Times past
A 1956 photograph of Penrith Public School students playing netball is preserved at the NSW State Archives website.
(NRS 15051, Department of Education, Photographic Collection)
February 2, 2010
December 16, 2009
Just one more…
The Early Stage 1 and Stage 1 students of SCLB created this sequence of photos and the words are by the Kindergarten rap representatives. This is a retelling of Aesop’s fable of:
Click on the title of the fable (above) to see our Powerpoint slideshow! We hope you enjoy this fable, our last one for 2009.
December 10, 2009
Kinder goes slow and steady
A combined group of Early Stage 1 students of KB, KFM and KI retold the famous Aesop’s fable of:
Click on the title of the fable (above) to see our Powerpoint slideshow! We hope you enjoy reading and viewing our fable.
December 8, 2009
SCLB’s fantastic fable
The Early Stage 1 and Stage 1 students of SCLB retold the famous Aesop’s fable of:
Click on the title of the fable (above) to see our Powerpoint slideshow! We hope you enjoy our fable.
November 18, 2009
Two friends, three adventures
Here are Kindergarten’s new “Bear and Chook“ stories to go with our drawings:
Flomp, flomp, scratch, scratch, flomp, flomp, scratch, through the forest they went.
“There’s a huge spiderweb,” said Chook.
“Yes,” said Bear.
“We’re going to get stuck in it!” trembled Chook.
“We can just walk around it,” said Bear.
“I want to go home,” sobbed Chook.
Bear and Chook by Emma of KB. Click on the image to see a bigger version.
* * * * * *
Flomp, flomp, scratch, scratch, flomp, flomp, scratch, along the path they went.
“It’s raining out out here,” said Chook.
“Yes,” said Bear.
Pitter, patter, pitter, patter.
“What’s that?” asked Chook. “The rain?”
“No. There’s a little kid sneaking up behind us,” said Bear.
“I want to go home,” sobbed Chook.
Bear and Chook by Francis of KI. Click on the image to see a bigger version.
* * * * * *
Flomp, flomp, scratch, scratch, flomp, flomp, scratch, under the black, stormy sky they went.
“It’s scary out here. I can see lightning!” squeaked Chook.
“Yes,” said Bear.
Aarrooooo!
“What’s that?” shrieked Chook.
“Do you see the yellow eyes in the dark cave? That’s a werewolf,” said Bear.
“I want to go home!” sobbed Chook.
“It’s okay, Chook,” said Bear. “It’s really just a boy in a Halloween costume.”
Bear and Chook by Brayden of KFM. Click on the image to see a bigger version.
* * * * * *
From Kindergarten book rappers at Penrith PS.
November 13, 2009
A change of career?
The students of SCLB created three new adventures for Bear and Chook. We had fun today photographing Bear and Chook in three new careers:
“I think I’d like to be… a zookeeper,” said Bear.
Bear was looking after all the animals in their cages.
“Be careful not to leave the doors open,” said Chook.
ROAR! SQUEAK! GROWL! CHIRP!
“Watch out, Chook!” yelled Bear. “Here they come!”
All the animals started chasing Chook, who had to climb a big tree to get away from them.
“They just missed you, Chook!” said Bear.
“By a branch,” panted Chook.
“I don’t think I want to be a zookeeper anymore,” said Bear. “I’d rather be… a librarian.”
Bear and Chook worked hard to put all the books on the shelves.
BONK!
Suddenly, a whole pile of heavy non-fiction books tumbled to the floor. Chook had to jump out of the way.
Bonk, bonk, bonk, bonk!
“They just missed you, Chook,” sighed Bear. “What a disaster!”
“Look,” said Chook. “It was the ‘Disasters’ section that fell on me.”
“I don’t think I want to be a librarian, anymore,” said Bear. I’d rather be… an ice cream man!”
Bear and Chook had fun making ice creams.
“Be careful, Bear. I’ll have strawberry flavour, please,” said Chook.
Bloop, slop, plop!
Suddenly, the strawberry ice cream started to melt.
Slop, plop!
“It just missed you, Chook,” said Bear.
Bloop, slop, plop!
“No,” said Chook. “It just missed YOU, Bear!”
There are extra photos in our new Flickr slideshow:
You can request to read the captions while the slideshow plays (changing preferences in Show info and Options), or just watch the pictures. We hope you enjoy this digital story.
November 10, 2009
Kinder’s great Bear and Chook adventure!
Twelve representatives of KB, KFM and KI met this week to take some photos of Bear and Chook trying out Bear’s new ideas for what he would like to be. We brainstormed our ideas during Circle Time for the Bear and Chook books rap.
“I’d like to be… an acrobat,” said Bear.
In the morning, Bear put on his colourful jester hat and climbed the play equipment.
“Be careful, Bear,” warned Chook.
“Aaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrgggggghhhhh!”
Chook slipped and fell. Roosters are not very good at flying.
“You just missed catching me,” sighed Chook.
“Lucky the playground has special softfall underneath, Chook,” said Bear.
“I think I’d like to be… a lion tamer instead,” suggested Bear.
At 12 midday, Bear put on his safari pith helmet and picked up his special lion taming wand.
