13-11-09

On Monday 9th of November our school had our school production – ‘Time Warp Mania’.  This was held at the Besen Centre and was a very exciting night!  The play was about a group of kids who travel through the different time eras and see all the different types of music from that era.  Each Level had their own era and Level 4s each sang and danced to a song from the 90s.  Our class’ song was ‘Black or White’ by Michael Jackson.  We all worked very hard to learn the lyrics to the song and some groovy dance moves to assist them, including the moonwalk.  We all wore black and white clothes and at the end of the dance, Carla came on stage with a Michael Jackson mask!  We all had a lot of fun and thought when it came to performing on the night we were a bit nervous but were still very enthusiastic!

Carly Hook

 

06-11-09

Things are really cranking up now in Level Four. It was a strange week with Monday being a school day, but only having less than half of the school in attendance due to many families having a long weekend. Tuesday was Melbourne Cup Day and all was back to normal for Wednesday. We had an incursion on Wednesday, which was regarding the metal gold. We learnt that gold has many amazing properties from .1 of a gram of gold being able to be spun into gold thread over 250 metres long! Another amazing fact is that gold weighs over 19 times more than a similar capacity than that of water ie a 1 litre container filled with water will weigh 1 kilogram and the same container filled with gold will weigh 19.3 kilograms! Currently, a 250 gram bar of gold (about the same size as a block of chocolate) will cost over $255,000!

Patrick Walsh

 

22-10-09

On Monday 19th October our school had an Opening Ceremony for the new Sustainability Area.  This was held in the hall where we watched a slideshow of lots of photos of students working in the old veggie garden working hard and planting lots of plants.  We also had a special guest – ‘Mr Chook’ who came to assembly and later came around to each class to give the students a chook sticker.  After the ceremony we all went outside to officially cut the ribbon to open the garden.  Reece cut the ribbon as he has been helping out in the garden a lot during lunchtimes.  Once the ribbon was cut each grade got to walking through the area to have a look of all the new things we have in there such as compost bins, worm farms, garden beds, water tanks, artwork and of course chooks!  We have two chooks for the next few weeks, a gold chook named Ruby and a white chook named Patsy.  Already in the last couple of days they have laid a few eggs!  We look forward to when the chooks can come out of their coop to roam around the garden.

Carly Hook

 

15-10-09

Welcome back to a very busy Term Four! The swimming program has begun at Aquarena and the Grade Fives have been enjoying it immensely. A pleasing aspect of this program is the sense of responsibility shown by these swimmers to ensure they have their swimming gear at school each day as well as remembering to bring it home from the pool, and also taking it home at the end of each day. Coming up this Term we have a Maths Games day in October, Sex Education classes with parent session, ICAS Awards Night, Melbourne Cup Day (the school will be open on the Monday before Cup Day), Australia Bound Incursion and School Concert – just to name a few of the things. We hope you have a great Term. Only one more Term until Grade Six!

Mr Walsh

 

18-09-09

In the last couple of weeks we have had two very interesting Drug Education lessons.  In the first session, we talked about different types of drugs that we know of.  We focused on common every day ‘drugs’ that we may have come across with such as analgesics and caffeine.  We discussed and read through information about each drug.  We then had to get into groups and then each group was given a drug out of caffeine, analgesics, nicotine and alcohol.  We had to create a poster with a drawing of a person and draw and write where the person could take the drug, why they might take it and what effects it has on the body.  We learnt that these drugs have lots of effects on our body and there are lots of nasty chemicals in them.  For example, the effects of alcohol are people have ‘slurry’ speech, mood changes, burry eyes and feeling sick, and we learnt that there are lots of nasty chemicals in cigarettes that stains your teeth, gives you a sore throat and can lead to cancer.   In the next session we learnt about why people take drugs and discussed peer pressure and how to handle this.  We are looking forward to our next Drug Education lesson.

Carly Hook

 

10-09-09

Where has the Term gone? We have been incredibly busy with the District Athletics Day in Doncaster last Thursday, a Book Week incursion on Friday, an excursion to IMAX and the Museum on Monday, and our annual Italian Day on Wednesday. It is no wonder that we are all feeling a little tired at the moment. And just to get us ready for Term Four, we have our swimming program during the first two weeks of Term Four. The reality that we will be in grade six is starting to hit home now. We received our grade six jacket order form this week and need to have that back at school as soon as possible. It is strange to think that we now only have just over one year of primary school left. Time seems to be getting faster and faster.

