Haldon Street Success!

Dance group had an amazing time walking in the street parade, and performing, at the Haldon Street Festival in Lakemba on Saturday.
We arrived early, did our makeup, and put our walking shoes on to proudly represent our school.
During the street parade we handed out books, which were donated by our school library, to children along Haldon Street in order to spread the ‘reading bug’.
Straight after the parade we headed to the main stage to perform our story dance to our wonderful community.
Thank you to all the teachers, parents and students that turned up to cheer us on! We had an amazing time and could not have done it without you.
Check out some of the highlights of our day in the gallery below…

Now we eagerly await the final results for the Wakakirri prize….keep your fingers and toes crossed!

Extending thinking in literacy groups

In Stage 3 reading groups with Miss Sallis, students voted to read the story ‘Girl Underground’ by Morris Gleitzman.

Students have been working very hard to develop their thinking through several activities. Here’s what the reading group had to say about these activities and their learning experiences:

Compass Points (By Ebaa, Katarina, Cindy, Gavin and Abudie)

Hey everyone,

In reading groups, we were working on Compass Points where you think about ‘N’ (need to know) ‘E’ (for excited) ‘S’ (for suggestions for moving forward) and ‘W’ (for worrisome ). The point/reason that we started participating in this activity is that in the novel, the main character Bridget comes to a point where she has to make a decision if she should tell her classmates about her family secret.

Everyone enjoyed participating in this activity because we all got to connect with each other and share our ideas as a supportive team.

Compass Points - to evaluate a decision in the story

Connections (By Irene, Elisa and Laura)

We worked in groups to connect parts of ‘Girl Underground’ to ourselves, to the world and to other texts. From this activity we have learnt that there are many similarities between the story ‘Girl Underground’ and ‘Boy Overboard’. It also helped us understand the emotions and actions in the story because we could think of a time when we have previously experienced those things in our life. We enjoyed this activity.

Connecting text to self, other texts and the world

New Words List (By Lamin, Michael, Hinok and Sarah)

In our reading groups, we have made a new words list. Words we see that we don’t understand, we write it down on our list. E.g. apprehending, turnip, striding, quizzically and gratitude.These are interesting words! This list is good because it helps our learning so we can understand new words.

Our new words list, where we record and research unfamiliar words as we read them

Golden Time . . . a time for sharing and having fun

Every Friday we have Golden Time at our school. During Golden Time we get to do great activities that we decide after discussion with our teacher.

Some classes choose to play computer games, some use ipads and ipod touches, others play sport, do art, perform science experiments, make things and most importantly enjoy sharing fun learning with their class.

During Golden Time this week Stage 2 Warhol were caught in the staffroom making chocolate self saucing puddings. Take a look . . . they were definitely enjoying what they were making.IMG_6668
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At the same time Stage 2 Chagall were found making brightly coloured play dough . . . sounds like there will be even more fun later on.
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Great Schools ‘Show Off’!

This year Belmore South Public School has entered the ‘Great Schools Show Off’ competition.  This exciting new project engages students in telling their community, and the wider world, about the many positive and exciting aspects of their school through the use of digital media.

Throughout Term 2 our new film club ‘Short Cuts’ will be working with Miss Pleasance to create a 3 minute film that will promote our great school.  Creating this film will involve many different aspects of development including storyboarding, creating scenes and shots, directing, producing, filming, editing and acting (just to name a few!).

Panasonic will be providing the following prizes for regional and state winners:

Regional Winners will each receive a: Digital still tough camera – valued at $499

State winners will each receive a: High Definition Camcorder – valued at $1,499 and 42″ High Definition Plasma TV – valued at $1,099

Stay tuned for regular updates, photos and eventually our Great Film!

Great Schools Show Off Banner

Reading Groups with Ms Hargraves

In Ms Hargraves’ reading groups we have been focusing on developing a rich and deep understanding of the stories we read.  To do this we have looked at language and it’s structure, at retelling events in order and at connecting the story to experiences and knowledge that we have already gained about the world, other stories and ourselves.

In Stage 1 we have been recreating, retelling and organising events and words from our stories.  We read a story called “Toy Town”.

We had an entire bag of toys to find in the story.

We had an entire bag of toys to find in the story.

We found the nouns within the story and labelled real toys with their nouns.

We used our story to find the correct nouns.

We used our story to find the correct nouns.

