The sausage sandwiches were very popular today and a great fundraiser for Stage 3 as they are going to Lake Ainsworth in Term 4 and need to raise $3000 for bus transport! A big thankyou to all the students who purchased a sausage sandwich from all the stage 3 teachers 🙂
It is Clean Up Australia Day on Sunday and I know that classes will be cleaning up rubbish on our school grounds this Friday. It is extremely important that we all look after our environment and especially important for all of us here in Coffs Harbour as we are right by a beautiful marine reserve and ocean. We love swimming, diving , nippers, surfing and doing all the things we are fortunate enough to do here in our beautiful location but we need to be aware of our plastic use and especially how many plastic bags we use! When these make their way into the ocean they look like jellyfish and over 100, 000 sea life are killed every year through eating plastic by mistake. Go to this link to watch an amazing report from Australian 60 minutes reporter, Liam Bartlett, called Sea of Shame it runs for 12 minutes.
Did you know that the worlds biggest rubbish dump is not on land but in the Pacific Ocean? It is called The Great Pacific Garbage Patch and it is where all of our four ocean currents come together bringing with them an endless supply of plastic rubbish…it is awful and as the plastic breaks down in the ocean into tiny pieces the smallest of sea-life are digesting it and dying as a result of toxic poisoning as plastic is made from many different chemicals.
How can you reduce the amount of plastic you use?
What do you do with your rubbish?
Do you pick up rubbish when you see it on the beach?
Class 5M have started looking at poverty and what defines poverty. The Oxford dictionary describes poverty as being: Poverty: The state of being poor; want of the necessities of life.
The United Nations last night sent me a tweet (yes I use and love Twitter) about a series of videos made by a young girl in Kenya, Africa called Molly. Molly is 12 and lives in poverty but is using a video camera donated by Cisco and going to a school where she receives a meal provided by the World Food Programme, run by the United Nations. She films what is happening in her community and to show what her life is like. Molly is only a 12 year old child but through her actions her voice now is being heard all over the world. Well done Molly and thankyou for bringing your story to us. Now it is our turn to make life better for you and your community.
I have created a page on our blog called Action Kids! and will be putting up some links later today which all students from around the world will be able go to and use to help them have voice also 🙂
Mrs Booth
How can we help Molly?
Is there poverty in Australia?
What types of poverty are there?
Are you an Action Kid and have you done anything to help others?
Wow, what a busy day for 5M as they covered everything from English, spelling, maths, HSIE and virtual world technology! The maths was particularly challenging as the children worked on a whole class problem solving activity that could be solved using many different strategies. It was also interesting to read the different arguments for and against having MP3 players in class.
We didn’t get a chance to do any work on our school blog but Robert wrote an excellent report on last weeks cricket match between Coffs Harbour PS and Woolgoolga PS and April created a poll for graffiti art.
HSIE was demanding as the students explored poverty and what it means to be in poverty. They then made a comparison between their lives and the life of a child in poverty. It is interesting to look at the flag counter or visitor information widgets on the left hand side of our blog and see the countries that don’t display any ‘hits’. Why is this do you think?
5M have a very busy day on PhotoPeach
Mrs Booth
Why do you think there are no ‘hits’ or visits to our blog from certain countries on our visitor information widget?
Mr Murphy’s art lesson today with his class 6M was connected to mathematical outcomes that the students will be learning about this term. These are three dimensional objects and two dimensional space. Lots of fun 🙂
The art works only used 2D triangles of different sizes and the students had to be very careful when measuring them out. Lewis chose to use the virtual world program Simonastick which he was already familiar with and created a 2D representation in his 3D virtual world. I am hoping to have time to get more students in class 6M using this program as it is fantastic and has so many applications.
6M Triangle Heads 2D and 3D on PhotoPeach
Have you used only triangles to create artworks?
Have you used virtual world technology to create art?
Class 4P and Mr Pike were busy this morning trying to find all the different categories in the local newspaper-The Coffs Coast Advocate. They discovered there are many different bits of information in the newspaper such as: local, national and world news, advertising, rural information, schools page, games and quizzes, sport, letters to the editor, TV guide, property guide, plus many more categories.
Grace found information on a proposed mine and drilling that many of the local community do not want as it could create possible environmental damage to both flora and fauna. I hope Grace will write a report about this as she had so much knowledge to share with me about this issue when I spoke to her.
Mr Pike also spoke about the difference between fact and fiction and how they were important when reading the newspaper. Is a newspaper factual or fictional reading, or maybe a bit of both?
The students had already been working on exposition texts and Chloe wrote an excellent argument on why animals should not be kept in cages. She had created a strong case against keeping animals in cages and her illustration was wonderful.
I had a great time visiting Class 4P and also noticed Mr Pike was a bit of a Sharks fan….funnily enough when I was in Class 6M later on in the day I noticed Mr Murphy had a Rabbitohs clock. I’m a Wallabies fan myself 🙂
Class 4P explore the newspaper on PhotoPeach
On Thursday the 16th Coffs Harbour Public School played Woolgoolga Public School in a game of cricket at Bray St Oval.
Coffs won the toss and elected to bowl. At the end of Woolgoolga’s batting they got 137 runs. When Coffs went to bat they didn’t do as well, they got 36 runs. Steven got the most runs with 8 on the board and also got ‘Man Of The Match’ for Coffs.
Unfortunately Coffs lost but next year we will be ready!
I am looking forward to April and Maia’s report on graffiti but wanted to post some photos that I took just up the road from the school. Many people think that graffiti art is a form of vandalism. Here are the Australian Oxford Dictionary definitions for:
Art: A human creative skill concerned with the production of imaginative designs, sounds or ideas.
Graffiti: A piece of writing or drawing scribbled, scratched, or sprayed on a surface.
Vandalism: Wilful or malicious destruction or damage to works of art or other property.
Do you think this is art or vandalism?
Do you like this type of graffiti?
If you live in Coffs Harbour do you know where these photos were taken?
Do you know Ash Johnston or have you heard of him?