 

Mr Walsh

 

28-08-09

On Monday at 9:00, the whole school dressed up in costumes and paraded around the hall for Book Week. I dressed up as Murray from ‘The Wiggles’ and I wore a red top.  Miss Hook dressed up as ‘Shrek’ and she wore a green fluffy suit. Wendy dressed up as ‘The Cat in the Hat’. Some of my classmates dressed up as ‘Superman’ and ‘Batman’, and Louis dressed up as ‘Ghost Boy’.   We took photos of the whole school in our costumes. It was a really fun morning watching everyone parade around the hall and seeing everyone in their costumes.
By Jason

 

Carly Hook

 

21-08-09

What a busy week! This was an important week in the history of Templestowe Valley Primary School – we turned 40! The festivities began on Sunday with an Open Day between 11am – 2pm. There were many special guests including Nick Kotsiras (State Government Member of Parliament), Kevin Andrews (Federal Government Member of Parliament) and former T.V.P.S. principals Deborah Patterson, Brian Jackson and Margaret Reid. There were many former students and staff in attendance and it was great to see everyone’s connection with T.V.P.S. remaining strong after many years. On Tuesday was the ‘official’ birthday celebration. The day started with an assembly, we had an aerial photo taken of the students in the shape of a 40, every class had a class party as well as a disco. To top this off, the Level Four students created some amazing models regarding our Space theme this Term which they completed for Homework. Well done to everyone who has contributed to our school this week. Happy Birthday Templestowe Valley Primary School!
Mr Walsh

Mr Walsh

 

06-08-09

This term we are learning about space. We learnt about all the different planets, and of course the sun. We made paper mache planets and hung them from our room to make our room look like ‘out of space’. We each learnt about a specific planet and wrote lots of facts about our planet. We have also been watching documentaries about space on our interactive whiteboard and reading the ‘Herald Sun Space Magazines’.  We also have watched an episode on Mythbusters, discussing whether we really did land on the moon.  They were able to prove that the conspiracies are wrong and we did land on the moon!  We are having lots of fun learning about space and it’s only just the beginning.
By Alexander

 

Carly Hook

 

30-07-09

We have had a busy week in Grade 5. The students have been very busy with their Space Projects. The students are learning about each planet in our Solar System as well as some of the Space exploration vehicles like the Mars Rover and Voyager, which have captured some amazing pictures. On Wednesday we made Salad Rolls. This was done to celebrate Cooking Week at T.V.P.S. in honour of the publication of the Templestowe Valley Primary School Recipe Book – thanks to Miss Rossi, Alejandra, Wendy and Vesna who organised the ingredients for us. We also had a Musica Viva concert at school. It does not matter which musical group comes, they are always of the highest standard. Don’t forget the 40th Birthday Celebrations, which are coming up very soon.

Mr Walsh

 

 

 

23-07-09

 

 

SPACE – The Final Frontier. Now this is a subject that we can really get into.

Level 4 has become exploring SPACE.

This Year TVPS celebrates its 40th Birthday and NASA celebrates the 40th Anniversary of Apollo 11 landing on the moon. Needless to say, this has meant that a lot of relevant information has flooded our newspapers and TV sets.

So far this Term, Grade 5 and 6 students have already unleashed their skills in creating (iMovie) A – Z Space Glossary’s (showing on the Flat Screen in the Office), Designing Professional PowerPoint Slides of Planetary Information, Digitally Edited NASA Astronaut Pictures, Learnt how to Scale our Solar System and Watched the Original NASA Apollo 11 Footage.
With a Space Model, Multiple Intelligence Grid and a Moon-scape Planned (as well as countless other activities) this will be a highly creative and educational term.

‘Live Long and Prosper’ and remember ‘The Needs of the Many, Outweigh the Needs of the Few’.

LONG LIVE SPOCK

Mr. C

 

 

15-07-09

Today we began the ‘Gymnastics’ program, which will run for 5 weeks.  We began the lesson with a game of scarecrow tiggy to warm up our muscles followed by some stretches.  We then learnt all the different positions used in gymnastics.  They were the front support, back support, star shape, tuck sit, tall shape, L shape, dish hold, candlestick and the motorbike.  We then had to get in these positions as quickly as we could and the slowest person was out!  Colin was the fastest from our grade!  Then we got a partner and had to hold hands with them and then stand up and sit down without moving our feet.  Then we had to do the same thing but back to back!  Then the teacher got out some mats and in small groups we practiced some gymnastic moves.  We did forward rolls, superman rolls, handstands, tuck-jumps and bunny hops.  We had lots of fun and can’t wait until next week!

 

 

25-06-09

Where has the Term gone? We have been involved Camp, Interschool Sport, NAPLAN testing, ICAS testing, Cross Country – school and district, Victorian Premier’s Reading Challenge, Reports and Parent Teacher Interviews. By far the most popular though was the Level Four Camp at Camp Rumbug. Last week was ‘Planning Week’ which means we had all our Specialist Programs all on one day while our classroom teachers had the day together to plan for Term Three. On Monday was our class party and Mrs Patterson came to our assembly. Next Term is Templestowe Valley Primary School’s 40th birthday. The school was officially opened in August of 1969. We hope we will see many of our past students at the various activities that have been planned.

