M10 & M11’s GIANT Lunch

Today was an absolutely scrumdiddlyumptious day in M10 and M11. It was the day of our B.F.G. feast!

Both classes have loved reading Roald Dahl’s classic book and are waiting in anticipation for the chance to see the newly released movie.

To celebrate finishing the book and the great pleasure it brought us all, both classes had a GIANT feast. We would like to thank all the wonderful parents and friends who helped out by creating the delumptious mini food that we, the giants, got to enjoy.

Here are some pictures from the event:

Mrs Morris kindly supplied us with snozzcumbers, which lots of chidlers were brave enough to eat, and some glumptious frobscottle (though no whizzpoppers were allowed!) One of the M10 boys brought in his own mini goblet to drink out of!

We decorated the room with our dream catchers which were there to catch any trogglehumpers and let the B.F.G’s phizzwizards float on through!

Here are some more photos of the amazing mini-foods and all of us enjoying our celebration

Wadjiny – A performance for NAIDOC Week

Troy Allen, an Aboriginal person from Bundjalung Goori (East Coast) of Australia came to Modbury West School for NAIDOC Week on the 6th of July.

Troy played the digeridoo. He showed us the plain spear which you can only throw from a short distance but if you use a spear thrower it goes longer distances. There were two boomerangs and one was smaller than the other. One was a returning boomerang which was used for hunting birds and the larger one was used for hunting larger animals like kangaroos and emus. He explained how the Aboriginal people only hunted for food that they needed not for fun. There was an Emu Dance and two kids from every class performed. There was a gathering food dance too and every female teacher chose a girl from their class to pretend to be a mum teaching their daughter how to get food. Last but not least Mr Oliver and Troy made fire by using rubbing sticks.

Isaac, Ashley and Alicia

Where is Madame Knipe? Day 3

Firstly did you guess yesterday’s monuments? They were the Eiffel Tower, L’Arc de Triomphe and the tricky one was Les Invalides which is where Napoleon is buried. The roof of this building is covered in gold!

Today I was picked up bright and early by a tour bus ready to visit two very special places: the palace of Versailles and the home and gardens of the artist Claude Monet. I was really looking forward to seeing these places.

My first stop was at the place of Versailles. This was built in 1682 by King Louis XIV and was a royal palace where the kings, queens and courtiers lived until the French Revolution!

I will show you more photos when I get back but here are a couple for now just to get you wondering what this place might have been like to live in.

The gate into the palace.

The king’s bedroom.

The Hall of Mirrors. Something famous happened in here after World War One also. I wonder if you can find out what it was?

Versailles is also famous for its beautiful gardens too. While I was there I was lucky enough to see all the fountains flowing – they only turn them on on weekends! Have a look at this beautiful one.

After the morning at Versailles, I went to Monet’s garden. I wonder if you can work out which flowers Monet is famous for painting?

Here I am with them!

There weren’t just water lilies in the garden though. I will show you more photos here too as the whole garden was amazing and smelt so beautiful. Remember it is summer over here so all the plants are flowering.
I also got to look around Monet’s house. This is his studio where he painted some of his famous impressionist paintings. Can you see any you know on the walls (these aren’t the real paintings though – they are priceless and hang in lots of famous galleries around the world)

A Demain mes enfants

Mme Knipe

Where is Madame Knipe? Day 2

This morning I got up bright and early and got ready to walk around Paris. Walking is the best way to see a new city. You get to see all the sights and see things that you might not have planned to see as well! I managed to walk around 16km today so I was a little bit tired by bedtime!

My first stop was to climb the monument I visited yesterday. Did you work out what it was?

The Arc de Triomphe.

It was built by Napoleon Bonapatre and was opened in 1836!

This is the view from the top

And here are all the stairs I had to climb to get up there!

There is also a very special place at the base of l’arc which is a flame which remembers all the unknown soldiers who died in World War I.

As I was walking along I saw some other interesting things too! What do you think these two things are for?

