New Games

Quan and Ethan invented a new game called
"Modified Chess" that only they know the rules to.

Bowling

This week we took the bus to Highpoint for our excursion
and rolled a few rounds at the bowling centre.
As you can see, the boys had a great time.

Ethan

Quan
Hunter
Connor
Deniz

Painting

En plein air is a French expression which means "in the open air",

and is particularly used to describe the act of painting outdoors.

French Impressionist painters such as Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro,

and Pierre-Auguste Renoir advocated en plein air painting,

and much of their work was done outdoors,

in the diffuse light provided by a large white umbrella.

This week we decided to try a bit of plein air painting

ourselves as we headed down to

"The End of the World"

to paint the old East Keilor Train Tressel.

Science

This week we are fucusing on the circulatory system.

For our lesson we labled the parts of the heart

and the path the blood travels through the heart.

Then we dissected a real lamb heart!

There's the valve that leads from the 

left atrium to the left ventricle.

The Arts Fair

The school is having an art fair:

Friday, 3:30-7:30

Saturday 9am-Noon

Here are some works the boys entered this year.

Science

We are studying the body systems in Science.

In this lesson we made "edible cells".

The cytoplasm was made of gelatin and all the 

organelles were made of lollies.

Here, one of the boys is adding a marshmallow

nucleus to his cell.

The finished "cells".

Bird Eggs

We found these bird eggs on a walk on Tuesday.

We opened one to see if there was anything inside.

There was no baby bird but we did find a yolk and clear liquid.

Bird Eggs

KARAOKE!!!

Some Thursdays Paige brings in her Karaoke machine.

Here the boys belt out "We Are the Champions" by Queen!

Resiliency Umbrella

Here, the boys made a list of ten things that upset them.

We cut the list into strips, rolled the strip up into small

balls and the others threw them at us.

Under the "Umbrella of Resilience" we were protected.

Painting

In art this term the boys have been working with watercolours.

Here the boys sketch a corner of the school before adding colour.

Here are two very nice examples.

Social Skills

On the Thursdays that we don't go on excursion, 

Paige presents a social skills session.

Here the boys are discussing "tone of voice" and

how the way we say things can carry as much of a message 

to the listener as the words themselves.

ABC Sports Broadcast

Here we see Ryan and the boys recording a practice ABC Radio Broadcast.

Ryan chose to announce the cricket. 

He read a script from the teleprompter and even 

added a bit of excitement to keep us all entertained.

The Melbourne Show

Our excursion to the Royal Melbourne Show

was a lot of fun this year.

We saw lots of animals in the dog pavilion, 

pet show and the farm area. 

The petting zoo was very popular, 

especially the calves and sheep.

The boys liked this character. 

We had know idea who it was

but he was funny.
The Melbourne Fire Brigade had a lot

of exciting and educational stuff. 

The motorcycle was cool 

and the interactive fire safety truck taught us

 some tips to to help prevent house fires.

The ABC had an interactive site. 

Here the boys pose with  some of the ABC's top celebrities.

We even saw one of the CHASERS!

Video to come soon.

Scienceworks!!!

We went to Scienceworks for our excursion this week. 

The boys really enjoyed the interactive music exhibit,

STRIKE A CHORD: the Science of Music

Connor and Hunter play a "Virtual Harp"

by plucking the light keys.

Deniz is checking out the sound of instruments 

from around the globe.

Cody watches the frequency waves

that his voice makes.

This is a video the boys made while

jamming out to JET's Are You Gonna Be My Girl

on the virtual Garage Band stage.

(Click on the image to play)

Microscopes

We are learning to use microscopes in Science.

Ryan and Hunter are each looking at

a magnified strand of their hair.

Resiliencyl

In our social skills sessions we  have been learning 

strategies to help us become more resilient.

One of the methods is to imagine an 

imaginary force field or 

shield to defend against 

negative talk or situations.

We then made and decorated "shields of resilience"

to help remind us one strtegy to use to 

deal with stressful situations.

S.O.S.E.-States and Territories

Last term in S.O.S.E. we studied the Australian states and territories.

Each of the boys were responsible for doing research on their state or territory,

make a poster to display the information and present it to class.

Each poster was in the shape of their state or territory

and when we put them together it formed a giant

wall map of Australia!

Mask Making

We've been working on masks for our Drama session:

Ryan's rooster,

Deniz's narrator 1,

Connor's Narrator 2,

Ethan's cat.

Frisbee Golf

Recently in sport we have been playing 

Frisbee Golf.

The boys pick a "hole" and count the number of "strokes" (throws) 

it takes to get to the hole.

The 5 Senses

We studied the sense of TASTE in Science.

The boys tasted various foods and divided them into 4 groups:

Salty, Sweet, Bitter and Sour.

The boys liked all of the sweet foods 

but were tricked by tonic water

that began sweet but turned bitter at the back of our tongues!

Catastrophe Scale

This week we introduced the "Catastrophe Scale" into class.

These scales are generally used to help children who have difficulty understanding the appropriate emotional responses to unpleasant situations. By creating the scale and referring to it, teachers and parents can help identify common stressors and put these situations into better perspective.

To begin, we "brainstormed" a list of stressful situations. First, situations that were unpleasant such as being bored or getting sick. Next, we thought of situations that were very unpleasant such as getting yelled at or being robbed. Finally, we thought of situations that were horrible such as someone dying or war.

Each of us then chose one situation from each category

and added one of their own to rate on our chart.
Finally we placed out situations on the scale.

We labled the scale from 1 to 100 with one being not very stressful to 100, the most stressful.

Excursion to the Old Melbourne Gaol

On Thursday we took a trip into the city
to visit the Old Melbourne Gaol.

The boys posing at the front gate...

and behind bars.

Here we are clowning around on the grounds

of the old hospital courtyard.

Cody is pretending to arrest Connor.


Trevor from New Zeland gave us a tour.
We all packed into one of the cells.
It was very cold and crowded
and we were happy to leave!


Trevor told us all about Ned Kelly.

We even got to try on his armour.
Here's Ryan looking out of the helmet.

Deniz even wore a black and white striped shirt
to help get into the spirit of the day.


After our tour we walked down to Chinatown and ate our lunch.