5/6 Clark/Smith

An exciting start to our Monday this week as we had a parcel to open. Our set of Artist Trading Cards from 5/6 UPPS had arrived. After conducting a swift bit of sticky tape surgery we had the parcel open. Inside were lots of little parcels full of trading cards made especially for us by our trading partners in 5/6 JC.

We had great fun with a lucky dip, choosing, before sitting down to take in the great artwork sent to us. Each set of cards had a theme and many could be put together to create great scenes. There were collages, pencil drawings, bright texta masterpieces, trucks, meandering paths, brick walls and many more. We have had great fun trading and our class is keen to do some more. Thanks very much to Miss Crowther and 5/6 JC for the fantastic artwork. Follow the link to see their art on show in one of their blog posts.

After such an exciting start to the day our Monday speakers waited until after recess to share their work. First of all we heard all about the book by Enid Blyton called The Folk of the Faraway Tree. It was first published in 1946 and has been reprinted many times. Our speaker used great eye contact to keep us interested as she described the characters and she just referred to her dot point notes a few times during her talk. She didn’t let slip all the plot details and left us wondering about the threat to the tree. Many of us had also read the story and it was great to hear that the reason for choosing this book was that others in her family had also enjoyed reading the stories about this amazing tree.

Next in line to share was our Word of the Moment finder for the week. This week’s word relates to the questions were are asking about Space in our class. It is a noun and our speaker shared the plural form of the word – nebulae. A nebula is nursery of the Universe – a place where scientist believe that new stars form.

Last of all was the sharing of a video. Something to inspire us. This time our speaker chose a very different type of video and some of the class did not believe that it fitted into the category of inspiring us. Our speaker did introduce the video first and gave her reasons. She firmly believed that this could inspire us by making us think about the ideas explained. Watch the clip and please leave us comment to tell us what you think. Is this inspiring? What inspiration can we take away from it?

I was inspired and intrigued by the behaviour of water on the International Space Station. I admired the great way in which Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield explained the different way that water behaves in the Space Station and how his film clips have made more people aware of the International Space Station that circles above us.

Please leave a comment on this post letting us know your thoughts. What makes a film clip inspirational? What inspires you? Have you read any Enid Blyton books? Have you an interesting fact about our universe to share?

Three new speakers today. A change in our times meant that our speakers had to wait until after recess and our daily fitness session before they could share.

Today we heard all about the book by Anthony Horowitz called The Switch. This is a book full of mystery and murder and our speaker recommended it for 11 to 13 year olds. We were given an introduction to the characters and a quick plot summary. We know that two of the characters wish they were someone else and the story is about these characters switching bodies and what happens after that.  It sounds like a fast paced plot and we  heard just enough to make us curious to find out more. Our speaker tried hard to talk to his audience and used his dot point notes to help him.

Next was our word of the moment. Our speaker chose his word because of the work our class had completed last week about maps and atlases. The word was equator and we heard that this noun names an invisible line that runs around the earth dividing it into the Northern and Southern hemispheres.

Last of all we were presented with a new video to watch. This was one of many videos that can be found on Youtube about Nick Vujicic. His story is pretty amazing as he was born with no arms and no legs but has managed to become a very vibrant motivational speaker. He does have one foot that he calls his chicken drumstick which helps him with his balance, typing and many other things. He was born in Australia and definitely had some big problems growing up but is now an inspiration to many as he travels the world talking to others.

Have you read any other Anthony Horowitz books? What do you think the weather is like near the equator? What did the video make you think? Please leave a comment sharing your thoughts.

Welcome back to Term 2 and we had three speakers organised with their book talk, word of the moment and inspire us video all ready to share.

First of all we heard about the book called Nocturne by Christine Johnson. This is the second book in a series. Our speaker told us that this book had been given to her because she had enjoyed reading  the Twilight series. This book is from the same genre. We were able to listen to a small excerpt which left us wondering about the twists in the story. The main character, Claire, is a werewolf and we were told that part of this story is about Claire’s secret identity being discovered. Romance, action and friendship conflicts are also part of the plot of this novel. Quite a few of the class feel that they would like to read this story after listening to this book talk.

Next up we were given a new word of the moment to add the the growing collection on our display board. This week’s word was geometry and it was chosen because our class had been working with area and perimeter just before the end of first term. It is a noun and has 4 syllables.

Last was our video. This week our speaker chose to find a video that was related to a newspaper article he had seen. Dave Jacka,a former Paralympian is flying solo around Australia and will be the first quadriplegic to do this when he has finished the trip. You can find out more on the website that is charting his journey. Take a look at the video our speaker chose to share.

