Coffs Harbour Public School Blog

Courtesy & Honour – Principal:Leonie Buehler

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Pyke, a virtual world expert

What a brilliant day 5N and a big thank you to Pyke, who  has become an ‘expert’ in a very short space of time! Mrs Booth was extremely grateful for his expertise as it was like having two virtual world teachers together in the same class 🙂 Other students supported each other and Noah was great helping the ESL students get started. This was a truly engaging, authentic and meaningful learning experience for the whole class on so many different levels, and Mrs Booth was thrilled at the cooperation, patience and tolerance they showed each other.

5N is terrific and are powering through their HSIE project builds with sim-on-a-stick, our virtual world platform that we use. Mrs Booth will be in an extra session for 5N on Tuesday mornings and run an extra Virtual World Library Club, Tuesday at lunchtime until the end of term.

Mrs Booth

Do you use virtual world technology for your school projects?

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5N Circle Hunt

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks to Mr Avery and his class for the great lesson idea 🙂

Mrs Booth
Do you use iPads in your lessons?

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How to calculate Volume

Kayla, Michael, Jacob and Hannah show us how to calculate volume. Jacob was our photographer and did a great job 🙂

Volume is the space taken up by another object.

The units of volume are:

  • cubic centimetre (cm3) – these are the little wooden units that you have in the classroom
  • cubic metre (m3)
Some handy conversions to know are:
  • 1,000,000 cm3 = 1 m3
  • 1 mL of water takes up 1 cm3 of space
  • 1L of water takes up 1,000 cm3 of space.
The formula for volume is: V = l (length) x b (breadth) x h (height)

After some revision using empty pasta, tea and tissue boxes the students were ready to take on a bigger task, calculating the area and volume of the rainbow room. Firstly they calculated the area by multiplying the length by the width (breadth). Then they multiplied the area by the height of the room and this gave them the volume in m3. Kayla then wanted to know what the volume would be in cm3 so with calculators in hand the group converted 324.58 m3 into 32, 458, 000 cm3, that is a lot of little cubes to fit into the rainbow room!

Rainbow Room 

    • Length= 15.56 m
    • Breadth = 7.32 m
    • Area = 113.89 m2
    • Height = 2.85 m
    • Volume = 324.58 m3 or 32, 458,000 cm3

Rainbow Room Volume on PhotoPeach

Mrs Booth

What is the volume of your bedroom or classroom?

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Young Leaders Conference

Our school captains Garang, Christian, Makayla and Anaelle, travelled to Brisbane for the Young Leaders Conference a while ago and when they were on their return trip home they made a video about the person that inspired them the most and why.

Here is a link to Christian and Makayla’s inspirational speaker: Marayke Jonkers Australian Paralympic swimmer

Garang and Anaelle’s  inspirational speaker was: Beau Robinson a rugby union player for the QLD Reds and Wallabies

Mrs Booth

Do you have someone that inspires you?

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Eureka! It’s our virtual world lesson

5N were introduce to virtual world technology this week and are constructing gold fields and the early gold mining township of Ballarat for their HSIE project. Mrs Booth had downloaded a modified version of sim-on-a-stick on to the students USB sticks which contained building artefacts and scripts that would enable them to have success with the program. The engagement was immediate and nearly everyone has now started exploring and building. Mrs Booth will make time for those students needing extra assistance but she also believes that through individual exploration of the platform the greatest learning will transpire. There are now student ‘experts’ that can be drawn upon from 5M as a great resource when Mrs Booth is not at the school. Some students also had a maths lesson that morning with Mrs Booth focussing on volume which enabled them to ‘see’ an empty space 3 dimensionally, this will help them in their virtual building skills also, as the students all start any virtual building with a 3 dimensional shape.

5N and 5M Gold and Virtual World Technology on PhotoPeach

Mrs Booth

 

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School Choir

Our choir performed for the students at assembly last Friday and they were brilliant! Thank goodness Courtney managed to film their performances so they could be shared on our school blog. Good luck to everyone for the upcoming Eisteddfod and Ms Holden who has done a great job 🙂

Mrs Booth

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State of Origin!!!!!

