Federation in Australia: Stage 3’s political cartoons

Stop the presses!

Traditionally, a newspaper’s political cartoons are created close to deadline.

Congratulations to our Stage 3 students, who rose to a unique occasion. Following our intensive investigation into Democracy and Federation in Australia (HSIE unit), I challenged them to break into pairs and, armed with just a black felt pen, a piece of paper and heads full of concepts and ideas, to create a political cartoon in just 20 minutes. No pencils or erasers permitted.

Federation political cartoon

Our complete Flickr slideshow is HERE.

Researching Museum Railway Station

City Circle Loop
City Circle Loop signage, Museum Station, Sydney, NSW.

3 Museum Station

A Flickr slideshow about Museum Station, Sydney, is HERE. Stage 2 students are researching underground railway systems as part of their science and technology unit, Buildings and Bridges.

And on through the underground stations (and Circular Quay) of Sydney’s City Circle Loop:


City Circle hi def hi speed

Dogs, dogs, dogs

This week, Early Stage 1 and Stage students are investigating factual information about dogs.

We also discussed a few famous literary dogs, such as Clifford, Fearless and Spot.

Clifford & Phoebe at Penrith PS (2011):

Travelling Fearless at Penrith PS (Book Week 2010):

Travelling Fearless, Part 2: Farewell Fearless! (Book Week 2010):

An Easter tale (2014):

Teachers’ notes for One red shoe

The Teachers’ notes I wrote for Wilkins Farago Publishing are now online. I hope lots of school libraries buy their own copy of the picture book, One red shoe, and get good use out of it!

The notes can be downloaded as a PDF here.

When I was testing the book out with our Stage 3 students, even the Stage 2 students were intrigued, although they only really discussed the red symbolism throughout, not the stronger themes about war/unrest in the Gaza Strip, but they came up with this digital slideshow: