.

They year is rapidly drawing to a close and we have only 3 weeks of school left before we go our separate ways for the long summer break. However, that doesn’t mean we’re slowing down at all, in fact many of our activities are also drawing to an end and the students are seeing the fruits of their labours. Despite the last few weeks being heavy with testing, the students have managed to finish their amazing dragon sculptures with our incredible Art teacher, Mrs Harris. It was great that this activity coincided with our novel study of Dragon Skin giving a real theme type of feel to the whole term. Check out the images below.