Science Projects

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Hi Everyone!

This week we presented the science projects that we have been working on for the last few weeks.  We found out SO MUCH!

Research Projects:

Some people did research and showed their learning on posters, dioramas, quad-ramas, or models.

Experiments:

Other people did experiments: they had to guess what would happen (hypothesis), then do the experiment, record their results, and make a conclusion that explained their science learning.

We really had fun investigating different science topics.  People found out how eyes work, and how 3D movies work, they learnt about the layers of the earth, they researched evolution, and explored how crystals grow/are made.  Some people mixed chemicals together to see their reactions, or investigated which metals can make sparks or fire.  Others found out why dinosaurs are extinct.

  • What was the MOST InTerEstiNg thing you found out?
  • What is the best way to find out more about science? Give examples…
  • What was your favourite project?  Why?

 

 

 

Mission Market 2014

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Buenos Dias!

Last Friday, we had our annual Mission Market, an event that raises money for the mission our Church supports.  This year our whole school raised over $2,000, and MLC raised $270 of that total.

We made honey-joys to sell, and we also sold popcorn, and hired a fairy floss machine to make and sell fairy floss.  The fairy floss stall was a very popular stall.  Some of the children in MLC also made and brought things in to sell, such as old toys and Digimon cards and other trading cards.  Other stalls were selling lollies and crafts, and there was face-painting, hair sprays, toss-a-coin competitions, and guess the number of lollies in the jar.  There were a lot more than that, but I didn’t get around to all the stalls this year as I was working hard on the fairy floss stall.

  • What were the best things to do at Mission Market?
  • What things did you buy?

Here are some of the photos I took of the stalls at Mission Market.  I wonder who you can spot…

MLC Sleep-Over and Hip-Hop Morning

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On Thursday and Friday, the students and teachers in MLC had a sleepover at school.  We had a normal day at school on Thursday, but then we went home to have showers, get changed, have a snack, pack a bag, and then we came back to school.  Mr A and Mr P cooked a wonderful barbecue for us, and Mrs Bonnici, Mrs Bison, Mrs Hickey and Ms Christie helped to make all the salads.  Mr Bonnici, Ms Burke and Ms Kranjeck all helped to serve up dinner for us, and then Ms Burke, Ms K, Mr Parker, and Mr Rudd all helped us with Tabloid Sports.  Even Ms Borg’s family got involved: her sister Leanne came to help with the evening activities, and she spent the night and helped with breakfast!

As we ended the tabloid sports, it was starting to get dark, so we went into the MLC building and Mr Parker told us funny, true stories from other camps he had been on.  They were a bit yucky, too.  Then we had our concert.  There were magic tricks, as well as singing acts and dance acts.  Everyone was so supportive of the people on stage, and the teachers were very impressed.  There was no boo-ing and no silly behaviour.  Well done, everyone!

After the concert, we all trooped over to the Hall to brush our teeth and get ready for bed.  All our mattresses had already been blown up by our parents when we arrived, so all we had to do was get into our sleeping bags and go to sleep.  I think that was the hardest thing of the whole sleepover: sleep.  There was a lot of giggling and walking around, and it was quite noisy with the wind and people saying “sshhhhh!” all the time.  But we managed to get some sleep.  All the MLC teachers, Ms K, and Ms Kelly stayed overnight with us to look after us and keep us safe.

The next morning, we woke up, packed up, and headed over to MLC for breakfast.  Many teachers had come to school early to make breakfast for us, including Mrs Borowik, Ms McNally, Ms Belynda, Mrs Bistricki, Mrs Semcesen, and Ms James.  Following breakfast, we went to the Hall again because some of Ms Borg’s best friends came to teach us some Hip-Hop dance steps, and we all learnt a dance to “Let’s Get Ridiculous.”  It was an amazing morning, and all the students and teachers had a lot fun.

Here is a video of all our hip-hop dances.  Unfortunately, it is on YouTube, so it is blocked at school.  This is a great excuse to watch it at home with your family.  What do they think of your hip hop talent and expertise?

After a delicious lunch of Pizza, we did a big clean-up and then had free time.  Some people watched a movie, some people played with the planks, some drew or did writing, some played games, and some people just sat around and talked.

Big THANKS must go to the MLC teachers (Mr Carey, Ms Borg, Mrs Dabal, Ms Murnane, Ms Petkovski, and Mrs Hickey) for organising and running all the activities for us, and to all the teachers and sisters who helped us have such a fabulous sleepover with no hitches and no problems.

When you comment this time, you should remember to THANK the teachers, and give POSITIVE feedback.  If you are going to give any negative feedback, remember to offer suggestions for HOW we can IMPROVE, don’t just criticise.  Try to use “What Went Well…” and “Even Better If…” statements.

