08 Bright Sparks

This week Bright Sparks tried a new Visible Thinking routine called “I See, I Think, I Wonder” using the Olympic Flag as a stimulus to introduce one the topics we will be studying this term. The great thing about this routine is that every Bright Spark had a chance to contribute their thoughts and opinions. As their teacher, I was very excited to see all students keen to participate and contribute their ideas. These are just a few of some of the very interesting thoughts they contributed about the Olympic Flag.

“I see rainbow circles. They are a symbol for the Beijing Olympics. I wonder why they are circles?” Farah

“I see circles connected to each other. I think the ring’s colours are very bright. I wonder why they are stuck to each other?” Destiny

“I see lots of circles. I think the circles are bright colours. I wonder why they are circles, not squares?” Mahnoor

“I see circles stuck together. I think that they make patterns. I wonder why they use those colours?” Ayse

The students have now researched information about the Olympic Flag and are able to answer the questions they were “wondering” about.

On Tuesday 1st July the Stage 2 classes had a spelling competition to select two students to represent our school in the Premier’s Spelling Bee later on this year. Each class had their own competition and selected the two best spellers. Then the best two spellers from each class competed against each other. We had the final competion in the hall. Six students sat in chairs in front of the Stage 2 audience. Our teacher read out each word and the students had to spell the word aloud. At the end of 5 rounds we had 2 winners, but it was a very close competition.

This week we have been very busy witing our storyboards to go with the movies we created using Movie Maker.  We made a checklist with our teacher to make sure that our storyboards had all the necessary parts and were written neatly with correct spelling and punctuation. Now the storyboards are finished we are going to use Audacity to record our written text, add music and then upload our narrations into our movies. Some very clever Bright Sparks have finished their digital stories already. They can be seen on our class wiki under the Digital Stories link.

On 25 June Bright Sparks were visited by teachers from Abu Dhabi. Mr McGuinness introduced the teachers to our class. They were very surprised at how everyone was working as a group. They asked us questions about the work we were doing. William made a plane for one of the Abu Dhabi guests. They also took photographs of our art and craft projects. Then they left with our principal and

Mr Mc Guinness.

By Ridwan and Kiarna

Bright Sparks have been reading and writing procedural texts. Each group chose a craft activity from a selection of art and craft books found in our school library. We then had to find the materials we needed. Once we had all of the materials ready, we began making our craft projects. As we completed each step, we took photos. These photos are going to be used to create digital stories. We are going to upload the photos into MovieMaker and then use Audacity to add our narration and music. Our digital stories will be able to be viewed on our class wiki.

Bright Sparks have been learning about simple machines in Science. We used the idea of simple machines to create our artwork.  We cut out paper and cardboard in the shape of gears and  painted them with gold, black and bronze paint. The painting was the best part. Next week, when the gears have dried, we are going to arrange them and paste them onto an A4 piece of cardboard that we covered in alfoil. We are going to display them on pieces of wire in our classroom.

By Zaynab and Eve

After the Jolly Bops show on Wednesday Bright Sparks wrote and shared their thoughts using a Visible Thinking Routine called “Think, Puzzle, Explore”. Every Bright Spark had to think about what they saw and their feelings about the show. Then they wrote down any questions that they had about the things they saw. Finally they had to choose a topic from the show that they are interested in and that they would like to explore in the last few weeks of the term. A PowerPoint of their thoughts has been created for all to see making their thinking truely visible.

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On the 11^th June Bright Sparks went to watch Jolly Bops in the hall. The Jolly Bops came to our school to teach us all about Aboriginal science and show us how to do Aboriginal things. They also showed us how to do magic with a flower and how to play the Didgeridoo. There was a grey silvery robot. The robot loved Ms K. They also did an experiment and where they put dry ice in a tin and put the lid on and the kept coming off  the tin. The robot tried to put the lid back on, but it kept flying off. It was a very exiting performance.  

By Ebba & Ayse

This week Bright Sparks have been doing oral recounts. Every student had to do one.

They had to say their recounts either on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday or Friday. They were a bit shy to talk in front of the whole class. Some used cards to help them and some used their English books and some did not use anything but they remembered their recount. On Tuesday Mariam, Tianna , Farah, Ridwan , Marwan  Jonathon, Mutu and Saja said their recounts. On Wednesday Daniel, Cain, Missy, Kiarna , Ayse and William said their recounts. On Thursday Mutahhara, Shaima , Eve, Mahnoor and Katlina said their recounts. On Friday JJ, Sioeli ,Zaynab, Ebba, Mahnoor and Tristan said their recounts.   By William and Tristan

On Wednesday 28th May we celebrated Education Week at our school. All of the teachers and students walked intoother classes in the school.We were amazed with the art work in S23Ps class.

In S1R it smelled nice just like chocalate and vanilla. S1S’s classroom was so colourful and they had a reward table in the middle of the classroom. There were guards(student leaders) in all of the classrooms to make sure that the students didn’t touch the things in the classrooms. Most of the time Missy and I took photos. The photos are really cool and interesting and we saw some very interesting stuff. After walking around the classrooms it was time for big lunch.We had our lunch in Area 7. We hope to do it again some other time.

By Tianna & Missy 

Last Friday, 23rd May, Bright Sparks won the shield award for being the best class at assembly.  When Miss Rhodes announced that S2J was the winning class, every body in S2J started cheering. Mrs J. was very proud of us.                         

By Cain & Puni