DSLites and Year 4

The Year 4 students in the AllStars are using the school DSLites and the game “Dolphin Island” to investigate marine conservation.

They have to look after sea creatures who have been hurt by human and environmental factors. When they are not playing the game, the students are researching marine animals and adding their info to the class wiki, measuring how big the animals are and drawing the creatures.

What fun :)


Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Origami Whale Adventure

We have been making origami whales!

We read about the idea of making these whales at the “Origami Whale Project” site - and how they were used to raise awareness of the slaughter of whales internationally. Did you know that since 1986 over 30 000 whales have been killed by whalers from Iceland, Norway and Japan? 

Everyone folded the paper carefully and we strung the whales up on string to make a curtain of beautiful coloured whales in our room.

             

 

You can all make a virtual origami whale and send it off to the Japanese Prime Minister - just click here and off it goes!

 

 

Principal Excellence!

 

Last week Mrs Dyer visited the national capital, Canberra, to receive an award. She was presented with her Australian Government 2008 National Award for Quality Schooling - Achievement by a Principal award.

A photographer came to school and took some photos of Mrs Dyer and students for the newspaper.

  

We are all very proud of her and what she does for our school. Mrs Dyer presented a cheque to the school at Assembly and everyone gave her three HUGE cheers!!!!!

  

 

Mrs Dyer is soon off to Harvard University in the USA to take part in a couple of “summer school” courses - good luck and learn lots. Wish we were going with you :)

  

Leading the Way

Is this connected learning or what?

Students from across the world set the pace!

Nadine from the AllStars and Stephie from Argentina have been commenting on each other’s blog for a while now, and have become friends with a shared concern.

With the help of Stephie’s teacher, they have set up a wiki called “Stop Whaling Now”. The girls have decided to mount a campaign to stop whaling. Have a look at their wiki and leave a comment, or join their fight.

 

Attribution:  Image: ‘Humpback Whales in Prince William Sound‘

Thinking Our Way ….

   

Today we used a different Visible Thinking routine to kick start our individual Study Projects.

Our overall topic is the Ocean, but everyone is interested in different subjects and areas within this big topic.

The thinking routine we used was called:

Think

Puzzle

Explore

First we had to think of facts we knew (or thought we knew) about oceans.

Then we had to come up with something that puzzled us  or something we wondered about oceans.

Lastly we identified some areas of interest that we might explore as a class.

We used lots of post-it notes (MrsP should NOT buy cheapo ones from the $2 Shop :) - cos they don’t stick) but came up with lots of great ideas that we can follow through with in class, or in our individual Study Project.

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First Debate of 08

Hi everybody!

This week we had our first debate of the year for Belmore South. It was against Campsie, (not very far from us), and the topic was that “Earth Hour is a waste of time”. We were saying it WASN’T a waste of time, and guess what….. WE WON!!!!

Even though we were all above the time limit we still had very good arguments and we had very good rebuttals.

In this first debate it was: 1st speaker, me; 2nd speaker, Naomi; 3rd speaker, Ramiz; and team advisor, Celia. At Belmore South we usually have 2 extra people in the debating team but we haven’t found out who those two people are yet.

Hope we do as well as we did in this debate in our upcoming debates.