Grade 3/4 Neighbourhood 1: N1 Achievements

On this page, we celebrate some examples of neighbourhood 1 students' recent achievements.

2012

Research Inquiry Pt. 2

The research inquiry developing very nicely in our neighbourhood. Every student has conferenced with teachers on refining and planning of their research story. While some students are still in the process planning, others are well on their way following different research pathways.

The puppies with their dog handlers answer the students' questions.

Ella and Andrea, who have come up with the research story "How puppies become trained as police dogs" organised the dog handlers of the Victorian Police Department to visit our neighbourhood. They brought with them two 13 week old alsatian puppies Hakka and Hamma to answer questions formulated by the students.

The students with Lynn, who was a parent at PHPS during 1980's.

Meanwhile, Tilly, Eliza, Rosie, Mara, Mia and Asha organised an interview with a former parent of Princes Hill Primary School. She kindly came in to reveal some wonderful and touching stories of the school, including the story behind the plaques on the benches.

There are many stories like these and we are hoping for many more to come as the inquiry progresses.

Research Inquiry Pt. 1

Our new inquiry will be examining the role of the researcher, the purpose of research and the process of researching. This week an open ended research question was given to the children to simply "Research the Neighbourhood". We were interested to see what mediums they engaged with, what questions they asked, whether the children were able to set parameters in their response and what disciplines they connected with. We are building up an understanding of the children's perception of the term 'research'. We are framing another research question this coming week that is more specific, providing a bigger timeframe. Again, we will be looking closely at the research processes that they use.

Here are some photos of students from both neighbourhoods taken during the activity.

Some students captured the neighbourhood using a digital camera.

Students frequently used the internet as a research resource,
while some used more traditional means of recording their findings.

These students incorporated their previous inquiry by
collaborating on a book about the neighbourhood.

Some students used iTunes to make their findings 'speak'...

while other students created a performance based on their research.

Massimo and Jake are googling different items found in the
neighbourhood and recording them on a Word document.

Florence, Via and Olivia have found the school on Google Street View.

Students reflect on the activity.

Multiplication Arrays Around the School
Our students went outside to investigate the different arrays found around the school. We walked around the school grounds and photographed the arrays we found. We discussed the arrays and how they can be expressed in different ways. We found out that we can talk about the arrays as rows and how many in each row. We can also say how many things are in the array in total. We can also look at the array as a multiplication number sentence. We wrote all three of these to go with our photos

Bede found arrays in the windows of our art space.

Jane-Rose also found arrays in windows. This one was found on the Red Brick Building

Alice also used the window of the Red Brick Building.

Shreyash found an array in the cage of the tannoy speaker.

Alex found this array on the playground.

The group looked at the bricks at the entrance of the school. We found out that there were 310 bricks in each row and there were 7 rows. All together, there were 2,170 bricks.

StoryBird Poems

As a part of this investigation into poetry, we have been exploring the use of Storybird during ICT. Storybird is a web application that allows users to choose illustrations as inspiration for their writing. It has been a highly successful and engaging exercise, giving us opportunities to write, share and discuss our own poetry. Here is a selection of poems our students have composed for your viewing pleasure.

Click on Open on the corner of the frame to read the poems! Some poems contain more than one page, so make sure you click on the arrows at the bottom.

I WONT EAT MEAT by Callum
The Panda Who Can't Sing by Maddie
COLOUR IN THE SKY by Mia
Zombies attack by Jax
Friends by Bella M

rain by Grace

Welcome Festival
We would like to thank all parents who were able attend the Welcome Festival this year. As a parent, I know the difficulty of attending school events during week days and so I thought I would post some photos, not only for the attendees, but those who were unable to come this time. Special thanks must go to Bella's mum, who was absolutely indispensable during the final preparation on the day.

Please click on the photographs to enlarge.

Final preparations for the sausage rolls.

Chopping up the mango for the pavlova.

Choc milks and the pitta bread sandwiches are ready to be served.

The Mini Pavlova Bears are being constructed.

Cream cake is baked and ready!

Children singing Haere Mai.

and then they sing G'day, G'day....

The food is served!

We Got in the papers!

If you bought the Sunday Herald Sun today, you may have noticed that there is an article regarding our school, with a fantastic photo of the students from Year 3/4 Neighbourhoods, on page 5! You can also access this article HERE on their website if you didn't get the chance to go and get a copy!

2011

Term 2 & 3 - Design and Technology
Here we document photographically some of the wonderful learning happening in our neighbourhood during the project inquiry time.

The students were given the the choice of three elective projects at the end of term 2 and have been working towards creating some exciting designs. The projects on offer were: Earthquake Engineering, TV Executives and Fashion Design.

Some students are working on stop motion
animation in the media room.

The TV Executive group is learning about story-boarding.

The students in the Engineering team are
designing their earthquake proof structures
using Google Sketch-Up.

A fabulous hat design by one of the students in the Fashion
group.

The Fashion group has been practicing
different stitching techniques.

The Engineering group has been completing
their wonderful earthquake proof structures.

Some fantastic clothes designs.

Students measuring out material for their designs.

Term 2 - Persuasive Texts
During term 2, students in neighbourhood 1 partook in some very interesting discussion stemming from the ethical question on whether one should always tell the truth. Some students were adamant that truth should always be told, no matter what, while others thought that in some situations, not telling the truth may be preferable to telling the truth.

Using this discussion as a stimulus, the students created a persuasive text and published this using Microsoft Publisher during ICT. Here are some examples of wonderful learning created by the students.

By Dante Ferretti Bergagna

By Julia Archimandritis

By Nikki Dimitriadis

By Max Kelly

Term 1 - Moments of Silence

During the morning of Flood Relief Appeal Day held on 17th February, the students across the grade experienced displays prepared by the teachers. These displays all gave examples of how communities can come together in times of crisis. One of the displays included a room dedicated to 'Moments of Silence' where video was shown of different moments of silences throughout the world. Students of neighbourhood 1 used this video as a 'seed of thought' in their writer's notebook. Below are a selection of published works which grew from this seed of thought.

Please click on the works to have a closer look!