 

Mr Walsh

12-06-09

 

On the 10th of June Templestowe Valley P.S. had a ‘Nude Food’ day. Nude food day is where we try to have the least number of wrappers in our lunchbox as we can!  We placed our food in reusable containers and took any plastic wrappers or foils off our food so every piece of our lunch was nude!  Some students had no wrappers at all in their lunch and some students had a couple, and some classes had hardly any wrappers between them!  The purpose of Nude Food day was because so many wrappers pollute the Earth and we need to try and reduce the amount of wrappers we have.  Even though Nude Food day is over, we should still try to make sure our food stays nude from now on!

By Olivia

Carly Hook

05-06-09

 

5W has started to look at Cyber Safety as an issue. Cyber Safety is a something we need to understand because not all can be what it seems on the Internet. We are using a website developed by the Australian Government to help facilitate our learning. The website is http://www.cyberquoll.com.au/index.html.  CyberQuoll is designed for upper primary school students and support materials have been developed for teachers to use to help educate students about internet safety. Some things we have been looking at are ‘spam’ email, inappropriate email messages and websites, and cyber bullying. Mr Walsh’s Maths Group has been doing some work with Maps and grid references. We would all be very lost if it was not for the accurate maps that are provided for us through the various companies such as Melways. We learnt that GPS can work well – except if the satellites go off line, or if the car, or the GPS, has a flat battery.

Mr Walsh

 

 

29-05-09

 

Over next few weeks, many TVPS Grade 5 and 6 Students will be taking part in the ICAS (International Competitions and Assessments for Schools).

What is ICAS?
International Competitions and Assessments for Schools is conducted by Educational Assessment Australia, UNSW.
Ten countries now participate in ICAS. In Australia and New Zealand there are over 1.7 million entries in the subject areas of:

1. English
2. Mathematics
3. Science
4. Computer Skills

ICAS papers assess the skills students require to address the curriculum of each of the subject areas. ICAS test items are mapped to the curriculum of every Australian state and territory ensuring the relevance of ICAS test content. The Assessment Framework for each subject shows what is tested at each level, in easy-to-read tables.
Every student receives detailed diagnostic paper and online reports (myICAS) measuring their progress from previous years and a UNSW certificate acknowledging their level of achievement.
Every school receives comprehensive paper and online reports (ICAS Online) designed to enhance and validate other school-based assessments.

TVPS Grade 5 and 6 Students have maintained a high level of achievement in the ICAS and we look forward to celebrating their successes in 2009.

Mr. Cretney

(What is ICAS and UNSW Logo has been sourced from: http://www.eaa.unsw.edu.au/).

 

 

Robert Cretney

 

 

22-05-09

This week 5H is learning about how to write information reports.  We are writing an information report on a dinosaur.  We’ve read information on a certain dinosaur and highlighted information that we would need to write it in sentences in our own words.  My dinosaur was the Velociraptor and I got lots of information about it with only one sheet of paper. A fact about Velociraptor is that it had long, thin legs so it could run over 60km per hour and Velociraptor means ‘speedy thief’. If someone works well in our class they will get to be Paleontologists for the afternoon digging in the sand for ‘fossils’.  I got to have a go and I found the tail of our dinosaur. We don’t know what dinosaur it is yet but we have some idea of what it might be. We think it could be a T-rex or even a Velociraptor. We have learnt lots of facts about dinosaurs this week and we are still learning lots.

By Alexander 5H

 

Carly Hook

 

 

14-05-09

Wow! What a week. The National Assessment Program Literacy and Numeracy (N.A.P.L.A.N.) occurred this week. The Grade 5s completed a ‘Language Conventions’ test which was half spelling and half grammar and punctuation, a ‘Writing’ test where each student had to write a story in 30 minutes about the given topic, a ‘Reading’ test on Wednesday and the ‘Numeracy’ test on Thursday. We can’t say that it was fun but it is just one of those things you have to do when you are at school. We are glad that we will not have to do these tests again until we are in Year 7 in secondary school. When we arrived at school on Wednesday, we saw some workmen on the bottom oval. We thought they might have been beginning work on our new building but they were just taking some soil samples to test before they begin work.

Mr Walsh

 

 

07-05-09

It was Friday the 8th of the May. Level 4 went to Finns Reserve to battle it out in a 3 km run and we were hoping it was not going to rain. We left school and walked down to Finns Reserve. When we got there we all lined up in our grades and got ready to race. The under 10s boys went first, then the girls, followed by the under 11s boys and girls, and finally the 12 and 13 year olds had their turn. It was a great success for everyone and we were all very tired after the race. The top eight kids in under 11 and under 12 will go to district. Well done to everyone who participated and it was great to see everyone trying their best!