Have you read a book like Nocturne? What does the word geometry make you think about? Would you like to fly a plane? Please leave a comment to tell us your thoughts.

The end of Term 1 and it just seems like yesterday when we all finding our way to new classrooms at the start of the term. What a busy term it has been. We have worked hard researching the early days of English settlement in Australia and the significant groups of people involved in this time. For some of our significant groups this time was an invasion and for others a forced move away from the lands they were born in. The soldiers, convicts, Aboriginals, sailors and free settlers all made contributions to the creation of Australia as we know it today.

We have worked on our writing and published several different pieces including some great work about changing the Australian Flag. This is a debate that continues to be current in our Australian community. We had the opportunity to come up with a new design for our flag. This led us to learning about the rules that govern flag designs.

Our grade 6 class members have travelled to Canberra and hopefully we will hear all about this when Term 2 begins as they went right at the end of the term.

We worked on an art exchange with a class in Victoria and are eagerly awaiting a parcel in return for the one we sent. We created sets of art trading cards to share with our blogging friends. Our cards have arrived at their destination so we can now share our artwork on our blog. Take a look at our Prezi to see the themes we chose and the finished artwork.

The Turtle Steps by Pitx is licensed under a Attribution Noncommercial (3.0).

What do you think about the themes we chose? Have you traded art cards? Do you like creating? Please leave a comment to tell us your  thoughts.

Today we had three more Monday Speakers who shared a book, an inspiring video and a word that can be related to our work in class.

First up we heard all about the story by Anna Branford called Violet Mackerel’s Natural Habitat. This book seems to fit into the realistic fiction genre and the main character is a nine year old girl called Violet. Violet loves to help and this book sees her dealing with the dilemma of helping small things, especially a ladybug. Woven through the story are the interactions between Violet and the other members of her family that help us to find out more about them. Our speaker recommends the book to girls from Grade 2/3 through to Grade 5. It was interesting to hear that this was one out of a series of books all featuring Violet Mackerel as the main character.

After that there was another interesting video to watch. Wow, how scary would it be to face the challenges this young dancer went through to regain her mobility after brain surgery. It was interesting to hear her talk about the MRI scan that was done to detect her tumour.

Last of all we were introduced to the next word to be added to our wall of words. This week it was parliamentarian. Yikes, this is a long word! A great choice for this week as our Grade 6 students are visiting Canberra and will see where our Federal parliamentarians work whilst our Grade 5 students will be visiting our State Parliament to see our State parliamentarians at work. Our class will have seen two of our three levels of government at work.

Have you read a Violet Mackerel book? Do you know how an MRI scanner works? Have you visited Parliament house where our parliamentarians work? Please leave a comment to share your ideas with us.

This week we had more things to think about after our Monday Speakers had finished sharing.

First we heard from our Word Collector for the week who chose the word “mature“. He had a great explanation as to why this word could be connected to our class. He suggested that we had a class of mature students who were great at including all the class and who try hard to tolerate differences.

Next we watched a video from the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. What a terrific sporting achievement to be the first double leg amputee to compete in the Olympic Games. This athlete has gone on to become a controversial figure, after the Olympics, as he is facing trial in 2013 on charges of premeditated murder. The trial has not yet been held so there is yet to be a judgement about his guilt or innocence.

Last of all we heard about The Locket of Dreams by Belinda Murrell. From the genre of historical fiction this book tells the story of two sisters who are sent across the world, from Scotland, to live with strangers. It is told from the  perspective of a girl who has travelled back in time to become a ghost who is watching events unfold. It was interesting to hear that the plot for this story was inpired by real events in the author’s family history.

We have now heard about several different books and each one has been from a different genre. Which genre is your favourite when choosing books to read? Do you prefer fiction or non-fiction? Realistic fiction or science fiction? Fantasy or folktales? Please leave a comment letting us know about your favourite books and their genre.

Image created by Bev Evans.
http://bit.ly/XCoKeg

On Monday we spent a little bit of time talking about why authors write. Interestingly many of our class listed earning money as one of the main reasons that authors write. Is this really why people write?

Other ideas suggested were that authors write to entertain us, to teach us something, to explain an idea, to convince us about an idea or to share a story.

After doing some web browsing I found lots of suggestions for why authors write. Writers or authors are artists who love to create. They use words rather than paints, crayons, clay, pencils, cameras or pastels for their creations. Some write for no other reason than they enjoy creating with words. There are ideas and stories inside their heads that are waiting to be shared by being written down and maybe published as a book, an e-book or a blog post that others get the opportunity to read.

When we are reading and writing we become better readers and writers if we are able to be aware of the purpose behind an author’s work. Why are they writing their work in a particular style? What do they want their audience to take away from their work?

