This term, Stage 2 students will be using the Penrith City Council website to learn our about local government.
Which of the images featured in the clip below are looked after by Penrith City’s Local Council?
Penrith NSW Australia – things to do – places to see
Services of local government include:
* Sustainability:
Sustainable Cities 2012 Overall Sustainable Council – Penrith City Council
* Recycling and waste management:
Penrith recycling
Early Stage 1 and Stage 1 students have been reading the Aboriginal Dreaming story of Pheasant and Kingfisher, in a big book version by Catherine Berndt & Raymond Meeks.
We used a Google Images search to locate online photographs of Australian pheasants and Australian kingfishers. The additional descriptor of “long tail” helped us find images of kingfishers “with firesticks stuck in their bottom”.
We discussed why images of peacocks (not Australian!) and lyrebirds turned up in the pheasant image seach, and why kookaburras turned up in the kingfisher search. We then used Youtube to locate examples of a pheasant saying its name, “Bookbook”, as in the story, and a kingfisher saying “Bered-bered”.
Common pheasant making quick repeated sounds while taking a walk
Pheasant – common pheasant bird call
Pied Kingfisher catching fish in split second – BBC wildlife
The next week, we moved our investigations into factual information on Australian birds:
Aussie beauties – a tribute to Australian birds
This week, Class 2RB celebrated the end of our investigations into nursery rhymes by collecting white objects, from home and around school, taking photographs in the school library, and brainstorming some rhyming text to create a crazy slideshow on PhotoPeach!
Baa baa white sheep
Meanwhile, Class 2S worked on a different story about a lonely, brown sheep. The students took some inspiration from the picture book, Hunwick’s egg by Mem Fox & Pamela Lofts, and our current Chicks ‘R’ Us program.
Ewe and the egg
More inclement weather on Friday meant that Class 1HB had another spare lesson in the school library, so we brought out the collection of puppets again and brainstormed a new digital story. A scary one this time:
A spooky story
Class 3/4L recently had an extra session in the school library, so we decided to create a digital slideshow, inspired by the powerful cover art of the new picture book, One red shoe, by Karin Gruss & Tobias Krejtschi (Wikins Farago, 2014). The book, set in the war-torn Gaza Strip, features black and white illustrations through, with the dramatic use of spot colour on a US-style, Chuck Taylor All-Stars red canvas shoe, to persuade the readers and viewers with symbolism.
Surrounded by RED
The resulting, jointly-constructed text of this digital slideshow, created during a Circle Time brainstorming session, is quite reminiscent of the colour poems featured in the now-classic book, Hailstones and halibut bones by Mary O’Neill (1961), although the students were not exposed to that particular work. Yet. Red objects featured in the images came mainly from the school library environment, but also a few from my personal digital albums.
Download free Teachers’ notes for One red shoe.
K-6PR created these murals yesterday on the IWB. Their current theme is “Sea creatures”.
Stage 2 group:
Once upon a time, there was a mermaid. She was looking in her mirror to put on lipstick. A shark came to eat the fish swimming around her. The mermaid could see the shark behind her in the mirror.
The man caught a fish on his fishing rod. The man saw a dolphin jumping high. It was going up and down.
The crab is finding a pearl in the clam.
The whale is coming up out of the ocean to spray water out of his blowhole.
The seahorses were watching the shark chase the fish. They were hiding in the seaweed because they didn’t want to get eaten too.
Stage 1 group:
The whale can move through the water by swishing his tail. It is looking for krill to eat.
The shark is swimming and wants to eat the turtle. The turtle is on the beach so he can be safe. He wants to go into the water to find food but he is scared of the shark.
The dolphin wants to make friends with the clownfish.
The crabs are digging lots of holes in the sand because it is time for bed.
The mermaid is cuddling a fish because he is her friend. The sunblock on the beach belongs to the mermaid. She uses it when she comes out of the water and her magical tail has turned into legs.
Early Stage 1 group:
We can see a whale.
We can see a mermaid putting on her lipstick. She has a fish tail instead of legs.
We can see a fish with bubbles coming out of his mouth. There are five orange fish blowing bubbles.
