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Leading Ourselves Into the Future

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On Tuesday the 18th our year 6 level undertook a lead yourself into the future day. We participated in many challenges including that helped us team build and understanding ourselves as well as others as people. Here are some of the thing we did.

One of the activities that we did was ‘The Cup Stack Challenge’! This challenge was designed to make everyone participate as leaders and step up but also let others shine.

At the start our group took time to just make a plan and all get on the same page. In the activity we had 5 cups, some thick string and some elastic bands. The objective was to get all 5 cups stacked the highest without using our hands or without it touching us. Our group started by planning. We took around 2 or 3 minutes just telling each other our ideas and formulating a plan. We used the rubber bands to tie around the cup and gently place then someone would use the rope to move the cup if it wasn’t balancing well.

Cup stacking – https://preschoolsteam.com/steam-activities-for-preschoolers-stacking-cups/

It was a quite basic and easy to understand challenge physically by just placing the cups. However the leadership and team part of the activity was more challenging as we had to let everyone have a go and participate. As we went along we had a system that would let some people direct the team by telling them when an where to place the cup, some people placing the cups and others that would interchange with the team to let people have breaks, giving the rest of the team a chance to build or direct.

Overall this challenge was a very helpful one to firstly get to know each other’s strengths but also learn the importance of leadership and teamwork.

What is your favourite collaborative game?

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Hanging Onto the Bottom of the World

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This term has been massive! Why you ask? Because of the Year 5 Production that we performed. It was an incredible experience and I am so grateful for everybody that helped it all come together. Here is a short reflection of my experience!

At the beginning of the term we had to memorise a short script that we would use to audition for a role. Then the long week of waiting for our role to be announced started! I got the 2nd fortune seeker but after a while most people got around 3 or 4 roles so i got 2nd fortune seeker, convict, WA bridesmaid and anti-bilite for the crowd. Then we had to learn all of our lines and start rehearsing for the play. Rehearsals went well and different groups would always be taken out to practise one at a time.

The play was called Hanging Onto the Bottom of the World and it was about Australian federation. The play is very funny and was really fun to perform. Here are some of the things that were hinted in the play.

Brides and bridesmaids:

The brides and bridesmaids were at the start of the play and represented Australian federations and basically getting married. I was a bridesmaid for Western Australia. My bride was late and that represented that WA was so big that it didn’t want to federate and share its land with the others.

Gold Rush Scene:

In this scene there was a prospector who announced that he had found gold. Then fortune seekers who i was a part of came out trying to get the gold because they were desperate to find gold and get money. The prospector then pretends that he doesn’t have the gold and this repeats twice. The prospector was based off Edward Hargroves because he was one of the first people to announce that he found gold and one of the first to even find gold. Then a Chinese dragon comes out and then the fortune seekers and Chinese almost have debate. Then a 1st official comes out and tells them that they don’t want the Chinese in their land. This represents the times in the past where people were very racist towards Chinese people.

Cricket match:

The cricket match was the anti-bilites who were against the bills and the federationist who were basically battling in a cricket match saying reasons why they shouldn’t or should federate. Some important figures in this scene included Henry Parks, Edmund Barton and Alfred Deakin. Henry Parks  was important because he died before federation. Edmund Barton and Alfred Deakin were important  because  they were the first and second prime ministers of Australia. Then someone said that they should give the vote to the women and everybody is stunned. Then people who had fake beards came out and revealed that they were women and a woman asked were all of the women were and the tea ladies who were serving tea and sandwiches the whole show came out. Everyone laughed

There were also some more scenes but those were the main ones that I was in.

A highlight of mine was seeing everything come together. After lots and lots of hard work and rehearsals everything started to work and i was amazing. Another highlight was seeing everyone become their character. I really enjoyed this because when you act you can just step out of your own self and act as someone completely different.

Shoutouts and thanks:

A challenge that I had was either projecting my voice or becoming my character. In such a big space that we performed in it was difficult to know that everyone could hear me. I had to practise being loud and projecting my voice. I also had to face the audience. The other difficult thing was becoming my character. To step inside somebodies shoes and become that character was difficult but very fun.

Growth:

Some of the things that I learnt throughout this experience were mainly collaboration, organisation and how to get in character. Collaboration was a big part of the play because we all had to work together to get everything done and get it all working. We used organisation to come through the curtains at the correct time.

Shoutout!:

My shoutout goes to Leo! Leo played captain cook in the play. He was really funny and spoke loud and clear. He gave the crowd lots of laughters which shows that he was doing a good job.
Press here To access his blog.

The year 5 production was a be-au-tiful show and experience, so that ladies and gentlemen is a wrap (cough).

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The Fall by Tristan Bancks

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My favourite book chat in 2019.

The Fall by Tristan Bancks is a very suspenseful mystery book. This year I read The Fall with some other people for book chat and Ireally enjoyed it.