Go the Blues! Go the Maroons! The most important sporting event in the world for 2012 is starting tonight with 9 minutes to go before kick-off (as I write this blog post). It is called State of Origin and to find out all about it go to this link: NRL State of Origin. Coffs Harbour Public School is sports mad with students and teachers involved in many team sports and clubs. We wouldn’t have it any other way 🙂

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The Australian Voices

Recently the vocal ensemble ‘The Australian Voices’ visited our school. We were very lucky to have them here as they are usually very busy touring overseas and nationally. Seven members spent time singing some of their songs for the students and staff and then some lucky students were able to step up and conduct the group, after a very quick conducting lesson!

Here is a video of the ensemble singing a composition called Tra$h Ma$h and you should be able to recognise some of the songs especially the very last one 🙂

Mrs Booth

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5M and 5N HSIE Gold Project

PANNING
A shovelful of sand, gravel and clay from the creek bed was placed in a pan. The prospector then PUDDLED the mixture. This means he placed the pan in flowing water, broke up the clay with his hands and mixed it with the water so that the water washed the clay away. Any large stones would then be removed. Shaking the pan well to cause gold particles to sink to the bottom of the pan, the prospector would tilt it, and with a circular backward and forward motion, swirl the water in the pan, allowing a little gravel to be washed over the lip of the pan into the creek. When the last of the sand had been gently washed off, any gold in the washdirt was left in the pan. The prospector would then sharply swirl the remaining water to spread out any specks of gold over the bottom of the pan.
CRADLING
Panning was slow, back-breaking work, so the next development was the cradle. The cradle consisted of a box, fitted on rockers, so that the operator rocked it to and fro. Inside the cradle was two sloping shelves with thin strips of wood fastened across them. These were called RIFFLES. On the top of the box part of the cradle was a sieve made of metal plate with holes punched in it. Often, two men worked the cradle, one shovelling the washdirt onto the sieve and the other working the cradle with one hand and using a DIPPER with the other to take water from the creek and pour it over the washdirt as the cradle was rocked. The sieve prevented any large pieces of stone going into the box. These pieces were checked at intervals to be sure none were nuggets and the sieve was emptied. The gold-bearing gravel passing through the sieve was washed down through the shelves and any gold present was caught in the riffles, while the gravel was carried through a chute back into the creek. Often blanket, felt or corduroy was fitted to the floor of the chute to catch any fine gold dust missed by the riffles.
PUDDLING MACHINE – Used for deeper mines
This was used by wealthier miners as a horse was needed and they were very expensive to buy and feed. As the miners dug, every bucketful of dirt removed would have to be washed and checked for gold. The stiff, yellow clay was very difficult to break up, so a PUDDLING MACHINE was often used to break up the washdirt and allow the gold to sink. Water and washdirt were added to a circular trough and the mixture stirred by a horse pulling a rake. The water became a soupy sludge, which allowed the heavy gold particles to sink to the bottom. The water was then drained off, and the layer of stones and gold left in the bottom of the trough was then panned, cradled or sluiced to recover the gold. Usually, one man on a goldfield would own and operate the puddling machine and miners would bring their dirt to the machine and pay the owner to put it through the puddling machine.  All information and images sourced from Sovereign Hill Education 

The Eureka Centre: Excellent resource for everything you need to know about the Eureka Rebellion

I will make an information page later today with instructions on how to link your objects and create a information note cards for your virtual projects 🙂

Mrs Booth

 


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1H Squirrels and Potatoes

Class 1H have also been making potato people but in a few weeks they will be having a special guest visiting their class, a squirrel named Mr Frizzle-tail!  He has come all the way from the Cincinnati Zoo in America and is currently visiting other schools in New Zealand and Australia. Here is a link to his very own blog: Squirrel tours downunder – An American in the Antipodes

Here is a great true story about a cheeky squirrel who wanted to get in a photograph with some people! Cheeky squirrel photo

Information on squirrels: National Geographic Wild – Squirrels

I hope class 1H will take good care of Mr Frizzle tail and take him on some adventures.

Finally here is a nice video from one of his relatives named Randi who loves eating sunflower seeds…Yum! Thanks Steve Gatzos for filming Randi 🙂


Mrs Booth

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