Coiled Up For Christmas

The finished products are arriving at home to take centre stage at the family table this Christmas! The project took patience from start to finish- the coils, the firing, the painting, the glazing. All so worth it as you can see from the photos. Do you have a favourite? 

There is so much coming up for our Year 6s- this week we are excited to see the band performance, comprised of STEM instruments from the last two weeks. The documentaries are being refined and polished ready for our film festival viewing on Thursday! There'll be dancing, singing, acting and plenty of Christmas Spirit on Friday for the Senior Christmas Concert, it always leaves me with a big smile and a big warm fuzzy! So until the next post it's paper, scissors....

When the students take over...

Our first student guest post!

The next generation of Paul McCartney’s are here because over the next few exciting weeks in STEM the students of LA8 are going to become astounding musicians!!! We are going to be making instruments to play a song of our choice in our extraordinary bands! Since music is such a big part of our lives we thought it would be interesting to learn how it is all made and played! From ‘Never Gonna Let You Down’ to ‘Hello’ it is all music and this project is encouraging student’s creativity no matter what genre they choose. All students have the chance to shine!!!

Talk about pretzels!! From now on every Friday LA8 will be twisting into pretzels for yoga! We have been kindly invited by Ms Z for yoga every week until the end of the term! What a treat! It is so refreshing to see the persistence in LA8! Moans and groans sometimes, but we are definitely making progress and that is what I like to see! But, it is interesting to see how beneficial it is for the students that do dance and other sports similar to dance when it comes to yoga. I don’t think yoga is one of our particularly strong points, but if we work on it we definitely can make it one! You never know!!

The heat is on!! The temperature is rising, but will it affect us? I don’t think so. We are a persistent and resilient class and NOTHING should bring us down! You can certainly see the change in classmate’s attitude, but with a lot of water, air conditioner and persistence our classroom can still be the safe, happy environment that we have been working towards all year! I am confident we can do this, so BRING IT ON HEAT!!!

Well, until next time Paper, Scissors…….  

Big Band Theory

In only two days we are commencing construction on our band instruments. Using only recycled products and some household items, the students will be challenged to make an instrument for a band. The fun will really occur when the students have to perform a song as an ensemble, watch this space for the clips! So given these materials, which instrument would you build? 

STEM supplies

Today we got into the Christmas spirit and made coil Christmas trees. Don't let the finished product fool you- this was not easy. Each coil had to be made uniform and attached by scoring and slipping. It took patience and perseverance to get the finished sculpture, but we aren't finished yet! Once dried and fired they will be painted and glazed then fired again. It will all be worth it when they are the admired centrepiece at the family Christmas table!

Score and slip

Coiling

This week we will have our very first guest blog, written by an LA8 class member, so until then paper, scissors...

Fun with Freezing ❄️

Ever wondered how we keep things cold? We learnt a lot about insulation in this week's STEM challenge, electrical, housing, medical and most importantly lunch boxes! The students had access to a large array of materials including bubble wrap, alfoil, newspaper, styrofoam, fly screen, egg cartons, cotton wool and plastic sticks. The students are always thinking, always wondering how they can creatively conquer the task- perhaps use a metal lunchbox, maybe sit our group under the air conditioner, or ask the teacher if we can use an ice pack! Yes, it's true, however I see this as being resourceful, using what you have to create an advantage, this is real world problem solving- but the ice pack still was not permitted! Now for the test, each student was given a frozen popsicle. Would it survive the 30 minutes without becoming a soggy puddle? As it turned out every single student had a perfectly frozen popsicle- a job well done, now to eat the test subject! Yum! 

The week concluded with a wonderful extension of our mindfulness journey. The students participated in a morning Yoga session. Until now the students have focussed on single poses, now was the time to put it all together. Challenging yes! Rewarding, most definitely. Such a special way to start the day and just another tool to add to our social and emotional wellbeing toolbox. So until next week it's paper, scissors...

Film Makers of the Future

The future Spielbergs are shining this week as we commence the planning and design aspects of our mini documentaries. We had a brainstorming session where we discussed the features of documentaries. It was interesting to hear some students say that documentaries were boring, we unpacked this and discovered that this related to animal documentaries. Other students loved the work of Sir David Attenborough and especially liked his narration and photography. We refined our brainstorm by including features of "good" documentaries. 

