Farewell Students

What a wonderful year we had in 2011. It has been a pleasure working with all the students in our class. Thank you to all the students and families who helped to make the year so successful. I wish all the students from 3/4A all the best as they move into Grade 4 and 5 in 2012.

From Miss Jeffery

Bike Ed

On the first day of Bike ED we checked our bike from wheel to brakes.And on the second day we started the bike ed for real! Thanks to mr. chaffa and mr.mclean,they teached us lots of special skill ,it's nealy the last day of bike ed,so i can't wait to show& tell them what I've learnt from bike ed!!!!

Our Reading Challenge Champion

There were over 200 students at our school who completed the Premier's Reading Challenge this year. One student from each grade level was selected as a 'Challenge Champion'. These students had to be enthusiastic readers and have added many books to their reading lists. YiCheng received the Challenge Champion award for Grade 4. Here is a photo of him with his certificate and badge.

Jen's Medal

Jen was recently invited to a special award ceremony where she was given this medal. The medal was for achieving the top score in the state in the University of NSW Computer Competition. This was a very big achievement and we are very proud of Jen!

Candlebark Farm Camp

This term, week 5, level 3 went to candlebark farm. On the bus trip there, we stopped over at Corunderrk Reserve, an old, old place. There we saw a running stream with freash water and stones in it, smooth with erosion. It also has loads of greenery, with old forest ferns in it.

At Candlebark Farm we had a long, long, long chat from the manager of Candlebark farm about safty and all that. When he got up to "Bullants!", a cry from the crowd, sitting in frount of him made him know there was a bullant on somebody. He just ent down, picked up the bullant and told the crowd it was just a sugar ant and bull ants are bigger and bite.

We had activities also. There were 8 activities; orieenteering, flying fox, super swooper, canoieng, inative games, rockroom, low ropes and frisbee golf. You had a dutie group, you did the activities with your duty group.

The dinner was delicious. We had tomato soup that tasted like baked beans and chicken noodle soup which had noodles the size of your finger that would dissolve in your mouth for 'entre (both nights). we had apricot chicken with cooked carrots, peas, creamy mash potato and roast beef, roast potato, roast pumpkin and the option of gravy for main (both nights). We also had ice-cream that was soooooooooo delicious for wednesday and thursday night. It was with red jelly/fruit salad depending on the night.

We would watch a video, Yogi Bear the first night and Space Chimps 2 the secound night. Then we would have to go to bed (at 10'clock) in rock hard beds. Everybody was talking, not sleepy and it was a rough night(s).

It was a sleepy morning and an early one. we had Cereal for Breakfast and then we had a head count and so on, later when it was a showers there was a great baffle about who's going 1st and stuff! Later, at the camp fire behind the carpark, was a fire buring happily and benches. we all squished on to a bench. we then got a stick and marshmallows. you would put them in the fire. Most of them caught on Fire! I loved the sticky bit in the middle, where it is all melted. Some people liked the burnt taste of marshmallows who cought on fire and wasn't blown out quick enough, but, in my opin it was a disgusting taste!

On the way back to school, we stopped back at Corunderrk Reserve and went on the long track to Badger Weir. At the end, there was the most yummiest water, just cleaned. Then, we had to turn around and go back to the bus. We arrived back to school at 3 pm.

Maths with Miss Francisco

One day we were doing fun maths because we were making 3D shapes with pipe cliners or toothpics and bluetac and we got to make a fake 3D shapes by putting other 3D shapes together and there were lot silly ones, easy ones and very complecated ones like my one!!! I think everyone liked that day, I know I did! That day was the funnest day everrrrrr!

The Fishing King

Pollution Food Chain

Poison Pollution is not the Solution

Net Trouble

Chaos Food Chain

Term 4 Welcome

The year sure is flying by! Welcome back to school for Term 4. In the coming weeks Level 3 will be showcasing their work from our 'Splash' unit. This will include our Short Film Festival where our still-frame animation movies will be played. After this 'official' launch, we will be putting the movies on our blog for you to see.

We are also finishing off our Waterwatch Program with a community mural to be displayed in the Whitehorse City Council offices. This mural will be presented to Melbourne Water and the Whitehorse City Council at a special assembly.

