Belmore South Public School

Wednesday morning was weird. The sky was an eerie red and a little bit scary. Many of us wondered what it was. The Weather Channel gave us the answer.
Sydney had been hit by the biggest dust storm in over 40 years. The dust came on strong winds from the central west of the continent.
It left everything covered in a thick layer of red dust. In some places it rained red mud.
Health experts advised us all to stay inside, no physical activity and all windows and doors closed.
Many classes explored the reasons for the red dust and expressed their feelings about it in both pictures and words.
Hope you enjoyed the work of Stage 2S which was inspired by the dust storm.

Book Week this year had the theme of Book Safari and we had a great time.

The teachers and our Librarian Mr Vitale organised all sorts of activities in the Library.

We had a Jungle Safari Performance which many of the students went to see.

During this week we have all worked really hard to earn money to buy more Home Readers for our school. We raised nearly $3000.00.

We had a Guessing Competition with the following great prizes: a bike, a DS Lite and games, an ipod shuffle, a teddy bear and a whole pile of Guiness World Record Books.

The Guessing Competition was drawn on Friday after our Book Week Parade.

The parents ran a Cake Stall so there was plenty of bad stuff to eat.

Wow!!! All the amazing characters that were walking around our playground were incredible. Check out the photos of the ugly group who are more often identified as the teachers.

The other photos are of the students who won their stage Best Dressed Competition as well as one of our teachers who won the Best Dressed teacher Competition. UGLY!!!!!

This is a huge conference where over 13 000 people come to learn about the latest trends in technology.

People meet other people and talk a lot but mostly teachers spend time going to lessons and learning.

We’ve learned about;

• how powerful Google is as a web based engine for searching the Internet and that it helps focus and then organise your searching
• iphones and ipod touches and what great learning tools they can be in the classroom
• all sorts of amazing Apps from web 2.0
• literacy and how it’s so much more than reading and writing and how it is nearly impossible to test using old test formats
• making the classroom a happy and fun place to be
• what students think about the way they are being taught and how they would like to be taught using technology
• the importance of the web as a place for publication
• the new web, web 3.0

As part of our whole school program classes have begun   to explore various aspects of Aboriginal Culture.

There are some very interesting sites available to explain a bit about Australian Aborigines. The stories of the Dreamtime and Dreaming are ways in which the Aborigines explain the world around them. 

By the time we celebrate NAIDOC Week 2009 the students will know heaps about Indigenous Australians

Watch this blog as well as our class blogs to see the amazing things happening in our school and to find out some great information to help with schoolwork and homework . . . 

Are any other schools doing great stuff on indigenous peoples? Would you share your learning with us?