Year 4's history focus was "The First Fleet". After months of researching and discussing the experiences and impact of "The First Fleet" each student constructed their own "First Fleet" board game. It was great fun sharing their games with other students and eventually their families at home.
"People who play ( the game ) could learn new things and it's fun". Katrina
"It's fun and teaches us about The First Fleet". Ella H
"It's important to know about The First Fleet because we need to know about our past". Claire
100% of the students surveyed about their learning stated that they learnt new information about "The First Fleet" with nearly 70% stating they learnt a lot of new information.
Rooms 9 & 10 performed, “The Mighty Murray Musical” on Wednesday, November 20th. There were 2 shows, one during the day for the whole school and a night performance for parents.
The musical was written by a South Australian, Nick Vall and had a strong local message about the importance of the Murray River to our state and covered a variety of different aspects i.e. the aboriginal Dreaming story, wildlife, pipelines, pollution, history and the many interest groups who have their own strong outlook about the river.
It was the perfect performance to have for 2013’s “Year of Water Cooperation”.
We were lucky to have the support of our talented drama teacher Di Mason, who added to the Dreaming story with puppetry, acting and choreography. She gave our wonderful singers, actors and narrators the skills to give a superb performance.
We asked the students to reflect on their experiences with the MMM and here are a few of the many quotes
“I was nervous at the start but after the first performance I was really excited to do the second one”. Kiera
“At first I didn’t really want to do it. Now I have a great feeling and I feel grateful for this amazing, beautiful strong river…” Sophie
“I was pretty nervous at one stage but when I got through it I felt pretty confident”. Connor
“I enjoyed all the dances and the Dreaming story, the rappers, the actors and all the other people that were brave.” Mitchell
“When we did the practices I was so excited and just before the first performance I started to get a bit nervous but when we did it I wasn’t nervous anymore. I enjoyed all of it especially being part of the human pyramid and not one bit of the play could I say I regret or didn’t like doing.” Cheyenne
Janeen Brian visited room 9/10 on Wednesday, December 4th.She gave a fascinating talk about her latest book, "That Boy Jack", based on the Cornish mining history in Moonta. The students had published their own picture books during the past 2 terms. Janeen kindly launched their publications and shared a celebratory lunch with the children. Each student read their book to children in other classes.
Friday, December 6th was the Premier's Reading Challenge Assembly where we celebrated the achievements for 2014 in PRC and the 40 Book Challenge. 96% of students completed the PRC with 9 classes achieving 100% success for all their students. 4 classes achieved 100% for the 40 Book Challenge with many other classes achieving high scores.
The highlight of the assembly was the performance of "Cinderella" by a group of unsuspecting year 7 ( boy ) volunteers. These boys were our "Readers for Life " achievers for 8 and 9 years. Well done to those 13 students.
Beryl from St. George's Books was our invited guest for this year's "Best Borrowers Lunch" on Friday, December 6th. Beryl showed the students from years 2 to 6 great new ( and sometimes older ) titles for the students to select for our library to purchase. After her "show and tell" of the books the children carefully looked through the collection and merrily selected a variety of titles for the school library. A pizza lunch followed our busy buying spree.
The library had a strong focus on Remembrance Day this year as part of the history curriculum. Paula Darch organised a wonderful display of items lent to the library from the RSL and personal collections of our school community. The special assembly was an excellent conclusion to this important occasion.