“Be careful,” said Chook, looking worried.
“ROAR!”
“Run for your life, Chook!” yelled Bear. “That lion just missed you,”
“By a whisker,” trembled Chook.
“I don’t think I want to be a lion tamer any more. Maybe I’ll be… an astronaut,” said Bear.
“Oh, not again!” said Chook.
In the afternoon, Bear and Chook were launched into space. The stars were twinkling.
“I hope my safety line doesn’t break,” worried Chook.
Chhhhhhhh – snip!
Bear looked above him. “Come back Chook! You’re floating away in spaaaaaaaace!”
“Oh Bear,” said Chook, “Look what you’ve done now!”
Kindergarten at Penrith PS uploaded some photos as a Flickr slideshow:
We hope you enjoy this digital story. You can request to read the captions while the slideshow plays (by changing preferences in Show info and Options), or just watch the pictures.
November 9, 2009
Global connections
Stage 3 classes are investigating Global Connections, and researching Australian tourist attractions, in HSIE. These three Youtube clips were shown to get us thinking:
Movie World Thrills, Gold Coast, QLD
ABN2 News Footage – Big Merino Move At Goulburn NSW AU
Uluru (Ayers Rock), Northern Territory, Australia
For each video clip, we rated the tourist attraction by marking an “X” on a scale from zero to ten.
Safety
0_______________________________10
Expensive to create
0_______________________________10
Expensive to visit
0_______________________________10
Close to main road
0_______________________________10
Unique (how unusual?)
0_______________________________10
Licensing fees?
0_______________________________10
Souvenirs
0_______________________________10
Natural vs people-made
0_______________________________10
Weather
0_______________________________10
Cooperation – neighbours?
0_______________________________10
Parking
0_______________________________10
These results will help us when we are creating our own tourist attraction.
October 2, 2009
Stage 2 students evaluate their storyboard projects
This term, groups of Stage 2 students have been creating explanations, narratives and procedures in storyboard format, and then presenting them as online PowerPoint slideshows, based on the picture book characters and themes in “Bear & Chook” and “Bear & Chook by the sea” (by Lisa Shanahan & Emma Quay).
When this unit of work started, we completed a “pre-test” survey and, now, here are our “post-test” responses to the same questions.
From the students of 3M @ Penrith PS:
* Do you have the Internet at home?
Yes: 4; No: 3; Don’t know: 0.
* What is a blog?
A website that helps kids understand stuff.
People say questions and answers on the Internet.
You can send messages to others, like email, but everyone can share it on the blog.
Any school with the Internet can see what is on the blog, as a way of getting more information.
A website that is used in book raps x 3.
* What have we learned by doing this activity?
How to use a blog and a book rap x 4.
More about the characters of “Bear & Chook” and why they are such good friends.
How to create storyboards and improve our writing skills.
Slideshows are a good way to share our ideas.
We talked about the things we didn’t understand in the books (like Chook’s hanky hat!).
How to put things on the Internet.
How to make very easy special effects (SPFX) out of cardboard, toys, sticky tape and using “Insert a text box” in PowerPoint x 2.
How to research and use technical language in our writing.
How to search “Youtube” with Mr McLean to find short filmclips for our research.
Making our work more interesting.
From the students of 4/5M @ Penrith PS:
* Do you have the Internet at home?
Yes: 6; No: 1; Don’t know: 0.
* What is a blog?
A place where you can search for things you don’t know and chat with people in other schools.
A place where you can search under your personal log-in, with people all over the world.
You can put stuff on it so other people can see it.
You can write to people you’ve never met before and they can write back.
A website where people can say if they think your things and pictures are good or bad.
* What have we learned by doing this activity?
How to use the IWB and blogs.
How to search for “Youtube” videos with the teacher.
How to cooperate with each other when planning our storyboard or bringing props from home.
Able to get better at making storyboards.
Help the little kids to understand “Bear & Chook by the sea” in the book rap next term.
To create something you’ve never done before.
To learn about blogs.
To learn the technical language of dancing the cha cha and belly dancing so people understand.
You need to know technical language to explain things so it’s not boring.
You might not understand the topic if it has no technical words.
If the technical language is so important, why didn’t we add a glossary? (Edit: So we did! To several of the slideshows!)
* What have we learned about Bear and Chook?
That people can be friends with anyone.
That when the picture showed four polar bears in the sea it was all the same bear, just like in a storyboard.
We should be kind to each other, then together you can do anything you want.
We should help each other.
No troubles will stop you from the destination you want to reach. (Edit: Wow!)
Bear and Chook had great team work, and so did we.
September 28, 2009
Latest PowerPoints: “Bear & Chook”
Hi everyone,
We have just finished another batch of Stage 2 students’ PowerPoint presentations of new “Bear & Chook” adventures. These explanations, procedures and narratives were planned as storyboards, photographed, and turned into PowerPoint slideshows.
Please click on these links:
How to dance the cha cha by 4/5M
How to make a cannonball fly! by 4W
How to make warm honey toast by 3G
How to be a belly dancer by 4/5M
Stay safe in the surf! by 3G
Meals of the day by 4W.
Mr McLean & Stage 2 students @ Penrith Public School
