Throughout the year the students in Room 13 have been learning about many interesting subjects. The class has over 20 intelligent students all aged between 9 and 11 years.
Our wonderful teacher, Mrs Shankland, has been making our studies very interesting and enjoyable by giving us plenty of art work, heaps of different fun activities, and making learning so much fun that we can't wait to get to school.Come in...............
Aboriginal Studies Aboriginal Art Drama Topic Reports Our Classroom Our Favourite Links
Aboriginal Studies
We are learning about the Australian Aboriginals and their culture. Our class has been researching about Australian Aboriginals on the internet. We have also used books from the library for our research. Some things we have learned are that the Graham Farmer Freeway leading into Perth was named after a famous Western Australian Aboriginal footballer. Before the European settlers came to Australia, the Aboriginals used all kinds of different tools made from wood, stone and other natural resources. Not many Aboriginals use these tools any more.
Some of these tools are: Coolamon, Digging Stick, Spears, Shields, Clubs, Boomerangs and Killer Boomerangs - the ones that don't come back!
Aboriginal Art
Our class has learnt about Aboriginal Dot Art and has made some pieces of art using this technique. We have also made Rock Art similar to the art found in caves and on rock surfaces. A type of art called 'X-ray' art was used in the Aboriginal Dreamtime for sharing out an animal in the family to eat. This art work was very interesting to see and do. We made some Aboriginal tools and put our made-up 'totems' on them. Your totem is given to you by your parents because of a significant event that happened before or after you were born such as an animal being caught or seen when you were born. Your totem can be an Australian animal, bird, reptile or plant species.
Here are some examples of our Aboriginal art:
These dot paintings are a retelling of "The Roughtail Lizard Dreaming". See how they were made in Our Art Gallery. These fish are some of our 'X-ray' art which is mainly made with lines. Check out Our Art Gallery. The Rock Art hands are supposed to look like Aboriginal Dreamtime paintings found all over Australia in special Aboriginal areas. The artwork above represents our Aboriginal totems that were painted on to artifacts. We made up our own totems because most of us don't have real totems. Some of the children in our class do have a totem.
Drama
We enjoy doing different kinds of Drama with Mrs Shankland most mornings. We do drama early in the day because it 'wakes' us up and gives us a good start to the day. Mostly we do miming about anything. Sometimes we investigate Nursery Rhymes such as 'Humpty Dumpty Was Pushed Off the Wall'. We went into groups and discussed what the Nursery Rhyme character was going to say and do when asked questions about the incident by the investigators. Mrs Shankland sometimes gives us a sentence such as "Wow! That looks fantastic!" , and we have to put the sentence into an act. The act can only be about one minute in time.
Drama gives us the confidence to stand in front of people and perform. Most of us love this activity and are very confident when speaking in front of groups of people. Others in the class are not very comfortable with this activity.
Topic Reports
The reports we make are about information that we have found from researching the Internet and reading books about certain topics.
Room 13 has been doing newspaper reports, fruit reports and animal reports throughout the year.
The Newspaper Report was about Babe, the Pig, Winning the Sheepdog Trials. We had to write the events of the sheep dog trials and present it in newspaper form.
Fruit Reports were about our research into different kinds of fruit. We had to find out about the description, uses and growth of our chosen fruit. We were able to present this report in whichever way we desired. Some students chose book form, others chose posters and some presented the report in concertina pamphlets.
With the Animal Reports we researched an animal of our choice and again presented it in our own way. Some chose to present the information in book, poster, pamphlet or 'web' form.
Our Classroom
Our Classroom is always full of active children learning all kinds of things. All our art work is hanging on the walls and ceiling. Sometimes all the pin up space is also taken up with our work. Mrs Shankland is always changing our work displays because we are constantly presenting wonderful work. Our Classroom is always full of children learning and having fun.
Our Favourite Links
The class likes researching on the computer. Here are some favourite links of our class. Also go to our Useful Links page Aboriginal People to see where we found some of our Aboriginal information.
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