  • What are your favourite memories of our Sleep-over?
  • What went well?
  • Why did you like the activities?
  • What does your family think of the hip hop video?
  • Sleep-over would be even better if…

Remembrance Day

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History:

The First World War took place from 1914 to 1918 between Germany, Austria-Hungary and Turkey on one side, and the British, French and Russian Empires on the other side.  In 1917, the United States entered the war on the side of the British, French and Russians.  Australia was part of the British Empire at that time (and is still part of it today), so Australians were fighting in this war from the beginning. Thousands of young Australians joined to fight in the war and many were killed or badly injured.  Our young soldiers thought the war would be over quickly, but it lasted for over four years.  During that time, over 10 million soldiers lost their lives on the battlefields, as did thousands more priests, nurses, doctors, journalists, and regular people and families who lived in the cities and towns around the warzones: nobody thought that so many young people would die.

Dates:

At 11am on the 11th of November, 1918, the guns fell silent on the Western Front after four (4) years of continuous warfare so the two sides could come together to discuss a peace agreement and an end to the war.  Originally, the day was called Armistice Day, because armistice means to agree to stop fighting for a certain amount of time in order to come to a peace agreement.  It was an Australian journalist who famously suggested the idea of two minutes’ silence in 1919, one year after the war.  After the end of the Second World War (WW2), Australian and British governments changed the name to Remembrance Day because “Armistice Day” was no longer appropriate for a day that would commemorate war dead from two world wars.

Today, the loss of lives in all wars and conflicts is commemorated on Remembrance Day. All Commonwealth nations and the nations of the world who took part in the First World War reflect on the past and remember their war dead on Remembrance Day.

Symbols:

Symbols of Remembrance Day include the red poppy, the unknown soldier, flags at half-mast, the lone bugler, and the last post.  We often recite short sections or readings of war poetry such as The Ode (from “For the Fallen” by Laurence Binyon) or “In Flanders Fields” by John McCrae.

Remembrance

Click on the image to enlarge it.

What do you know?

Use the Australian War Memorial website (click on the link) to find out more about the symbols of Remembrance Day…

I wonder what you can find out about these symbols and customs.  Share what you have learned in the comments below!

Lift A Line

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Buongiorno a tutti! (that means Good Day, Everybody!)

In literacy this week we are doing an activity called “Lift a Line,” where we take a line out of a story and change some of the words to make the line or the sentence more interesting.  In this activity, you can change the nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, or any other parts of speech.  We are finding verbs and prepositions in books and changing, rearranging, or adding extra words to them to make the sentence more exciting, more impressive, and more descriptive.

Here is an example:

“When King Herod heard about this, he was very upset, and so was everyone else in Jerusalem.”

Here are some words you could use to make this sentence more informative and more expressive (I got these words from the Thesaurus in Microsoft Word) :

  • heard: overheard, found out, was informed, perceived,
  • upset: distressed, troubled, disturbed, confused, shocked, shaken-up, displeased, hurt
  • everyone: everybody, every person, all people, other people,

Next, you choose different words from the list to insert into the sentence.  Now the line looks like this:

“When King Herod found out about this, he was very shaken-up and even troubled, and so was every person in Jerusalem.”

  • What do you think is important about making our sentences more imaginative, more expressive, or more informative?
  • Try changing this line I have lifted from Matthew’s gospel:

“They went into the house, and when they saw the child with his mother Mary, they knelt down and worshipped him.  They brought out their gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.”

A trip to the Melbourne Museum

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On Thursday all the kids in MLC went to the Melbourne Museum. We travelled by bus. When we got there, we had a snack and fed the seagulls. Then, we went into the IMAX cinema to watch “Unseen World ” in 3D.  “Unseen World” is an amazing experience because it taught us a lot about atoms and things that we can’t see: things that are too small, too slow and too fast to see with the naked eye.  These things are almost invisible.

Some of the things that were too small, fast, or slow to see were plants growing, a bullet shooting from an air gun, the scales on a butterfly’s wings, water drops bouncing and getting smaller, how geckos stick to walls and windows, and wing movements of flying insects.  Did you know, gold, diamond dust, insect parts, hair, skin flakes, and bacteria are all in the air you breathe every day?

After we watched Unseen World, we explored the museum.  We went to the Melbourne gallery, the Dinosaur Walk, the Bugs Alive gallery, the Wild gallery, and the Marine gallery.  We missed the Forest gallery because it was raining and we ran out of time.

Take a VIRTUAL TOUR of the Wild gallery, click on this link here.

Take a VIRTUAL TOUR of the Dinosaur Walk, click on this link here.

  • What was the most enjoyable part of the movie? Why do you say that?
  • What did you learn?
  • Which was your favourite gallery, and why?
  • Would you go to the museum again?

Bye for now,

Written by Kevin, Isabel, Joshua, and the  MLC Rubies.

A note about Virtual Tours:

Unfortunately, these tours do not work on iPads because you need Flash.  Sorry, iPad users, you will have to use a computer.