Our Term 4 unit is called 'This is Australia' and will focus on geography, culture and historical Australians who have made positive contributions to shaping our nation. Students will be completing projects on historical Australians. It would be wonderful if parents could assist their children to research their topic at local libraries. More information to come!

Thanks for visiting our class blog.

Footy Day

On Footy Day we were split up in to different teams; Collingwood, Geelong, Hawthorn, West Coast, Carlton, StKilda, Sydeny, Essendon and all the other AFL teams. We sarted in a line then are captains told as where we had to go. They were counting our scores.And mr Caufer was telling lots of ridolls. We also had a parade before all this happened. It was the best Footy Day EVER!

House Athletics

On Wednesday on 13th of September we had House Athletics. The house teams are Bradman, Freeman, Perkins and Riley. I did hurdles and races. I won the hurdles grand final and evearyone from Bradman picked me up because we were in the lead because of me. I came second in circular relay then Freeman was in the lead. Now everyone thinks that Freeman won and Bradman came 2nd, Perkins 3rd and Riley 4th. Oh, I forgot most Grade 4s are going to district because they cam 1st 2nd or 3rd in an event.

Still Frame Animation

In 3/4A we have been doing still frame animation. We have to make movies with our paper mache sea creatures. We have to take about 200 photos. Then we have to edit the movie with our group. My group haa not edited our movie yet. 3/4A have seen three still frame animation movies. Still frame animation is fun with sea creatures. Our back drop looks really nice and colouful. The people in my group are Emily, Jennifer, Grace O, Daphne and Me. After we finished our movie Miss Jeffery took a group photo with our whole group. Daphne was the person who was taking the photos and everyone else was helping to move the sea cretures. Every time Daphne took a photo we would have to move the animals a little bit. Still Frame Animation is Fun!

Swimming

On the first day of swimming lessons we got into groups. My teacher at swimming is Jackie. We swim in the fourth lane. In my group we have six girls including the teacher. We have three boys in our group. So far I like doing the Dolphin kick, diving and lots more. Some of the groups went outside to the outside pool. Lots of them said it was freezing.

Swimming

On the second day of swimming we lined up where our teacher's name was on the cone. When the teachers were there they called our names from the roll on the piece of paper and they ticked the names off. My teacher's name was Matt and I have five girls in my group and three boys in my group as well. The five girls were Summer (which is me) Maggie, Parnian, Grace and Cindy.

Polluted Water

For the last week of our Waterwatch incursion, Julie brought in a tub of clean, drinkable water. After we had settled down in a circle, we each got a small canister, and on the front there was a labeled part which said something like: Garry Guzzler, Cameron Caughtafew, Dan Demolisher, school kids, and much more.

Julie started to tell a story which was about a platypus named Puddles. One day he saw a strange red rock floating in the water, and decided to follow it. The red rock wasn't a rock at all, it was a canoe with people rowing in it.

As he followed the rock, lots of polluted material gets washed into the river that Puddles is swimming in, such as: litter, grass clippings, sand, car oil, paint, dirt.. theres so many!

In the end, the water looked a lot dirtier than it was at the beginning. It was all brown with rubbish floating on top. It didn't look very clean or drinkable anymore.

Poor Puddles!

Painting Sea Creatures

On the last day of August we have been painting some sea creatures. The sea creatures are dolphins, fish, sharks and whales. People who are doing Dolphins can do a white bottom half or a grey bottom half. Also the sharks can do the same but the fish are the only different ones because the people get to choose what colour they want.

Book Week Parade

On Friday it was the Book Week Parade you had to dress up as a character from a book. Some people just wore normal Kerrimuir clothes. I dressed up as Woody from Toy Story. I also brought the book and it came with a cd. My best friend James dressed up as Karate Kid. James and Cameron were identical because they were both the Karate Kid. James was a taekwondo guy and Cameron was a karate guy. At assembly 3/4A went on after 2B. We stood on the stage and gave everyone a huge cheer.

Cameron's Family Challenge

For my family challenge I made a boat with my dad.

Maya's Family Challenge

This week, my family did the family challenge for book week. Our family challenge is a comic book, mostly made by me.

The books inclued in the bibliography (Which means what books I used) are: Rapunzel, the Magic Faraway Tree, Harry Potter, Where the Wild Things Are, Finding Nemo and Alice in Wonerland.