We can see a dolphin swimming.
We can see some crabs swimming in the water. They are playing “Hide and Seek”.
We can see two fish swimming together.
The eel is chasing the fish because he wants to eat them.
The fat dolphin wants to eat the fish.
The blue fish is in a bowl.
Stage 3 group:
Once upon a time there was a shiver of sharks. The sharks wanted to attack a seal because they were hungry. This is why the seal looks so worried.
Meanwhile, a dolphin was swimming towards a catfish. He was going to teach the catfish how to jump. This was so the catfish could get away from the sharks.
The crab was planning to use his nippers to catch the seahorse’s tail. The seahorse wants to make friends with the catfish.
The sea turtle is swimming towards the shallow water where the sun is shining through. She is ready to lay her eggs in the sand.
COLLECTIVE NOUNS:
When we were writing the above story we needed a collective noun for a group of sharks. We read that it could be a school, a shoal, a pack or a shiver of sharks. Here are some more interesting collective nouns:
A cast of crabs.
A pod of dolphins.
A school or shoal of fish.
A gam of whales.
A bale of turtles.
A bob of seals.
This week, students in Early Stage 1 and Stage 1 will be learning the nursery rhyme Hicketty Picketty. We will also be reading Out of the egg, by Tina Matthews, which is a variation of The little red hen fairy tale.
The inclement weather last Friday gave Class 1HB another chance to brainstorm a digital story. This time they ended up with an Easter theme, which will prove useful with other classes as the term progresses:
An Easter tale
The subsequent week consolidates the learning with this digital quiz on PhotoPeach, which draws upon images and information gathered in 2011 after a unit of work based upon the annual Chicks R Us experience:
What’s in the egg?
Another picture book favourite is Clifford’s happy Easter by Norman Bridwell, which features a North American (spring season!) Easter egg hunt and the dyeing of boiled eggs.
And our PhotoPeach digital story about Clifford the Big Red Dog’s last visit to our school library:
Clifford & Phoebe at Penrith PS
This week, our Early Stage 1 and Stage 1 students were investigating the nursery rhyme, Jack and Jill. The following digital slideshow dates back to 2011, and was created during the previous three-year cycle:
Jack and Jill
HooplaKidz TV present two Youtube videos about Jack and Jill. Note that, in the first one, Jack breaks a crown fit for a king, rather than his actual head.
Nursery rhymes for kids – Jack and Jill – nursery rhyme
Jack and Jill – Olive & the Rhyme Rescue Crew
We read two books on the theme of friends, Eight by Lyn Lee & Kim Gamble, about a lost toy octopus, and Brave Squish Rabbit by Katherine Battersby. Coincidentally, both picture books feature a thunderstorm. The students of Classes 2RB, 1IW and 2S then brainstormed the following digital story about friends:
We are friends!
UPDATE: I found a different slideshow about friends on Facebook, also by Year 1 students, at another school:
We are friends! by Mrs. Burnett’s First Grade class
Here is a new PhotoPeach digital slideshow which archives some of the photos and craftwork of this year’s K-2 Chinese New Year celebrations:
Year of the Horse at Penrith PS
The inclement weather on Friday gave Class 1HB an additional lesson in the school library, so we brought out the collection of puppets and brainstormed a new digital story:
A lemur’s tale
This digital story is especially for author Meredith Costain, with many thanks for sending Penrith Public School the signed copy of her wonderful new picture book, My first day at school (Windy Hollow Books, 2013). The book’s illustrations are by Michelle Macintosh.
Stage 3 students have recently been working as “buddies” for Kindergarten Orientation, and they enjoyed having Meredith’s book read to them in a library session, and then reminiscing, brainstorming, storyboarding, photographing, and suggesting possible text for a joint construction to create a PhotoPeach presentation. We anticipate our incoming Kindergarten students, future buddies and staff and students at other schools to get some useful tips from it.
Special thanks to Ms Stockton, who allowed Robbie Rules – our oldest “student” at Penrith PS, who’s never graduated from Stage 1 – to visit the library for the last few weeks of Term 4, 2013.
Robbie Rules: My first day at school