In the afternoon I wandered down Paris’ most famous street Les Champs Élysées and then went on a tour of L’Opera Garnier. Have you heard of the book The Phantom of The Opera? This is the opera house where that book and musical takes place. It is very beautiful and has a big chandelier in the middle of the theatre which weighs over 7 tonne!

This evening I went on a guided tour around the city at night to see the monuments all lit up. I wonder which ones you can recognise. The last one is a bit tricky!

I wonder where I will turn up at tomorrow?

A Bientot

Mme Knipe

Where is Madame Knipe? Day 1

On the first day of my holiday I left Adelaide very late at night. Can you recognise any of the landmarks we have learned about in this aerial photograph that I took above Adelaide?

After 17 hours in the plane I arrived in Dubai. See if you can find out and post a comment saying which country this is in.

I stopped in Dubai for about 3 hours. It was very hot there. At 5:00am it was already 30 degrees Celsius!

This photo is of my first view as we started flying over Europe

After another 7 hours in the next plane, I arrived in Paris. It was more than 24 hours of flying time but it is worth every second of this to be able to explore another country!

On the drive to the hotel my driver pointed out La Stade France which is where some of the matches for UEFA 2016 including the final are being played. I thought those of you who love soccer might like to see this. Did you know soccer is called Le Foot in France?

I arrived in Paris at about 1:30 and so that I got used to the new time zone (do you know how many hours difference there is between Adelaide and Paris?) I went for a walk to a very famous landmark. See if you can work out which one it is from the photo. I’ll let you know in my next post.

Au Revoir

Mme Knipe

The B.F.G.

Do you know who this is?

This is the B.F.G.

We are going to be reading all about him this term before this wonderful looking new movie comes out at the end of term.

Have a watch of the trailer and make some predictions about what you might expect from our new class novel.

ANZAC Day

During the last part of the term we have been continuing our work on different celebrations and we have turned our attention to the commemoration of ANZAC Day. In our Writing lessons we have started writing a class persuasive text on why we should still commemorate ANZAC Day. Based on their research on this special day, this is the introductory paragraph that the class wrote.

“We should commemorate ANZAC Day. ANZAC Day is definitely a day that should be remembered. The sacrifices that Australian and New Zealand soldiers made were important. Also, learning about wars teaches us never to have them again. Finally, there are still soldiers serving our country who deserve our respect. All Australian and New Zealand people should find a way to commemorate ANZAC Day.”

We will post the rest on the blog when we finish it at the beginning of next term.

We also furthered our learning about ANZAC Day by watching the rather sad episode of My Place (our class novel for this term) which centered around a child’s life in the aftermath of WWI. A big highlight of this viewing on the last day of term was also having some ANZAC biscuits to nibble on while we watched.

Me and My Shadow…

Part of the year 3/4 curriculum involves learning about the connection between the Sun, Moon and Earth and observing how these connections can be seen in our everyday lives. So far we have already been observing and recording the changes we see in the moon and looking at how our days, years and seasons are determined by the rotation and revolution of the Sun, Moon and Earth.

Today M10 were conducting experiments to see what happened to a shadow over the course of the day. We set up an experiment, measuring the shadow of a pop stick and every hour we recorded the changes in length and direction. Have a chat with your child to see how their group fared and what they discovered!

Here are some of our groups in action

Swimming

Today was the first day of our week of swimming lessons for this year. Of course we can’t show you any photos from our lessons – they are a photo free zone! We can however show you what a beautiful day we had for our first day and we are going to enjoy this while it lasts as the rest of the week looks a little wet. Mrs Knipe has been very impressed with the way all the children have been very organised and quick to follow instructions. Everyone got changed very responsibly and we were back on the bus to go back to school right on time. Well done everyone. This level of organisation and independence means we should have a great week ahead of us!

Norwood comes to MWS

Today M10 took part in a clinic with some players from Norwood Football Club. We got to practise lots of different skills, rotating through 4 different stations. We learnt about kicking goals, dodging and other body movements, handballs and even had a chance to practise our skills in a short game. We also enjoyed asking lots of questions of the players and seeing how our skills matched up to theirs – they could certainly kick a lot further than we could!