It looks really nice and I used tracing paper instead of normal papaer! Tracing paper has a yellowish-tinge so I didn't have to do a backround!! Miss Jeffery laminated the frount and back covers. She also bound the book.

In the book, Voldermort is nice, The Chesure Cat is Alice in Wonderland's pet, Silky and Moonface have married and had a baby boy named Sunny, you know how to look like rapunzel, see how Nemo liked getting lost and Max's story.

Grace O's Family Challenge

Hi! For my Family Challenge, I did the series Dinotopia.
The picture is above. It needed glue, corrugated paper, card, pencils, fake leaves, pictures off the computer, text boxes off the computer and WordArt, also off the computer. Some of the paper had a nice texture,so it was quite interesting to make. I liked making this a lot, and it only took one night-but the glue still isn't dry! I wrote a list of questions and answers that would help others to understand. I also wrote how I liked the series and how I would recommend it to anyone who likes a good read. I incorporated lots of pictures corresponding to the word before that picture. It was really fun to make, and my mum helped a lot. Although that's what Family Challenges are about,aren't they?

Waterwatch Food Chains

On Monday we did a Waterwatch incursion and we were learning about food chains. Food chains are when an animal eats another and it goes on. We played a game about food chains where each person had to be a type of creature that eats something else (like shrimp gets algae). Everyone had to move around like their creature inside an area that was called the pond. The things at the bottom of the food chain got to take energy cards from the plants, then when something else ate them they had to pass the energy card on. Later we added pollution cards. The pollution made it difficult because if we were out of energy and there was only pollution left we all start to die. It was a fun game but difficult. We learnt about how pollution harms the whole pond.

Specialist Cup Winners

Last week we won the specialist cup! It was our second specialist cup we won this year. In art we were very good and we listened to every instruction. In music we were not as good at listening but some of the people were particularly sensible. In Japanese we regained some points by doing things fast and doing things correctly. In P.E. we listened and helped by putting the hurdles back up when they fell. It was a proud moment to win the specialist cup. When the specialist cup was announced, Karrina went up to get it.

Alice's Family Challenge

Hi, I'm Alice and for my book week family challange I chose the book 'Amy and Louis' written by Libby Gleeson and illustrated by Freya Blackwood. I like this book because of the relationship between the two friends and how Louis misses her so much that he decided to call to her.

The book is about two children called Amy and Louis (which you probably already gathered from the title) and they do everything together. But one day Amy moves to the other side of the world.

The base of my world is a balloon that has been taped into a sphere-type shape. Then we papier mached a newspaper layer on, and then a blue layer on, and then the countries on. It was difficult to get the shape of the countries just by ripping the paper, but we worked it out in the end.

I had lots of fun making my Amy and Louis world, and I hope other people enjoy looking at it too.

Book Week Daily Quiz (Monday)

This week is book week. Every day on book week a quiz is held at lunchtime. You have to awnser 3 questions on a peice of jotterpaper that has your name on.

I won on Monday, the questions were:

1: Which dog breed has a detective series?
A. Jack Russel
2: In which Harry Potter book does Mad-Eye Moody come in?
A. Harry potter and the goblet of fire or the fourth book.
3: Who is the main character of the Dear Dumb Diary series?
A. Jamie Kelly

They called my name at the end of lunchtime on a loud speacker. I went to the office and I could chose a prize that was in frount of me (As there were loads of different prizes at the office)

I chose a shiny blue pencil, captain underpants tatoo, smiley-face stickers and a bad bookmark. I complained to Alice, who took me, that she now knows the prizes if she wins!!

papier mach'e

This year grade 3/4A and 3/4B are making papier mach'e sea creatures for our unit 'Splash'.We made whales out of 2 litre milk bottle's, dolphins out of 2 litre soft drink-bottles, and sharks and fish.

I am making a whale, it's pretty fun. We have to do about 8 layers! I am probably going to make a killer-whale/Orka. Or a blue whale.

The tools we have to use are: Jelly glue, newspaper and white paper.