 

 

Carly Hook

 

 

30-04-09

Everyone arrived at the Yarra Valley Country Club to get our bags on the bus.  When we got to camp Rumbug we unloaded our luggage and got told what cabins we were in.  We then went on a special activity called the fun and fitness trail.  There were more boys than girls and the boys had to hold the girls hand.  We went up a big hill and we went through an obstacle course and then went through the mud pit, then went up a second hill and crossed the finish line.  After the mud pit I was drenched! Some other activities were the scare bear, environmental ropes, abseiling, rock climbing, initiatives course and archery.  My favourite was the scare bear because I wore a blindfold and it was a scary and awesome feeling!  The food on camp was good and my favourite meal was the lasagna.  The night walk was the best activity at night because we got to eat marshmallows!

By Christian W 5H

 

 

 

 

24-04-09

Welcome back for Term Two! It is going to another very busy term for us in Grade 5. Our camp to Camp Rumbug is next week and everyone is very excited. We are going to leave form the Yarra Valley Country Club at 8:30am sharp – so don’t be late or you will have to get yourself to camp. Some students will also be going to Vietnam for about 2 weeks. In May the Grade 5 students will be sitting the National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (N.A.P.L.A.N.) testing. Every Grade 5 student in Australia will be sitting the same test on the same day. We also have Open week and Open Day will be on Tuesday the 19th May and Student Reports and Parent Teacher Interviews will occur in June. Have a good term everyone.

Mr Walsh

 

 

 

27-03-09

Last Sunday the 22nd of March was World Water Day. To celebrate this, we participated in a school poster competition, where we had to design a ‘save water’ poster. Our poster will be placed around the drinking taps to remind everyone about the importance of saving water and how we can save water.

This Saturday the 28th of March, at 8:30pm is Earth Hour. This is when everyone switches off their lights and other energy sources for this hour to raise the importance of saving energy. 
 On Friday 27th of March at 2:30pm, we had our very own ‘Earth Hour’ at school. In this hour we made sure that all lights, computers, heaters etc were turned off in each classroom.

We have to make sure that we are always thinking about ways to save water and energy!

 

 

 

Carly Hook

 

 

13-03-09

This week the Student’s of 5/6C experimented with the use of Photo Booth on the iMacs. Photo Booth is a simple digital photography program that allows the user to ‘Morph’ their appearance using the iMac iSight camera (web cam).
The student’s had to select Animal or Fish (to display within 5/6C) and try to ‘Morph’ their appearance to suit. They then sketched and presented an animal  / fish body for their edited head.
All creations will be on display in 5/6C this week.

 

 

Robert Cretney

 

 

06-03-09

On Friday 27th of February it was ‘Clean up Australia Day’.  The Grade 5 students went outside school and walked around Birchwood Avenue to pick up papers and any rubbish we found.  We wore protective gloves so we didn’t get germs or diseases. We found about two bags full of rubbish!  It is important to pick up rubbish so they don’t go down the gutters and drains. If they go down the drains they might go into the sea and get caught in the animal’s mouth and cause them to die.  Remember to help keep Australia clean by putting your rubbish in the bin!

By Hugh

Carly Hook

 

 

26-02-09

At last…it was the Assembly where the School Captains, House Captains and House Vice Captains were announced. Everyone was very excited as we streamed into the hall. There was one slight complication when the Mayor of Manningham was running a little bit late. Mr Renshaw kept the crowd amused and introduced the House Patrons for Birchwood, Cavendish, Newbury and Thompson. When the moment arrived for the Grade Sixes, there was much cheering and clapping for the successful candidates who were selected by the students of Level Four. This year there were two House Captains and one Vice House Captain that were announced. We hope that this continues next year. Well done to all the successful nominees – it was a great effort. Now the work begins for those who received a position.

Patrick Walsh

 

 

20-02-09

 

The Victorian Bush Fires have touched all of us. Living and going to School in the Eastern Suburbs of Melbourne means that all of our Students and Staff have been directly affected or know someone affected by the Bush Fires.
All Level 4 classrooms have spent time discussing the Bush Fires and the events that unfolded on Saturday February the 7th 2009. Now forever known as ‘Black Saturday’.
The students have also watched a special edition of BTN (Behind The News). A specialty children’s news program presented weekly on ABC television.

 

Robert Cretney

 

 

12-02-09

Welcome to Grade 5!  We have begun this year with writing speeches with the possibility of becoming a Vice House Captain for either Newbury, Birchwood, Cavendish or Thompson house. Before we began, we needed to think of what makes a good leader and brainstormed words such as teamwork, responsible, decision maker, reliable, confident and being a great role model.  We also thought of all the leaders we know!  We have been working hard writing drafts, editing and then a final copy onto cue cards and then of course practicing in front of our class.  Some of us even made posters to encourage people to vote for us!  Becoming a Vice House Captain is a very big responsibility!  Good luck to all candidates involved!

Carly Hook