08 Bright Sparks

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Photos by Jihad

Yesterday Bright Sparks went to the library to make Game Maker games and finish our internet research on the solar system. Bill showed us how to upload the Game maker onto the computer. After Bill’s demonstration we went to our own computer to start the games. Some of the Stage 3 students were there to help us. Visitors from the Department of Education came to watch how Bright Sparks created games using Game Maker. The students who didn’t do Game Maker completed space work by answering questions using information found on the internet. When the students finished answering the space questions they got to play some of the Game Maker games. We had a nice day with Bill and all the Stage 3 students. Jasmine was so happy she said “GO GAME MAKER”.

Bright Sparks would like to thank Bill, Farabee, Keanu, Sabina, Toka, Jeffrey, Jasmeen, Aisha and Jordan for their help.

Written by Missy and Marie Edited by Bright Sparks

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At 6:50pm on the 28th August the Bright Sparks saw a full lunar eclipse. A lunar eclipse happens when the Earth passes in front of the moon blocking part of the sun’s rays. The moon turned red for about 2 hours.

We wrote an imformation report about planet Neptune. We hope you enjoy the slideshow!!!!

[slideshare id=96260&doc=neptune257&w=425]

By Alfonsina, Ashly, Jasmine & Sala

On 22nd of August Bright Sparks and stage 2 & 3 went by bus to the Sydney Observatory. Half of stage 2 went to the Observatory first at 10:00am. Bright Sparks and the Allstars walked through the Rocks area and down to Circular Quay where we met Captain James Cook. We saw some statues of Arthur Phillip and Captain William Bligh. We went into the Observatory at 12:00am. First we went to the planetarium to look at the stars. Then we went to the top of the Observatory and looked through a telescope and saw the Sydney Harbour Bridge. After we saw a movie all about galaxies which was very interesting and told us lots of information that we didn’t know. When we were finshed we caught a bus back to school. We all enjoyed the excursion very much and learnt alot about our solar system.
By Alfonsina and Jasmine

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If you enjoyed looking at the photographs of our excursion, take a look at the videos of the Observatory in the Vod:pod. Please excuse the picture quality as this is the very first time our teacher has taken videos to upload onto our blog. We all have to start somewhere and it can only get better from here.

Introduction:
Saturn got its name from the ancient Greeks, when they saw it they named it Saturn.

Location:
Saturn is the sixth planet from the sun. Saturn is much further away from the sun than Earth. Its average distance from the sun is 1427 million km.

Size:
Saturn is the second largest planet within our solar system. Saturn is 12000km in diameter and almost ten times the size of Earth.

Density & Atmosphere:
Saturn is made up of the elements hydrogen and helium and ice chunks.

Temperature:
Saturn’s temperature ranges between 185- 290 degree Celsius.

Time:
Each day on Saturn takes 10.2 Earth hours. A year on Saturn takes 29.46 Earth years.

Moons:
Saturn has dozens of moons. Saturn has 18 named moons which
are called Atlas, Pan, Prometheus, Pandora, Epimetheus, Janus, Mimas, Encoladus, Tethys, Telesco, Lysapa, Dione, Helene, Rhea, Titan, Hyperion, Lapteus and Phobe.

Interesting facts:
Saturn has 1000 rings.

By Moutairi, Robert & Mutu

Introduction
Jupiter was named after a Roman god.
Location
Jupiter is the fifth planet from Sun. Jupiter is located between Mars and Saturn.
Size
Jupiter is the largest planet within our solar system.
Density and Atmosphere
Jupiter is a gas planet. It is a giant cloud made up of mostly hydrogen and helium.
Temperature
Jupiter has a lot of storms in its atmosphere. It is a gas planet so people can’t walk on it.
Time
Jupiter takes nearly 12 Earth years to orbit the Sun.
Moons
Jupiter has 63 moons such as Europa, Gailieo and Thebe.

By Danny

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On 15th August it was our school’s athletics carnival. We took the bus to Campbell Oval and set up under the shelter because it was raining. There were many events, including the 100m, 200m and 800m running races, 4 x 100m relay, tunnel ball, captain ball and long jump. The other field events, high jump, discus and shot put were completed last week at school. Our teacher had to use a starter gun to start all the races. She looked very funny wearing those very big yellow ear muffs. We all had lots of fun but were extremely tired by the end of the day. Many were suffering from very sore muscles the next day. Bright Sparks would like to congratulate all those students who participated on the day and thank all the teachers for their great work and effort.

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We have been helping Stage 1 students with reading. They come to our classroom every morning with their home-reading book to read to their reading buddy. The reading buddies have been trained in how to read books with young children. Before they read, the buddies discuss the pictures and difficult words in the text. The Stage 1 students read the book whilst being encouraged to use picture clues and “sound out” words. The Stage 1 teacher said that her students really enjoy reading to the kids in our class and are learning a lot about reading. We really enjoy helping the little kids improve their reading skills.

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Photographs by Jasmine

Today we made a maths game which helped us understand the connection between fractions, decimals and percentages. We split into groups of 3, made the games, played them to make sure they worked and then shared the games amongst the groups.
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Photographs by Zaynab
We wrote our own procedures to explain how to make and play the game. This procedure was written by Robert.

How to make a Fraction Game

You will need:

• 3 different coloured pieces of cardboard (4 of each colour)
• lead pencils or texta

Method:

1. Cut the cardboard into meduim sized rectangles.

2. Write a fraction on 1 card, a decimal on a another coloured card and a percentage on another colour. Make sure that the numbers match.

How to play

1. Turn the cards over so that the numbers can’t be seen.

2. Take turns to flip over 3 different coloured cards. If they match, keep the cards. If they don’t match flip them back over.

The winner is the person with the most cards after all cards have been matched.