Hoop Time

On the 16th of August some of the 34s went to Boronia for a basketball game. It took 20 minutes to get there and we arrived a bit early. Our first game was at 9:45 and lasted for 16 minutes. There were three Kerrimuir teams. They were called The Rabbits, Magic and The Mavericks. There were approximately nine people in each team. There were two other schools that we played against. Some were Grade 5/6s and some were Grade 3/4s. There were more than ten teams altogether. I would describe the day as happy, fun amd exciting.

Waterwatch Macro-invertibrates

On the 16th of August, Julie from Melbourne Water came over to teach us about 'Water Bugs'. After she had finished with the other grade, she brought in some trays and put two on each table.

Before we started, we had a talk about different species of water bugs. Julie showed us some pictures like: a dragonfly larva, damselfly larva, water mites, leeches, bloodworms and sea-snails. We also talked about the difference between: Macro-inverterbrates and Micro-inverterbrates. Our main focus was Macro-inverterbrates, which are water bugs that you can see, and don't have back-bones.

After the talk, we split up into groups of three or four. Maya, Parnian and Charlotte and I worked together to find bugs, which were in the trays that Julie carried in, using the a sheet which contained all the bugs we could find in the tray.

In the end, the four of us had found: 3 bloodworms, 3 fish-tiny tadpole looking fish, and lots of water mites. When Julie had tipped all the water and the water bugs back in a bucket, she gave all of 3/4A, rather large stickers. The picturse on the stickers were: frogs, snails, dragonflies, ladybugs and spiders. I thought that session was very fun and interesting, I can't wait untill our next lesson, which will be in 2 weeks time!

Papier Mache Sea Creatures

This term, 3/4A and 3/4B have started a papier mach'e of a sea creature. In the first week we have collected 2L milk bottles and 1.25L bottles.

Once there were enough bottles and a few spares, we started choosing what sea creature we wanted to make. The choices were a whale, a shark, a dolphin and a fish. The dolphin was the most popular but I chose the shark.

Once we chose the animal we wanted to make, we traced and cut it out our dorsal and pectoral fin and our tail for our animal. We stuffed it with newspaper then we stuck it on our bottle with masking tape. Koetsu and I had an idea of making another template so we would have hammerhead sharks.

Waterwatch Wetland Birds

On Monday 3/4A and 3/4B went on a Healthy Waterways Waterwatch excursion and it was so tiring,we had to walk 6 kilometres.

We went to a place called Koonung Creek Wetlands at 1:30pm and when we got there the Melbourne Water lady, Julie gave 3/4A and 3/4B different activities.

34/A first did bird watching and 3/4B did the food race. After some time we swapped activities so 3/4A did the food race and 3/4B did bird watching. I saw an Ibis, Yellow Beaked Swamphen and lots of other ducks. I also saw a duck couple in the river.

I learnt that birds migrate over 1000 kilometres. Birds eat worms and seeds.

I thought the Water-Watch excursion was really fun.

Waterwatch Turbidity and Erosion

At school, on Monday the 1st of August, Julie from Healthy Waterways came to school. On that day, Julie taught us two new words to do with water. Erosion is when (in waterways) the wind sculpts the rocks and bits of rock fall into the water and get carried away. Turbidity is the muddiness of the water. When Julie was there, there were two buckets filled with water from two different waterways. We tested their turbidity. To test their turbidity we used a long tube with black lines at the bottom, there were measurements at the side too. You tip the water into the tube and stop when you can't see the lines anymore. Then you measure the water from the measurement from the sides. We did that too and some of us got splashed with water!! It was a very fun afternoon, and we learnt some new words!

Show and Tell

Last term I brought my dog Ferb to school for the class to see. Ferb is a covoodle (caveiler king charles spainel/poodle) and in the photo he is 11 weeks old. We were originally going to call him Franklin, but we all agreed that ferb was a better name. Some people think that we got the name 'Ferb' from furball, but we got the name from a TV show. Ferb now knows how to sit, drop and come. Ferb is now 4 months old, and he never stops growing!

NMIT Incursion

Grace O's "or" Poem

For Spelling this week we are doing the "or" sound as in course.
I wrote this poem for homework.

Poem:

There's an orchid in an orchard
Un-der a beech tree...
And every time I see it
It calms me...
It's so authentic
And romantic
With its Authentic
Autograph!