Inquiry Projects: Advertising

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Cii week bak! (That’s “Hello” in Dinka, I hope!)

Wow, it’s been a very long time between blog posts!

Right through term 3, the students in MLC studied many different aspects of ADVERTISING.  We read many books and texts about the different ways advertisers and companies use advertising tricks and strategies to sell their products to us.  We collected data about the types of ads on TV and graphed our results.  We watched a lot of advertisements on TV and YouTube, and we looked at and analysed lots of print ads that we found in magazines, on billboards, and on bus-shelters.  We all know that advertisers use sounds and pictures to sell their products; But Did you also know that advertisers even use smells to sell things?  Supermarkets have their bakeries near the front of their shops so we smell the delicious smell of bread baking and go inside.

After we had really immersed ourselves in advertising, we got to invent our own products and create advertisements for them.  We created the box that our product would come in, and some people made posters to advertise their products while others made videos.

You can see our videos on our YouTube channel MLC Share, and we are embedding some of the videos here on the blog.  Photos of the posters will be uploaded shortly…

When you comment on this blog post, add your own opinions and facts to the conversation and don’t forget to answer the questions in red:

  • What did you learn about advertising?
  • What advertising strategies or tricks did you use in your advertisements?
  • Which is your favourite advertisement, and WHY is it your favourite?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Angles are Everywhere

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This week in Maths, we have learnt that angles are everywhere.  An angle is made when two lines meet, it is the space between the lines, and it is measured in degrees.  We have learnt new words to describe different angles: acute, obtuse, and reflex; and we have learnt the names of two angles that measure exactly 90 and 180 degrees.  These are right angles and straight angles.

We have made angle-measuring tools, and we have compared many angles to right angles to determine whether they are acute or obtuse.  We also used Skitch on our iPads to take photos of angles at our school and label them.  Some people have even worked out that there are two sides to each angle, and that shapes can have a mix of different angles or the angles can be exactly the same.

We have learnt a song to help us remember the names of each angle.  You can see the song on Youtube here.

  • What angles do you know about?
  • Where have you found angles?
  • What is your favourite angle, and why?

Book Character Parade

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Well, WOW!  What an end to an amazing Book Week at Holy Eucharist!  After a fabulous Inquiry morning, we had a book-character parade in the hall with the whole school, and then we watched the Spiderwick Chronicles.  This is one of Ms Murnane’s favourite books, and it’s also a movie.  There are now many children in the rubies class who want her to read the story to them.

Holy Eucharist kids and teachers all made an effort to dress up in costumes from their favourite books and movies.  Some highlights were Ms Petkovski as “A Bad Case of Stripes,” Ms James as the Scarecrow, and Ms McNally as the Wicked Witch of the East (with the house fallen on her!) There were lots of Red Riding Hoods and Disney Princesses, quite a few Pirates and Superheroes, characters from Alice In Wonderland, and animal onesies.  Olivia was there with the Cat in the Hat, and so was Saucepan Man.  I even saw a Robin Hood.  Unfortunately, we were having so much fun at the parade, we forgot to take many photos.

  • Tell us all about your costume and the book or movie that inspired it.
  • Or
  • Tell us what are your favourite memories of the day. 

Book Week

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Hi everyone!

So, Book Week started today.  The best book-celebrating festival in Australia.  This year the theme is “connect to books,” and the CBCA (Children’s Book Council) have made a short list of the best books of 2014.  There are 6 books on the list of Best Picture Book of the Year:

  • The Treasure Box (by Margaret Wild and Freya Blackwood)
  • King Pig (by Nick Bland)
  • Silver Buttons (by Bob Graham)
  • Parachute (by Danny Parker and Matt Ottley)
  • The Windy Farm (by Doug Macleod and Craig Smith)
  • Rules of Summer (by Shaun Tan)

Most classes have read some of these books.  Which is your favourite book, and why is it your favourite?

Shaun Tan is one of my favourite picture-book writers and illustrators of all time, but my favourite book of 2014 is actually The Treasure Box, by Margaret Wild and Freya Blackwood.  I really love how the illustrations look like they were not drawn on the pages, but were drawn, cut out, and then carefully placed on cardboard.

Next Friday, the CBCA announce the winner of the Best Picture Book award, and we are going to be dressing up as one of our favourite book characters.  I am not going to say who I am dressing up as, but I will give you a hint.  It involves a lot of SAUCEPANS!

Who will you be dressing up as?  If you don’t want to give it away, maybe you could give us some clues about your costume, or about the book your character is in.

When you write a comment, don’t forget a greeting, answer the questions, add more information of your own, and sign off with your name.  Keep the conversation going.  Don’t forget to make sure you have written more than one sentence and that you have used FULL STOPS and Capital Letters!

If you would like to know more about the books on the short list of best books, go to the Children’s Book Council website, or follow this link.

  • Which book is your favourite from 2014, and WHY?
  • Who will you dress up as for our Book Character parade?  Give us some clues!