Over the last two weeks we have been learning about and making turtles. We have learnt that Turtles live in the water and that Tortoises live on land. We know that turtles are reptiles and they lay eggs  in the sand on the beach. When they are born they naturally walk and swim towards the horizon. Most species of turtles are now endangered because of predators, fishing, climate change, rubbish in their water and also humans. We have learnt that some turtles eat sea grass and sea weed. The largest species of turtle is the Leather Back Turtle.

We made our turtles using paper bowls, paper and templates (to trace around). Firstly, we painted the paper bowls green and left them to dry. This was only our first coat of paint. When they were dry, we used brown and yellow paint to help us paint the turtle’s shell patterns. We then left them to dry. After that we used the templates to trace and then cut out the head, belly and flippers. We cut out a small tail also. Then we glued them all on and now…..they are very cheeky climbing up our classroom wall!!!!

What do you think of our turtles? Do you know any interesting facts about turtles?

Love from 1/2 KN

We would like to welcome Olivia F and Declan as our new 1/2 KN SRCs for the rest of the year. We know that they will do a fantastic job representing our class.

Well done!

Love 1/2 KN

Our new 1/2 KN SRCs

Hi everyone,
Here is the link to the Behind the News video that we watched today in our Inquiry class. Watch it again at home if you like and comment below what you have learned! What are the main things that are affecting our beautiful Great Barrier Reef?

http://www.abc.net.au/btn/story/s3603113.htm

Mr Newell

On Tuesday the 29th of July, all of the Grade 1/2’s went on an excursion to the Melbourne Aquarium. We travelled there by bus and we had partners! It was a great feeling to go to the city and learn more about our Inquiry Topic, “Commotion in the Ocean!” When we arrived we ate our recess near the Yarra River and there was heaps of sea gulls who were trying to eat our food!!!!! Once we walked into the Aquarium we were so excited! One of the first things we saw was…the Elephant Sharks! They were really weird looking fish because they had a funny, long pointy nose with sharp fins on their back. They were very cheeky and kept coming up out of the water and scaring us when they slapped their fins. Next we moved onto the Touch and Feel tank. Here we were very lucky and we were able to pick up star fish. They felt spikey and rough. We also learnt about shark eggs and sea sponge. Another exhibit that we loved was the ENORMOUS tank where we could walk under and the Sharks, Saw Fish and HUGE Stingrays floated over our heads. We also saw some really strange animals. Benjamin saw a frog that had the same colours as a Red Back Spider. Lachie saw a Burnt Sausage Sea Cucumber, it was so unusual. The last exhibit that we saw was the penguin exhibit.  We saw baby penguins which were brown and very fluffy! We were very lucky to see the keepers feeding the penguins some squid. The penguins went absolutely crazy!!!! They dived into the water and started darting around and leaping out of the water so quickly. It was amazing! After we left the aquarium we sat and ate our lunch in the same spot next to the Yarra. Then we got back on the bus and travelled back to school. We had the best time ever and have learnt so much! We hope to go back again soon!

What was your favourite part of our excursion to the Melbourne Aquarium? Why?

Love from 1/2 KN

Our Excursion to the Aquarium on PhotoPeach

This week we have started something new and exciting! We have started doing our writing a little bit differently. We have been divided up into small groups to work at different stations each day (except Friday). Our different activities are: Spelling, Handwriting/Grammar, Computer group (publishing), Wacky Writing and two focus groups. In these focus groups we are working very hard on writing our own Narratives. The idea of having these stations is to help us with all aspects of our writing. We have been really enjoying our writing groups and have loved having our classroom helpers too. We are looking forward to publishing some of our work on the blog.

Love 1/2 KN

This week we started our new Inquiry topic called, “Commotion in the Ocean.” In this topic we will be investigating lots of things about the sea. In our Art lessons this week we have started making some fish that we will hang up in our classroom when they are done. So far we have designed our fish, cut them out and the next step is to paint them beautiful colours. We can’t wait to finish them next week! We will put up photos of them when we are finished. They will be hung up from the fishing net in our classroom.

Love 1/2 KN

Yesterday, the 17th of July, all of the Grade 1/2 Classes went to the bottom Blackburn Oval for a footy clinic. Down at the oval the weather was freezing and the ground was muddy! The clinic was ran by some SEDA students who were all very nice. We practised heaps of football skills, including goal kicking, handballing, marking and evasion. There was another activity to help us with our marking, but we ran out of time.  When we were walking back, we were like frozen ice blocks, very thirsty and very tired. We all really enjoyed our footy clinic and we had a great time. We are looking forward to our next clinic!

Love 1/2 KN

Yesterday, 12th of June, we started making cats out of paper plates that we had painted black. We chose to make cats because of our Inquiry topic of day and night and that cats can be both nocturnal and diurnal animals. We used a number of templates to trace a head and tail onto the paper plate and then cut them out. Then Mr Newell helped us to staple the head and the tail onto the body. Today we finished our cats by gluing on whiskers, eyes and a nose onto the cats face. We had lots of fun making our cats and we hope we can make more animals in art soon!

Love from 1/2 KN

On Wednesday the 11th of June, we had a basketball clinic at our school. There were 3 men running the clinic and they taught us lots of things about basketball. We learnt that the lines on the basketball help guide our fingers when we are bouncing and shooting for goal. Some of the skills that we learnt were dribbling, shooting and some technical moves, like crossovers. We played games like “Dribble knockout” which were really fun and taught us about dribbling the ball properly and trying to defend the ball. At the end we had some time for questions. Declan asked a really good question about how to shoot the basketball properly. One of the men was really helpful and said that there were lots of different ways of shooting and it is different for younger and older people. We had such an awesome day and hope the coaches come back again soon!

Love from 1/2 KN

This term our Inquiry topic is “Day and Night.” We have learnt that some animals come out during the day and others come out at night. The animals that are awake during the day are called “Diurnal” and the ones who come out at night are “Nocturnal.” One of these nocturnal animals is the Owl. In today’s art lesson we have made our own paper owls. We used wrapping paper and coloured cardboard. We had to use templates to trace the different parts, such as the feet and wings. This was a bit tricky because some were very small and they moved off the paper. Once we had traced them, we had to cut them out and stick them onto our owl body. Last of all, we had to draw the eyes. We ALL really enjoyed our lesson making owls and we are really proud of our artwork. These will be put up on one of our display walls. We hope you think they are as cute as we do!

Love 1/2 KN