The words that I used that were also on my list for Spelling were:
Orchid
Orchard
Authentic
Autograph

Welcome to Term 3

I hope you have all had a fun and relaxing break from school and are feeling refreshed for an exciting term ahead including our annual swimming lessons, Book Week and Footy Day.

Our topic this term is 'Splash' which is all about water! We will be learning about marine environments, the water cycle, the distribution of fresh water around the world, conservation and of course water safety!

Our focus in English will be narrative writing and we will be creating our very own picture storybooks. We will also be working on some still-frame animation stories involving sea creatures! Keep checking our blog for further updates!

Haiku Poems

3/4A did a poem that's called a 'Haiku'. It's a Japanese word but I don't know what it means. We had to write about Autumn on a piece of paper which someone will laminate after. The poem wasn't supposed to rhyme. It was supposed to be about the leaves that fell from the trees. Most of the people finished the Haikus. I had a fun time writing it. Miss Jeffery put our Haikus on the window in our classrooms so everybody could see them.

Antonyms

This term we have been leaning about antonyms. We have learnt what antonyms are. Antonyms are opposites like 'up' and 'down' or 'right' and 'left'.we got to pick a antonym then we would get a piece of paper and wrote one antonym on the frist side of the page, then we wrote on the other side of the page. We wrote a sentence for each antonym and we also drew a picture. We did a big book full of antonyms.

Cross Country

At Cross Country we had to run around Springfield oval. We had to run 2km and it was tiring. Only people that came first to seventh went on to district. I went to district and it and it was the same distance. It was muddy, wet and steep. I hurt myself from a steep hill and I hurt my ankle. It was painful but it was alright. Cross-country was fun and exiting but it was hard.

Circus Skills

This term every Monday we do Circus Skills. On the first day of Circus Skills, we did juggling scarves.

Premier's Reading Challenge

On the 13rd of April we started an intersting challennge called The Premier's Reading Challenge. It's all about books! The main challenge goal is to read as many books as you can read. I have read 29 books and am reading hard. THE END

Hockey Gala Day

On Monday the 30th of May some of 3/4A and 3/4B went to the Hockey Gala Day with Miss Jeffery!!!

The people there were: Thomas, Daphne, Karrina, Chloe, Lakshman, Jamie, Par, David, Julia, Georgia, Peter and Jordy.

Circus Skills

Three weeks ago everybody who wanted to participate started Circus Skills. My class has Circus skill lesson on Monday at 12.15pm until lunch time at 1.00pm. Our teacher is called Az but mostly every grade has a different teacher. Each week we have three different types of equipment to learn new skills. Sometimes at the end lessons if there is time or if it's planned, we do basic balances. I belive that my favourite and most enjoyable equipment would be the diablos. Some of my friends belive that too. The way to do the balance is quite difficult. You find a partner and one person on the ground makes a shape a bit like a bridge and the other does the same on top. After every week I look forward to the next three types of equipment.

Posting Letters

On the 25/5/11 3/4A started writing letters. We were writing them because our topic this term is Communication. We were sending them to our family members. The types of letters that we were sending were informal letters.

Informal letters start with your name. Example: Jack Chen. Then second, on the next line, you put your address. Example: 302 Unicorn St (Street). Still on the second line, you put your state, then your postcode. Example: Vic (Vitoria)3129. On the third line, you put your suburb. Example: Box Hill South. Two lines ahead, you put the date. Example: 27/10/1999. Well, that's just the start of it, but I don't want to fill up the pages with "How to write an informal letter" OK?

So, we have posted our letter on the 26/5/2011, and, I have to say, I was pretty proud of my letter!

Measuring with Trundle Wheels

Yesterday on the 26th of May, Our whole class went outside, to measure with the trundle wheels. We hadto measure the lines on the FFG. We had to form five groups. We all had either 3 or 4 people. First, we had to draw a table in our Maths Book. Then we would write what we were measuring, then write down our estimations. Most of the people did the same things. There were: Two square court perimetre, Blue circle, runnig track perimetre.... In the end we all compared our results. And those numbers were quite big....