Mrs S found some great online images created by another teacher that explain some of the purposes that authors might have in mind when they are writing.

Have you created a piece of writing that fits into one of these categories? Can you add a comment to this post to share a great book, e-book or blog post and tell us what the author’s purpose was?

Three more speakers, ready and willing to stand up and share. Our organisers are also getting the idea of keeping things running whilst our timekeeper keeps an eye of how much time each speaker has.

First up today we heard about the novel, Once by Morris Gleitzman. Our speaker let us know that the book is one of four in a series. The latest book is called After. Check it out here. Once is a fictional story which was inspired by the story of Janusz Korczak, World War 2 and the treatment of the Jewish people by Adolf Hitler. Morris Gleitzman read lots of other real life stories to help him when he was writing his story. Our speaker suggested that the story had a medium pace and realistic characters. What do you think? our speaker did not reveal the end of the story and left us thinking about whether the main character, Felix, will survive.

Next up was a great video about an Olympic athlete who did his very best. Our speaker found his video by focussing on sport and rather than searching the thousands of videos on YouTube he started by looking at some Olympic websites that had videos as part of the site. Take a look and see what you think of this, top of his sport, athlete and his very caring Dad.

Last of all, we were introduced to another great word that related to the work we are looking at in class. It was constitution and it fits in very nicely with our History studies. It is a noun and you can see a definition of the word at the Merriam/Webster online dictionary.

The word constitution has several different meanings but in class at the moment the meaning that fits best is meaning number 5 in the list at the website. Our Australian Constitution is the set of rules by which our country is governed and came into affect when our states joined together in 1901 to form the Commonwealth of Australia.

Please leave a comment on this post to let us know whether you have enjoyed reading a Morris Gleitzman novel or your reaction to our inspiring video or maybe you know an interesting fact about our  Australian Constitution. What other laws and rules help our parliaments to govern Australia?

Our next group of speakers were all ready to go on Monday morning. Our book talk this week was about a fantastic picture book that our speaker has treasured on his bookcase for a very long time. It is a great book written by Mem Fox called Koala Lou. Our speaker started of by suggesting that those of us who are interested in the competition that arises from sporting events like the Olympic Games would enjoy reading this story. It is also about families and the way in which siblings sometimes compete against one and other.

The main characters are koalas and it is a narrative set in the Australian bush. Our speaker chose to read an excerpt that left us wondering about the end of the story. One of the audience asked our speaker why they had chosen this book and it was great to hear him tell us that it had been a favourite book that was given to his family when he was born. Do you have a treasured collection of books that have been with your family for a very long time? Do you like to revisit favourite picture books?

Our word for this week was aeronautical. It is an adjective. Some of our class with be travelling aeronautically when they visit Canberra later in our term. Our apologies for the spelling error in the picture but sometimes when we are concentrating on the big picture of making it fit the page and adding the colour we do not see the mistakes until it is too late.

Our inspirational video was found with some help from our speaker’s Mum. What a great idea to ask for some help to find something that shows us how strong the bond in families can be. Cerebral palsy is a physical disability and this video showed how one brother made it possible for his younger brother to experience the fun of competing in triathlons.

Have you ever competed in a triathlon? What was it like?

Please leave a comment on this post to give our speakers some feedback about their choices. What does the word aeronautical make you think about? What is your favourite picture book? 

Over the last few Mondays with Mrs S we have been exploring one way of creating an image that could be used as an avatar.

An avatar is something which can be used to represent you when you are online. Many blogging sites allow you to have an avatar that will show next to your comments and when we are all finished our class with be able to use our very special avatars when leaving comments.

There are many online sites where you can create an avatar but Mrs S was trying to get our class to create one of their very own. She found some great advice on a blog post written by Bev Evans. We watch the movie about creating characters and had a go at making our own special characters. Mrs S created a template in MSPublisher for us to get started with. This gave us a square canvas to start our drawing. It was great fun exploring what we could do with Autoshapes and gradient fills. Here are some of the finished ones. They are posing on a couple of backrounds that Bev Evans had created and shared online for others to use.

It was great to learn about grouping shapes together, layering shapes by using the send forward and send backward tool, and to add different effects by editing the points of our shapes. The best part was being able to group all the shapes at the end and use the right click menu to save our creatures with a transparent background. This means we can also use them with programs like Scratch.

Hopefully when Mrs S comes back from her few weeks off work there will be more of these creatures to share with everyone. Thanks very much to Bev Evans for sharing such great how to videos. We loved being able to watch them again and again as we worked out how to make our very special creatures.

Please leave a comment to tell us whether you have ever made an avatar. How did you make it? Did you start from scratch or go to an online website? What else could we make using this great way of creating?