Origami Ninja Stars or An Information Text!

Today Year 3 students watched a You Tube clip that showed and told them how to make a ninja star. Here are some of the interesting things they noticed about this text:

it was an instructional text – it showed you how to make something
it was a type of procedure, with steps to follow
you had to listen to the words as well as watch the pictures
the video was really helpful to watch as if you couldn’t understand a part you could watch and see what to do next
the video supported the words, you could watch the video over and over at each part – to see how the narrator was actually moving the papers and making the folds
the photos inbooks are static (they stay still) the video showed the movements to make with the folding
the spoken words + the written words + the video worked together to make sure we could actually make our ninja stars!

Here is the clip we watched:

And here are our finished ninja stars 🙂

Drug Education – “So What’s the Fuss?”

Stage 3 students will be investigating drug education this term.

Have a look at some of these websites during this session and come up with some areas of interest, that you may want to explore further.

Kid’s Health Facts

Drug Facts for Young People – Comic

It’s A fact! – You Tube video you will ahve to watch at home 🙁

OxyGen Tobacco Fact Sheets

Wild Readers

Ben has spent his holidays reading in many wild places – have a look at where he was caught reading.

Thanks Ben for being a WILD READER.

Positive Puppets

Calling all Kindergarten AllStars – here is a video made especially for you by our Stage 3 students.

It will help you remember how to be safe online.

A big “Thank you” to Angelina, Erin and Rifa for making this video 🙂

Puppets Get Positive from KimPericles on Vimeo.

Safety On and Near Roads

Here are some links for Stage 3 to use as they explore the issues around Road Safety and Schools.

Use these sites to get a “big picture” view of real world statistics and information from these government websites.

What you find out from these sites will help you come up with answers for the next part of our explorartion!

Pedestrians and Safety

World Health Organization – Road Traffic Injuries

World Health Organization – Infographic

World Health Organization – Child Injury Prevention

Did you find any shocking, worrying, or surprising information? Let us know what you think in the comments.

Holy Bagumba!

Stage 2, here is a great little story that we will be reading together over the next few weeks.

It’s about a superhero squirrel called Ulysses and his friend Flora Belle Buckman.

The story has many references to comics and the language and features found in comics – click here to read comics online at

Marvel Comics for Kids site

DC Comics for Kids

Kidjutsu Comics for Kids

Make your own comics at Make Beliefs Comics

Here is the book trailer for Flora and Ulysses for you to enjoy 🙂

Leave a comment below if you love to read comics

Thinking and Talking Critically and Interpretively About Friends

Stage 3 have been working to think deeply and talk about their thinking this week.

We have been using text and words to think and talk about friendship – discussing definitions about friendships and looking at some famous quotes about friendship.

Next we tried to find an image that representes friendship – and we tried to link the visual elements of the image to the idea of friendship the image was conveying.

We looked at the colours, the perspective, the size and placemant of elements in the image. It was pretty tricky at first, but we tried again in another session and came up with some thoughtful responses.

Here are some books you might like to read about friendship:

Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone (JK Rowling)

Wonder (RJ Pallacio)

Charlotte’s Web (EB White)

Bridge to Terabithia (Katherine Paterson)

The One and Only Ivan (Katherine Applegate)

Holes (Louis Sachar)

Because of Winn-Dixie (Kate DiCamillo)

The Rainbow Fish (Marcus Pfister)

The Strange Case of Origami Yoda (Tom Angelberger)

The Hobbit (JRR Tolkien)

Stellaluna (Janelle Cannon)

Ivy and Bean books (Annie Barrows)

The Last Olympian – Percy Jackson (Rick Riordan)

The BFG (Roald Dahl)

Are there any other books about friendship that you have read and enjoyed? Add it in the comments section!

Mem Fox

This term on our author display are favourite books by Australian author Mem Fox.

We have lots of lovely titles that are still popular after many years!

Stage 1 enjoyed hearing Possum Magic this week. Here is a reading of the book for you to watch ….

What are your favourite books from when you were little? Tell us in the comments section.

Origami Yoda

We have started reading “The Strange Case of Origami Yoda” this week and have had a few giggles with the descriptions of the characters (which are all kids).

Some people thought they would like to try and fold their own Yoda, so here is Tom Angleberger’s site – with instructions and videos to make your own Origami Yoda at home.

There are lots of other interesting things on this site – have a look and leave a comment below telling us what you think!

Here is You Tube of how to make a simple Origami Yoda!

ANZAC Day Stories

ANZAC Day is coming up during the holidays and this week we have been looking at many of the wonderful books and stories about this special day that we have in the Library. Some people remembered the story of Simpson and his Donkey from when they were little, and Carmen was reading a novel “The Donkey Who Carried the Wounded” by Jackie French that explained this story more deeply for an older audience. We love connections and remembered stories and learning more about what has happened in our world.

There are many beautiful picture books for older readers that are new in the Library this year, as well as some very informative non-fiction books on a variety of war topics.

Feel free to come and have a look and borrow one of these lovely books to take home for the holidays, you might just be taking home a new memory!