We wrote the sentences from the story on strips of paper and then we worked together to put them into the same order as the story.

We worked together to reorder our story.

We worked together to reorder our story.

We worked together too!

We worked together too!

After all this hard work we created our own Toy Town and played together!

In Stage 2 we are reading a story called “Freckle Juice” by Judy Blume.  We have found lots of new and challenging vocabulary in this story.  To help us understand these words we have been creating our own puzzles and writing clues to help each other find and understand these puzzling words.

We made our own word puzzles!

We made our own word puzzles!

In Stage 3 we have read “Charlie Rabbit” by Garth Nix from the Kid’s Night In anthology.  This story is set in London during World War II.  To help us understand this complex story we have been learning about that era as well as how the story might connect to the world we experience now.  We are helping each other make connections between “Charlie Rabbit” and our own knowledge and experiences by playing a connecting game together.  We have to be able to make a clear connection between the story and another example within different categories in order to move forward in the game.  Some of us have found strong similarities between the devastation in World War II and the current devastation in Japan.

We are all looking forward to exploring many more stories, vocabulary and experiences next term!

2Warhol’s Busy Term One

2Warhol’s year has started with a bang.  We’ve been busy making our classroom a friendly colourful learning environment that has the personal touch of every student.

To start the year 2Warhol brainstormed the kind of rules they thought were important for everyone in the class to follow. We also had fun acting out what following the rules might look like.

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We’ve also been learning about our namesake Andy Warhol, and recreating some of his famous artworks and styles.

We investigated Andy Warhol through the internet, looking at and learning about the genre ‘Pop Art’ and how it differs from fine arts. The students introduced using new words like ‘repetition’, ‘popular’ and ‘contrast’ to describe Warhol art and his manipulation of portraits and advertising.

Below are some of the excellent Warhol inspired artworks we have created during the term including still life sketching and portraiture.

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During interest groups at the start of the term, our class started learning about Tie Dying and we all loved doing it so much we are continuing to create some amazing Tie Dye throughout the year (weather prevailing).

It is a messy process but the rewards are worth the stained hands (temporarily of course!). As the year progresses we’ll all be learning some new techniques that are fun and easy to do. Be warned parents and any old clothes lying around, this means you’ll probably be taught how to do it at home too!

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Wakakirri News

This year Belmore South Public School will be participating in the National Wakakirri festival.  This festival is a performing and visual arts festival created specifically for primary schools to teach students about themselves and others through the creating and sharing of stories.  Wakakirri challenges students to create a story, make a positive impact and share it with Australia.  Interested students were asked to go through an audition process which required them to dance, act and demonstrate their skills in team building.  Fifty students from Years 3-6 were successful and rehearsals have now commenced.

In accordance with our National Partnerships objective our story focuses on the role of reading; from the traditional storytelling of the many cultures within our school through to the use of modern technology.   The main character of our story, which will be played by Puni, is a ‘cool cat’ who has difficulty reading.  Through the use of technology he is exposed to the storytelling traditions of Arabic, Greek, Pacific Islander, African and Asian cultures which inspires him to read.  The item will end with a celebration of reading through dance.

This is an amazing opportunity for our school community and students to display our many talents at the Sydney Entertainment Centre.

Stay tuned for regular updates including performance date and time, progress reports and snapshots of our creative process.   Wakakirri Logo

Mini-beasts and S1 Irwin

This term S1Irwin have learnt about Minibeasts.

We investigated different kinds of insects and spiders.

We found out about their specific features:

Where they live (habitat).

What they eat (diet).

How they move.

Their life cycle and

any special defence mechanisms they might have.

We also discovered many interesting facts. Here are just a few!

DID YOU KNOW???

  • Insects have compound eyes.
  • Earthworms have the ability to replace or replicate lost segments.
  • Some ladybug’s have no spots at all.
  • Ladybug’s beat their wings 85 times a second when they fly.
  • Bee’s build honeycomb with six sided cells and then fill them with honey.
  • Spider’s are not insects.

We wrote many information reports and we all think Minibeasts are really amazing creatures!

Click here to have a look!

The Wild Ones enjoy making Mini Beasts!

Look at 1 Wild making their mini beast biscuits.

Some are making ladybirds, some are making spiders and others are making butterflies.

One thing is for sure they were well organised, worked well together and were having a great time.