 It is about a boy named Sam who wakes up in the night because of angry voices in the apartment above his. He goes and sees what’s happening through a window and he sees a body fall from the balcony. He thinks the man was pushed by someone. Sam has a dad called Harry who is a crime reporter so he goes into his room to tell him but Harry is gone. Then Sam goes to see the body that fell but it is gone too. Someone has seen Sam and knows he is a whiteness. This is not good! I won’t tell you anymore because it would spoil such an amazing thriller!

I liked the book because it was a real page turner. I would always want to keep reading and see what Sam did next. Let’s just say that it was like a puzzle. There were red hearings throughout the book that really made you want to keep reading and figure it out with Sam. What happens in the book at the end is completely unpredictable which was great.

Here is the book cover:

Will you read The Fall? Do you like mystery books? Will the next 24 hours be Sam’s last?

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Student blogging challenge, celebrations!

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Hi everyone,

Today I am going to talk to you about my traditions. Today I will talk mainly about Christmas because that is the main celebration my family celebrates.

For Christmas my dads side if the family always rotate between 3 houses that we all gather for a feast at. We also pick names out of a hat and do a secret Santa type thing and buy each other presents.

on my mums side we pretty much do the same thing but everyone comes to our house instead of rotating.

For our family in Christmas morning we wake up and open presents. The main reason we celebrate Christmas is for family time. We can just sit back, relax and spend time with our family.

some of the things we eat include Christmas ham and steak(and chicken). I absolutely love Christmas ham and gravy. Awwww soo good.

i hope you have learned a bit about my celebrations. What do you celebrate?

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Toonalook camp

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On the 15th of October (Tuesday) we packed our bags, came to Bulleen and started the long 4 hour bus ride to Toonalook. (Toonalook is around the Gippsland lakes.) On the trip we watched Mr. Bean which is a very funny comedy. He is an innocent character who always makes viewers laugh and hates the blue car. You’ll know what that means if you’ve watched it. Half way through the trip we stopped at Yarragong for a morning tea break. Because it was near a busy road we would always wave to the cars and trucks hoping for them to honk their car horn back. It was kind of funny. Then we got back on the bus and kept going. 

When we got to Toonalook we were greeted by Josh who was basically running everything in the camp. There was also Jesse who was my group leader and Grace who was team 2’s group leader. We also had two year 11’s with us (em(Emily) and Charlie(Charlotte)) who helped out in the groups and make different activities for us. We nervously sat at the bench we would meet up at as the staff read out our tent groups I was lucky enough to be with my friends.

Some of the things that we did included:

•went on Toona storm

•went kayaking

•expo camping

•played empires

•played king ball

•played the shoe game

•played bang

•played Gaga ball

•went on a water police boat 

•went bike riding

•went fishing

•went koala hunting

•Toona challenge

•found koalas 

•found kangaroos 

•went on a hike (kind of)

•ate! #wewanttrish

Toona storm is a boat that we went on. The weather was perfect for it because we could go really fast and still the boat jumped up and down. The other boat that we went on was a water police boat. This was probably the coolest boat I’ve ever seen! They had beds, kitchens, bathrooms and more. We got to ask them questions, explore their boat and have a good time. We also went on a 7 or 12km bike ride but I’m not sure which one. It was really fun because in that time we got to see koalas and kangaroos. We went koala hunting and by the end of that we were experts at finding them because we had the technique. Firstly find a tree, then look down and find lots of koala poo, and lastly look up and see a big fat cute ball of fluff! We saw all of these things on Raymond island. On the bike ride we went on roots, sand and roads. It was so fun.

The games that we played included; Gaga ball, king ball, the shoe game

Toonalook had so many things to do. Two really fun thing that we played were king ball and the shoe game. King ball is basically 4 square except much bigger. We played on four water tanks with a volley ball type ball. The ball could only bounce twice in your square otherwise you went out. The objective was to get people out so that you could make your way to king for as long as possible. In best level order there was king, queen, jack, dunce and yes there was a very long line on the bench! Most people spent their free time playing this. The other game ‘the shoe game’ was a two team game that was very exciting. Two teams were facing each other on chair with a space in between. In between at the middle there was a water bottle and two shoes. On the sides there are cushions. When the referee calls a number that you were assigned before the game started you run and get a shoe then sit on a cushion and try to throw the shoe and hit the bottle to get a point for your team. The rules were very strict but there are way too many for me to say now. But everyone was almost screaming because they were encouraging their team so much. Empires was such a good game. We played for a while at night while at expo. How the game works is; each person tells the people who are running the game a person who isn’t them then someone starts and guesses who someone is. If they get it wrong then the person who was guessed gets a turn. If it was correct the player who was guessed goes to the other persons team. Then it keeps going until there is one empire and the leader of that empire wins.

Before we played empires we went on a hike to the camp site and on the way we got to try to skim some rocks on the sea. Then we came to the camp site and pitched our tents. It wasn’t too hard to put our tents up but it was one of my first times putting up a tent. Then we unpacked for the night and had some dinner. That night we ate burgers which were really good. Unfortunately Trish our amazing chef wasn’t there but Jesse still did an incredible job. I was a little bit nervous when we had to go to sleep because one of the teachers at our school had to go to the toilet at Toonalook one night and then a kangaroo started chasing them so I didn’t want that to happen to me. I had an okay sleep but I had to use quite a bit of resilience in the morning because it had rained and somehow my stuff had got wet when it was in the tent. I had to use resilience, connectedness and courage in this time. Connectedness to build our tent together, resilience to even sleep and courage to get up at night to go to the toilet! 

