New BSPS Website Launched!

You might have noticed our school blog has had a makeover to get a new look. All the content you know and love have been moved into our new website. You’ll also find some new photographs of our school community and facilities, calendar, newsletters, policies and news updates directly from the DEC, and more. But we will continue to use our established blog to share student learning and celebrations, and our Facebook page for school updates. The link to our new website is at the top of the page, or go directly to www.belmoresth-p.schools.nsw.edu.au.

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Bamboo LOVED the Stage 1 Excursion!

This week, stage 1 have been attending excursions to the George’s River Environmental Education Centre, with a side-trip to Simmo’s Beach. Bamboo and Wattle went today (Monday), while Jacaranda and Violet go tomorrow (Tuesday).

We got to see, touch, and learn more animals (alive and once-living) and plants, build hides and attracted bird-life to view through our binoculars using bird-calls, and used nets to skim the river surface for lifeforms to inspect with our magnifying glasses. We even got to see a real live koala sleeping high in a tree near our lunch area!

S1 Bamboo Paint with Light

Cameras capture light to make an image that we call a photograph. So for the year’s Art Show with the theme of light, it seemed a good choice!

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Group shots: glow stick patterns

 

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Portraits: model and painter working with torch light

To paint with light, you need a camera with manual settings. Change the shutter speed to ‘Bulb’ or the longest option (we used 30 seconds). This makes the camera’s ‘eye’ stay open longer to capture all the light as if it happened at the same time. Set the ISO to 100. This makes the ‘eye hole’ smaller, so the background looks black and the coloured lights pop. Set the camera on a tripod so it won’t move during the photo – a remote control helps if you’re using bulb mode, so you don’t bump the camera.

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Camera on tripod

Now the fun part! You need to be in a very dark room – no light at all is best, so we covered up windows with fabric, because any background lights will show up in your photograph. We used glow sticks at first, by swirling them around at different heights, speeds, and shapes to make our group shots.

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Preparing a group shot with glow sticks

 

The torch showed up better though – you could put cellophane over the torch for bright coloured light if you wanted. So, for our portraits, one partner was the model and posed with an interesting body shape. The other partner was the artist. They had to hold the torch pointing at the camera and move the torch around the edges of their model’s body, a bit a race car. It was tricky in some places, because if the torch’s light went behind the model or shone away from the camera, you couldn’t see that part in the photograph. A few of our artists tried adding lines away from their model, only painting part of their model, or going over one part more than once, which made interesting effects.

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Model and artist preparing a light painted portrait

Afterwards, Ms Salmon used a photo editing program to make the colours pop more, and the backgrounds look darker. Check out our progress shots and finished products!

 

Book Week 2015

Some of our costume award winners! Thank you to everyone who took part in person or behind the scenes for this fantastic celebration.

Posted by Belmore South Public School on Tuesday, 1 September 2015

Bucket Filling

Did you know, everybody has an invisible bucket? You carry it everywhere, and it holds your good thoughts and feelings about yourself. Buckets of good feelings get filled up with kindness, gentleness, thoughtfulness, generosity, and acts of love or respect. You can’t fill up your own bucket, but when you do something that fills someone else’s bucket, your own bucket feels a little fuller too!

Buckets of good feelings get dipped into and emptied by rudeness, bullying, selfishness, greed, and acts that are mean. But as soon as you feel hurt, pain, anger, or embarrassment, you can stop and think through the situation and be resilient. This puts a lid on your bucket, so it can’t be dipped into. It takes patience, practice and trust to do this, but once you are an expert you can even help others to put a lid on their buckets so they keep feeling good too!

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S1 Bamboo’s bucket filling display

In S1 Bamboo, we made models of our buckets, and sometimes we deliver ‘spotted being good’ slips to help each other feel good about themselves. We make sure that our feedback is positive and specific, so the person knows exactly what it was they did that was good. That helps them know what to do again next time.

S1 Bamboo's bucket mail boxes.

S1 Bamboo’s bucket mail boxes.

 

Click here for more information about bucket filling.