The Year 4 ‘Design Your Own Experiment’ project culminated with a ‘Meet the Scientist’ afternoon, where the Year 4 scientists shared their thinking with family visitors and the school community.
Here is a snapshot from the afternoon:
4T, leave a comment with something that you have learnt from this term’s Integrated Unit or what worked well at our Open Afternoon and something you are still wondering about.
What an action-packed couple of days Year 4 camp has been!
Not only did we learn about the natural environment and Indigenous culture, we have also done a heap of team building and exciting activities. Yes, we even developed our understandings about what it really means to set the table and clean up.
Gee we had fun!
The 4km Silvan Dam walk to the Mt Evelyn Recreation Camp was a bit of a hike, but was well worth it when we were welcomed by Jeff from Indigicate. He invited us to participate in a traditional Indigenous smoking ceremony. Engulfed by the smoke, we had to make the loudest sound we could (anything will do, there were some interesting versions) to alert our ancestors that we were there at the camp site, but also to protect us during our stay.
During our stay, we spent the next two days participating in so many fun and educational activities which included:
- Hut building
- Damper making
- Giant swing
- Kaos scavenger hunt
- Wildlife encounter
- Nature Bush Craft
- Indigicate aboriginal culture experience
- Night walk
- Movie night
Just before our 4km hike to the campsite.
To see more photos of our fabulous time at Camp, log on to CLASSe and look for the ‘4T 2018 Camp Photos’ link underneath the Home Tasks tab.
We all showed terrific courage and curiosity that throughout the different challenges, both physical and mental. We also tried to remain positive by encouraging others to do and be their best. It was an amazing experience.
Check out the individual student blogs of 4T to read more about our camp experiences.
Positive Learner Attributes
Using our school’s Personal Learner Attributes, can you give me an example of a time that you had to use one of these traits?
As part of our new Integrated topic this term ‘First Contacts,’ we are learning about the impact of the European Settlement on Aboriginal culture.
Have you ever wondered what traditional life was like for the Wurundjeri people (the Aboriginal tribe of the Melbourne area)? Well, take a trip to CERES environmental park and you are sure to learn lots of new information!
On Monday, all the Year 4 classes visited CERES and participated in four different activities related to traditional Aboriginal culture, including:
- Bush Tucker, where we learned about how Aboriginal people used plants for food and medicine.
- A Merri Creek history walk, where we compared the landscape now to what it might have been prior to colinisation and looked at the positive and negative impacts of humans on nature.
- Fossils and Rocks, where we learnt about igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic rocks. We discussed how they are created and we looked at fossile more than 100 million years old!
- Storytelling, where we learnt about the importance of storytelling through art and dance and acted out the traditional story of Tiddalick the Frog.
Look at our individual student pages to learn more about our Aboriginal Culture research projects.
What was the most interesting thing you learnt at CERES?
What is something you are still wondering about and would like to explore further?
This term we were lucky to have the knowledgable Melinda come and work with us once a week to grow our knowledge of computational thinking and coding.
We learnt that whenever you are wanting to program a device you need to have a clear event that starts what will happen, precise and efficient algorithms and a courageous and persistent mindset!
4T were able to transfer their knowledge from Scratch Jr to a new app called Hopscotch where they explored the functions of the blocks and variables to create various games.
4T are now putting their knowledge to the test and designing and creating their own maths games to assist in practising a concept already learnt this year.
Some game learning intentions include:
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To practise times tables facts
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To convert fractions to decimals
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To find equivalent fractions
Have you ever created a game? What was its learning intention and aim?
