:: 4X's Classroom Blog ::

Our circus performance will be at the Hall 9.50am on Thursday 10th December.  We hope that as many parents as possible can come and see the students perform their amazing skills.

Since week 4 of this term all the grade 3’s and 4’s have been attending circus workshops and practice sessions.  Phil, our circus instructor, has been teaching us many different skills including plate spinning, juggling balls, hoops and scarves, ribbons, pois, balancing, gymnastics, hoops, diablo and stilit walking.  The students have acquired new skills and all students are able to complete at least three tasks, often many more.  It is fun, engaging, challenging and focused.

CIRCUS SHOW

This practice will culminate in a performance on Thursday December 10th.  You will need to keep reading this space for updates on the exact time for this class and others.   The P-2 classes will be attending and parents are encouraged to come along.

During the recent 3in6 film festival in 4x we were able to submit 1 of our class’s stop motion films in the competition.  The students voted by secret ballot according to criteria such as the movement, story, soundtrack, narration and editing.  Their choice was ‘The Trap’ made by Caitlin, Daniel, Eileen, Lewis and Nick.  I am very pleased to say that this film came third in its category.  These students were invited to attend the presentation at the Flemington Racecourse, as part of the Victorian Information Technology Teachers Association Conference.  Well done.

I would also say that this would not have been possible without the effort of all the students to produce such outstanding films.  This award is a reflection on all participants.  All the films were outstanding and deserve equal praise.

Here are the 4 films that were made on the day of October 29th 2009 for the 3in6 film festival.  They were all fantastic and everyone should be proud of their efforts.

The first one is called ‘Bob’ and is about a battle of the bands.

http://www.classnet.com.au/node/327

The second film is called ‘Indiana Jones’ and is about Indiana Jones biting off more than he can chew on a tall mountainside.

http://www.classnet.com.au/node/329

The third film is called ‘The Beetle Bar’ and is about a lifesaver not doing his job and leaving it to a heroic dog.

http://www.classnet.com.au/node/328

The fourth film is called ‘The Trap’ and is about a big frog eating smaller frogs, and the smaller frogs hatching a plan to capture him.  There is also a director’s cut of this film with a production narration as it was chosen to represent our class in the competition.

http://www.classnet.com.au/node/330

http://www.classnet.com.au/node/331

The Education Department’s CONNECT site and SLAV or The Librarians Association of Victoria held a Web 2.0 competition during term 3.

Teachers were encouraged to work in a team to develop an online collaborative project incorporating the use of a blog and/or wiki or other web 2.0 technologies. They could also include gaming devices. Emphasis was on creative, innovative use of the technologies and how they were used to engage students in learning in new ways.

The 4x classroom blog was awarded a prize which is apparently a Wii with heaps of games for the school.  The prize reflects on the student’s ability to use their thinking skills and develop their own blogs as part of our thinking blogging in 4x.

Congratulations to all 4x students on your participation and hard work and hard thinking in order to achieve this special award.

We have a new and separate blog for all our thinking questions starting from this week.  It is called Thinkers of the World Unite.  It will give other classrooms from anywhere a better opportunity to join our thinking community.  Mr Santa’s class are the first class to join with us on our thinking journey.

This is the new link:

http://thinkersoftheworldunite.globalstudent.org.au

We had a fantastic time today.  It was an intensely busy day.  We were given the secrets at 9am.  The first was an object that you had to include in your film, it was a chain.  The second was a phrase you had to have in the script which was “speak up and be safe”.  These two secrets were also supposed to provide a theme for your film.

All the groups had already created characters, sets, props and many ideas for their film.  Many of these ideas had to be reworked for the themes, some worked in comfortably.  Some of the film ideas were completely new on the day.  Many students had brought in instruments for the soundtracks of their films or borrowed items from Mrs Odou.

The classroom was a hive of activity all day.  It was a little chaotic but incredibly focused at the same time.  We were lucky to have Ms Russell, our fantastic student teacher with us all day, especially to troubleshoot problems on Movie maker.

Time schedules were very tight and we had the whole school photo in the middle as well.  Most groups seemed to start shooting their photos (around 300-400) per group around 10.30-11am.  Students were free to take their breaks however the majority of students stayed inside to go on with their tasks.  We had shortened recess and lunchtime that day.

In the end all four groups managed to complete their movie including the narration and soundtracks which seemed an incredible effort.  We were really pushing to get through at the end.

In our classroom room discussion at the end of the day C.D said and I quote, “that was the best day of my life” whilst Olivia said that it was like an episode of Master Chef.

Here are some photos:

This weeks thinking question is about clashing or disagreeing with other people.  All of us clash with other people or friends or family members at certain times.

Here is the link to the animated video:

https://www.eduweb.vic.gov.au/dlr/_layouts/DLR/Details.aspx?ID=5035

These are your questions:

1- What is a friendship?

2- Can you be very different to someone else and still be friends?

3- Is there always right and wrong answers?

Thinkers of the World Unite

A huge welcome to 5S

This weeks thinking questions are about things that are able to be sold for money. 

This is the video link:

http://www.eduweb.vic.gov.au/dlrcontent/5236303739/index.html

The questions are:

1- Can you sell wind?

2- Can you sell things that you can’t see?

This term’s inquiry unit is Entertainment.  We will be exploring different styles of entertainment, for example theatre, TV, movies, sport, internet, etc.  We have defined entertainment as a performance for the purpose of an audience.  Some of our focus questions will be:

What is entertainment?  What does it mean to entertain?  Who entertains us? Why is it entertaining? Are there messages in entertainment? Are there different forms of entertainment around the world? Is entertainment essential? How do we create an entertaining story? What makes a good performance? How do we respond to entertainment?

Out inquiry will end with the students creating a performance for an audience of some kind.

During the unit we will be participating in the 3in6 film festival.  This is an unusual festival that involves a timed challenge.  It means to produce a live action film or animation in a day from start to finish.  The film would be up to 3 minutes, or 3 minutes in 6 hours (3in6).  The animation will be 1 minute in 6 hours.  The students are given 2 secret messages on October 29th at 9am and have to plan, film, edit, create audio, etc by 3pm of that day in order to submit their film. 

This is the link to the festival:

http://www.3in6.vitta.org.au/

We will be working on stop motion animation and storyboarding in the lead up to the day so that the students have a pretty good idea of what to do.  It will be a demonstration of teamwork, cooperation and skill to complete the tasks by the end of one day.  I am sure it will be fun also.  We will publish these films on the blog when completed.