For STEM this week we thought we'd put our reflection and evaluation to good use and re visit the Popsicle Bridge challenge. We made changes to the group dynamics also by reducing the team to just two. Groups of six seemed somewhat unfair for a fine motor construction task such as this with only a few students getting the hands on experience. The students did so much better - they were not going to repeat their previous design flaws. The best bridge for strength held 1.7 kilograms! Next we will build the best insulated lunchbox- what would your strategy be? 

We said "goodbye for now" to one of our class teachers this week. We couldn't let her go without a send off so we put together a flash mob to surprise her. It was truly joyful, the students did their own choreography and gave it their best to surprise and delight their teacher. 

Learning about... learning!

We talk often in class of getting to know each other, truly seeking to understand each other. It's through this we develop empathy for each other. If you have empathy for others you are more likely to show compassion and friendliness to one another. This morning we took a hands on approach to this.

For some learning comes easy. For others, tasks such as reading questions, listening to multiple instructions or reading off the board can be challenging- all this prior to trying to learn and understand brand new information. 

In our morning session, the students were asked to go well out of their comfort zone- "put your pen in your non-dominant hand, then close one eye, now write the following passage..."

"Mine's not neat!"

"This is taking ages!"

"This is too hard."

Yes, it is hard, and this is every moment of every school day for some students. The response from the students was a massive realisation that not everyone learns the same and with over 30 students in our class it means we have to work together to ensure everyone experiences success. Show initiative, help your desk partner and seek to understand each other. 

Stay tuned for the students' videos recounting and evaluating this very different learning experience.

Until then paper, scissors...

Bridging the Gap!

This week has seen us discussing the way we want to see out our final weeks of primary school. Yep, it's getting real- in fact the students spent their iPad session reflecting on all the special moments caught on camera this year. They began putting together their 'Leaver's Placemat' using PicCollage. They never fail to drop my jaw when it comes to technology, but it's not just a matter of choosing a few photos and placing them on a grid. They consider carefully the story it tells, the colour choices that complement it and the use of a banner to bring it together. While it's fun to look back at the adventures and special events days - it's empowering to reflect and realise just how far the students have come in their last year of primary school- their learning, emotional development and for many their physical growth- yep I'm becoming a shorty!

Build a bridge, kids, and get over it. No wait, build a bridge and make it strong enough to carry a bag of marbles. Oh, and make sure it's aesthetically pleasing! The challenge this week was to build a Popsicle Bridge that would stretch over a 30cm gap between the desks. The supplies- 25 popsticks and 1 metre of masking tape. The results as always were varied. Some ended as piles of sticks deep in the classroom canyon but some left us awestruck with their engineering ingenuity. The best result was over 70 marbles in weight- four way tie. It was interesting to observe group dynamics in our fourth STEM challenge, some groups have found their groove and are off and racing while others are struggling with sharing ideas, choosing a plan and executing the best build. This is why STEM is such a rich learning experience- it's the interpersonal skills as well as the technology process that the students grow from. Stay tuned to check out our next challenge, until then- paper, scissors...

Feels good to do good...

Yahoo! Finally we have our blog to share our classroom learning journey and celebrate the way we do things. 

This week was pretty special for the students- we put the needs of others ahead of our own!  Every morning we spend time on our Dalai Lama moment. It's a name we came up with to encompass social and emotional learning, world affairs and growth. We talked through an infographic on how our lives compare to those in other parts of the world and in different circumstances to our own. It was powerful, it really got us thinking of how fortunate we are, reflecting on what we have to be grateful for and about what small steps we can take to improve the days of others. Which brings me to the amazing gesture of today. Each Year 6 student made and decorated 10 cupcakes to sell for a small donation. There was everything from "teddy bears on the beach" to "poo emojis"! We raised over $1,300 for a local cancer charity! It was a day to feel really good about ourselves- it feels good to do good! 

We wrapped up the week with another STEM Challenge- Army Man Launcher! It was terrific to see the students engaged in design and trials to perfect their launcher. It was also refreshing to see their healthy sense of humour as they counted down- three, two, one.... flop! Yep, the launch resulted in a 40 centimetre flight for our toy soldier- no comparison to the winning flight of 20 metres! Limited materials and six brains working together has pushed some out of their comfort zone but it most often ends in fun, success and solutions. 
  So, until next week-  Paper, scissors...

What is STEM?