A simple but amazing thing that we got to do on camp was… dun dun dunnnnnnn, eat! Trish was the chef that made us all of our meals and those meals, let me tell you were incredible. For lunch we would have rolls, burgers or wraps with vegetables and meat in them that we got to chose from which was fun. We also had lots of other great food. On the last day of camp when we were going to say thank you to Trish we started a chant that went, we want Trish, we want Trish, we want Trish, etc. 

Then we packed our bags and came home.

Camp was so fun and we were all very lucky to have the great experience of Toonalook. 

Here is a video of our time there:

Have you ever been to Toona? How was your experience there? If not then what is your favourite place you’ve been?

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Blogging Avatar Challenge

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This is my avatar! I made it on cartoonify. It is a website that you can choose different options to make an avatar that looks like you.

Mine has spiky blonde hair because that is what I have, I am also wearing blue glasses just like I wear in real life. The background is blue because that is my favourite colour. I also am wearing a black hoodie which is like one I have at home which is a basketball (air Jordan) hoodie. I have a huge smile on my face because I am also laughing (and talking).

 

What would your avatar be like?

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Hard Road Ahead Reflection

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This terms integrated focus was a really big one. We focused on the Ballarat Gold Rush and Eureka Stockade. I learnt lots from what it was like on the Gold Rush to what happened on the night they stormed eureka. (That’s a book by the way and I will tell you more about that later on).

The reason that people went to the gold rush was usually to have a chance to struck it rich with gold. another reason is only if you came from Ireland and this is the potato famine. The potato famine is when people 1 ran out of potatoes but 2 barely had enough food for themselves or family. This is something that I learned i this unit. I also learned lots of important dates including. 1770, first European sighting of Australia, 1835, early gold findings, 1848, California gold rush, 1851, Australian gold rush and most importantly was 1854 which was the eureka stockade then there was 1858, welcome nugget was found. 

I also learned what the eureka stockade was. It was a fight between the soldiers (police) and the miners because they couldn’t afford their mining licenses and that they weren’t treated fairly. They couldn’t vote or anything. Only people who owned a certain amount of property could vote. They built a big stockade from trees and branches to defend themselves from the soldiers who at night stormed the stockade and killed around 27 miners and 7 soldiers. Later on the miners won the case in court and finally got rights.

Some important figures of the time were Peter Lalor who was one of the main diggers helping to defend against the soldiers in the battle. James Bentley who owned the eureka hotel and bought his way out of jail after killing James Scobie. He killed James because he broke a window at his hotel. James eventually went to jail. 

After we learned all about the gold rush and eureka stockade at camp (sovereign hill) we came back to school and started our dioramas. We had already been put into groups and assigned buildings to make. I was with Dillon who helped me build the Gold Office. We used a box and painted it white, then we put in some wallpaper and most importantly a lot of gold! We had safes, chairs, benches, gold blocks (nuggets) and gold in jars. At the gold office you can trade gold that you’d found or got for money.

We had to make a newspaper in our integrated unit but we usually did it in literacy. I made mine about Master William Brown and how he had burned down the gold office. We also had to do some small stories on the side of the newspaper. I made mine about how they had 30% off at the hope bakery and how a Japanese person changed the gold prices from pounds to yen! This was a lot of fun. By doing this we learned the important features both written and structural of a newspaper. We also learned a bit about the language we had to use. Not a whole different language like Chinese but what way we would say something.

In maths we both did things based on our integrated unit and just our normal maths. We made a birds eye view map of our diorama with grid references, key(legend), compass and scale. We then got to make a video about how to get from one place to another in mathematical language. We also learned a lot about volume. I was really excited after this because now I finally know how to calculate the volume of a sphere. Think how many things that I could calculate the volume of in real life now! We also did a angles unit where we learned about each of the different types of angles. I learned about vertically opposite angles, corresponding angles and more. 

My class and I have used so many of the PLA’s and I think that we could’ve used the all, of them but here are some of the main ones. We used a lot of creativity when we had to design our building. We had pictures to reference to but we had to make somethings up though keeping it historically accurate. We also had to use resilience. This was because when we were building our dioramas not everything always went to plan. We had to change our plan if this happened. 

‘The Night They Stormed Eureka’ is a book by Jackie French. It is about this girl who basically went back in time to when the gold rush was happening. She was taken into a family. She always knew what was going to happen like the exact night that the eureka stockade was because she had learnt about it in her history class. I won’t say any more before I spoil the book though.

I’ve had a great term and have really enjoyed learning about the Gold Rush and eureka stockade.

What important people do you know of from the 1850s (Gold Rush/ eureka stockade)?

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