Cottees Soccer Excursion

On May the 18th we went to a soccer game at a big school. My knee wasn't looking that well so my mum put a big bandage on it. On the Kerrimuir sections there were boy sections girl sections and mixed sections. The Kerrimuir teams were called the Pine Lime Pirates and the Orange Ogres. My team was the Orange Ogres. Even though my leg was hurt badly I still played pretty good. In total I scored 13 goals in all 7 games. Our team had won all our matches except against the Tropical Tornadoes; we had a draw with them. We also had a juggling competition and a penalty shoot out. In the juggling competition Torbin represented us. In the penalty shootout David C represented us. Torbin lost the juggling competition but David C won the penalty shoot out. It was a really great game and everybody got a prize.

Taiko Drumming Excursion

On Friday the 13th of May we went to a drumming excursion at Box Hill Art Centre. When we got to the Art centre we saw some pictures that were drawn in Japan. After seeing some of the pictures we went in to the hall. There was a short explanation about our school being one of the schools at Box Hill to learn Japanese. After the explanation we saw Koetsu's parents who are going to drum. We first had a lesson about Japanese drumming and what kind of drums there were. After the lesson Kerrimuir kids got to got to go up onto the stage to play the drums. Everyone got to play the drums. At the end when every kid from Kerrimuir had played the drums the parents, teachers and the council people played the drums. At the very end we got to see the pictures of the Japanese pictures again. Then we went back to Kerrimuir. Every one said it was fun.

Assembly Presentation

Scavenger Hunt Movie

Hat Parade

On March the 29th we started to make hats for a random partner, with Miss Francisco. We were given materials to make them but first we had to design them. Some people made top hats, others made caps and some people made masks. It was a bit difficalt at points but in the end all the hats looked magnificent! On the 30th of March we made a video of our hat parade. We had individual photos and we each had a movie about why we made the has the way we made them. I think that everybody would agree that it was fantastic!

Simple Machines Scavenger Hunt

The other day 3/4A did a simple machines scavenger hunt. There were about 6 groups.
each group got 1 camera and 1 check list. In my group there was Roger and Emily. We had to go around the school and find thing that involve levers, inclined planes, wheels and axels wedges screws and compound machines. Our group found everything on the list and finished just in time. We also got to take turns of taking photos with the flip camera.

By:Grace.W

Science Works

On Thursday the twenty-fourth the Grade Threes and Fours went to scinece works.

First my gorup went to the sewage pumping station. It was really fun because there were these huge ramps and my whole group was running down the ramps.

I liked the sports works the most because I liked racing Cathy Freeman.

In my group I had one adult and her name was Anne. The other kids in my group are Summer,Jacinta,David,Kelsey,Torbin and Joel.

We had a lesson about simple machines. The lady there showed us all the simple machines that we can use.

Simple Machines

We have been talking about gagets and gizmos. We have been talking about the simple machines. We made lego in groups and there were 6 or 5 groups. My name is Max and my group made lots of stuff like a really LONG machine and really small machine so that's what we are doing now.

Math Graphs

For the last 2 weeks our maths topic was graphs. We did all kinds of graphs like Pie graphs, tally charts and bar graphs. It was realy fun. I thought it was great. We got to choose our on topic for our graph. I chose to do a graph about people's favourite hobby.

Crazy Hair day

Today, the 11th of March, 2011, The whole school had crazy hair to fundraise for Leaukemia-cancer. We all had to donate a gold coin. 3/4A all had very crazy hair. Most of us had hairspray, some people made their own crazy hair inventions. We all took some photos of our crazy hairs. For example, I had pegs in my hair, Miss Jeffery had a pink wig, Alice had a beehive hairstyle. It was a pretty crazy day, and I think everyone thought it was great.

Spelling Words

Today Grace gave ME a word to learn how to spell:

antidisestablishmentarianism

Is this really a word?! Looks like I better start doing my Look, Say, Cover, Write, Check homework for my test on Friday....

Technic Lego Constructions

During Feburary 3/4A made some kind of thing out of technic lego. There were six teams with four people in a team. Every team chose a name for there teams. One of the teams made a wind mill, Miss Jeffery made a wind mill out of technic lego aswell when she was little. It took realy long until we had to take a picture and then break the technic lego constructions. Lots of people didn't want to break their constructions but they had to because we had to give it to 3/4B to have a turn to make a thing from technic lego. It was sad for the people for the who wanted to keep there constructions, but I thought it was great. Wish you would give us a comment!