This is a story about a poignant moment in Australian history. It is based on the song by Paul Kelly. It gives a detailed account of an immensely important time in native Australian history.
From Little Things Big Things Grow tells the tale of the Gurindji people who rose up against lousy working conditions and wages and made a land rights claim that set in motion an 8-year ‘wait’ for land rights.
http://aso.gov.au/titles/documentaries/blood-brothers-little-things/clip2/
This week in Art we were inspired by the Pop Art Style. Artists like Andy Warhol made this style of art popular with his famous Marilyn Munroe portraits.
To make our creations we projected our own photos onto the whiteboard, sketched the outline onto paper then coloured them with crayon and water colours.
We think the results look fantastic. What do you think?
Last year I was privileged to attend a student Social Justice conference. It was both confronting and inspiring. A focus for the day was the “Minature earth” video, which followed on from a game. Today I played the game with the 2 senior classes of grade 5/6 students.
They all sat in a circle, some were blind folded, some had arms in slings or legs bound together. I held a jar of lollies up, which I told them equated to all the world’s resources. It was their food, water, energy, shelter and survival. They would have to take what they needed to survive. The students represented every country in the world. I spread the lollies on the floor and on my command they could take what they needed to survive.
As you can imagine, very few stood back and waited as the majority grabbed all that they could.
Half of the students got nothing. About 20 had 1 or 2 lollies and only 10 students had managed to grab most of the lollies.
We posed the question…What should we do with the resources now?
Those with nothing wanted the others to share otherwise they would have to fight or invade their countries.
Those with 1 or 2 were willing to share, whereas those with the most were happy to take what they needed and give the leftovers to those with nothing.
The impact on the students was very powerful. Most students do not realise how lucky they are. We still have a lot of work to do…..
We have been learning about keeping ourselves safe on the internet.
We now understand how important it is be aware and to protect our identity. We have completed our movies on Cyber Safety using the Common Craft style. They are simple animations but the messages are very important.
We hope that you enjoy them.
Inspired by the adventures of our summer holidays and the beautiful photographing of leaping dolphins we created our own beach sunsets. We used vivid coloured crayons and washes of blue and orange paint to produce these beautiful works of art.
Dolphins at Sunset and Summer Beach scenes on PhotoPeach
Dolphins at Sunset and Summer Beach scenes on PhotoPeach
Today was a fantastic 2nd day at school. We all gathered together for a whole school assembly where we welcomed everyone including our 2 new students Carly and Imogen.
Next all the seniors went to the Discovery Centre to join in an online Eluminate session about Cyber Safety.
http://www.cybersmart.gov.au/kids.aspx
We learnt many new things about being careful to protect our identity and reputation when we post things online.
We then broke into expert groups and learnt even more using different media. The expert groups seperated into Teaching groups and we shared with each other our new discoveries. This is called the Jigsaw Strategy for working in co-operative groups.
The final part of the day was spent creating our own Common Craft videos about cyber safety. We look forward to sharing these with you very soon.
It certainly was an informative and important day of learning and collaborating!
http://www.kidsmart.org.uk/
How can we work towards a fair and inclusive society?
This term we will be focusiing on the Major Concepts of Fairness, Inclusion, Power, Rights and Responsibilities.
Australia is a great place to live but we will explore how to build an even more inclusive and fair society.
What are your views?
What are the rights and responsibilities of people in a democracy?
How do rights and responsibilities enable people to live fairly?
Who are the people in the past who were not treated fairly or justly?
How has this changed over time?
Who is responsible for ensuring our society is fair and inclusive?
In what way is Australia a fair and inclusive society today?
The Sun is Shining in Melbourne and we are all still enjoying our Summer Holidays.
This year the KidsJig Blog will be sharing the learning journey of SeniorG.
The senior students are in grade 5 and 6 and are aged between 10 and 12.
We look forward to continuing to collaborate with teachers and students from around the world in 2012.
Classes resume on February 6th and we cant wait to begin blogging again … 
Christmas in Australia
We all enjoy the warm summer evening before Christmas with Carols by Candlelight at the Sydney Myer Music Bowl. This is a real Melbourne Tradition. After sharing presents on Christmas morning we visit relatives for lunch and dinner where we eat prawns, seafood, roast pork and turkey, ham, salads or roast vegetables. For dessert we have pavlova, summer pudding with berries or a traditional fruit pudding with custard. We Love Christmas and hope that you are all filled with Joy, Love and Peace that Christmas brings.
We hope that you all enjoy a Happy Christmas with your family and friends and that the Spirit of Christmas is shared throughout the New Year.
From all your buddies in JuniorG
At the conclusion of our learning about Life in the Past we decided to create our own History by making a Time Capsule. We all wrote a letter to ourselves, drew our best picture and added special momentoes from the year. Each of us had our own bag to put in the things that represented our story in 2011. The bags were then locked in a Plastic Tub and a sign was added with a note, to open the capsule in 2015. We will all be in the senior school then. The 3 Junior Classes all gathered together and we placed the Time Capsules under the school building. It will be very interesting to see what changes in the next 4 years. We have helped to create History!
