As part of staff professional development, randomly selected Grade 4 students participated in a Writing Workshop with our writing guru, Ann Angelopoulos. The YYLC teachers were blown away with the creativity, strategies and dedication shown throughout the workshops. Please click the links below to read the wonderful persuasive writing pieces.
Throughout Term 2, the Grade 4's in YYLC learned about change over time and how those changes have affected our lives. They then learned about people who shaped our world.
In pairs, Grade 4 students selected a famous explorer to research their life, legacy, explorations and voyages. All of their research was then turned into a poster, which was presented in class. Students gave written feedback and positive comments to their peers to commemorate their hard work. Sports club has been a program that we at Mernda Park Primary have created to further assist the students in Grade 4/5/6 continue to develop their skills in different sports, leadership, conflict resolution and extend the CARE values. This program is driven by student voice, where sports are suggested by our students who then learn and participate in the chosen sport for 3 weeks. At the commencement of each sport, teams or courts are mixed between Grades 4/5/6 with students who then learn to play, manage and work with a different group each week. Each lunchtime we have a CARE Captain that is nominated by the students for demonstrating the CARE values and Rights and Responsibilities behaviours including cheering on other’s success, using manners and treating other’s as equals. The CARE Captains have responsibilities to manage their teams or run a court depending on the sport. In addition to the participating students, it has provided an opportunity for our Grade 6 students to take on an umpire/referee role in some of our sports. These roles have been extremely valuable to our students who have reported enhancing their skills in Collaboration, Responsibility and Empathy which feature heavily in this program. The sports that students have chosen so far this term are Futsal (indoor soccer) and Downball. We have had such a positive response from students about this program and are looking forward to seeing where it goes and how it continues to develop across the year. Sports Club - Futsal
The first 3 weeks of sports club the 4,5,6’s involved played indoor soccer (Futsal). The year six’s umpired to gain experience and leadership skills. The games went for twenty minutes with subs every two. It was interesting as an umpire to see each team’s different perspectives on the game. At the end of every lunch the umpires awarded a CARE captain to a student that was displaying the CARE values on the day. The CARE captains received a sticker that made them captains for the next lunchtime. Their job was to organise their teams at the start of sports club and organise their teams subs. All teams were amazing, and seemed to have a lot of fun. I think everyone would agree that Sports Club has been really amazing. Thank you Susie, Rhece and Corinne for creating this amazing opportunity. Paige I enjoyed Futsal at Sports Club because it teaches people what it takes to be a leader. I also enjoyed making friends with people I wouldn't usually play with. There's two courts so there's more play time for everyone so you can play the full 20 minutes.There are teachers there so that students can organise and work through any problems in the stadium during lunch. I really enjoyed it. I’m better now at communicating confidently with different people. Lucas Sports Club - Downball We were gathered around Susie and Rhece at the beginning of the first day for the rules to be explained. Susie then separated us into 6 different groups to play in. The game was fun and ran smoothly because the rules were the original - barebones downball, no cherries, no JGI (Just got in Dunce)...no nothing. At the end of each day, a new CARE Captain was selected to keep watch over the players and nominate a new CARE captain for the next day. Every day we played fairly, supported each other and became much better in not just our sport, but with us as a whole. Everyone had fun and honestly I’m happy that I joined. In conclusion, this was the best Downball experience I’ve ever had! Mahad When the sports club first started I didn't go, but when the downball version came I instantly joined. Mahad and I had actually tried to make a downball tournament before, but Susie and Rhece showed us how to get it going and everyone wanted to play because they wanted to try out the downball tournament. When the downball sports club first launched, I saw a ton of people that wanted to play the downball. The first time I went, I was in court 5. We played for a few days and the rules were getting better and we were having so much fun and I got to be CARE captain. It has taught me a lot about my skills on and off the court. Johnathan During week six and seven of term two, students in YYLC wrote procedural texts on how to make bread and butter. Students stepped back in time making butter the traditional way to link in with our Mappen unit of Museums in Motion. We then created, and followed our recipe on how to make damper. YYLC students loved creating and baking during these fun hands on activities. The Yan Yean Learning community had the opportunity to sample the delicious bread they made. What a fun filled two weeks of writing! On Wednesday the 24th of May, Yan Yean Learning community went to Sovereign Hill. We rode the bus to get there and arrived around 10:30am. The bus ride was long but felt short talking to my friend beside me. When we arrived everyone was excited to learn and find gold. The teachers were talking to the reception to get us into our tour. Once that was done we walked into the eating cafeteria surrounded by luscious green grass and a playground next to a beautiful lake with geese very eager for food. - Eli The Grade 5/6's had an education class in a classroom that looked like it was from the 1870’s. A woman was wearing old clothes and her dress had a frame under the dress. She taught us that some people came to Ballarat for gold and others to start their own businesses. Some of the people we learned about were, Freeman Cobb, who came here to start a coach business, John Allo, who was from China but came to Australia to start a new restaurant. Fun fact - you could book coach tickets at John Allo’s Restaurant for Freeman’s coaches! – Jason.S My favourite part was when the Grade 4's went to the olden day school, because we learned how to do old handwriting. We learned that in the 1800's students couldn't talk at all or else they would get hit with a bamboo stick. Girls could not show any part of their body or else they would put a stick in the middle of your finger and squish their hands. - Sahel I learned that kids had a hard life back then and they wore the most uncomfortable clothing. – Lucas We went to go to a Black Smith who taught us a lot of things and it turns out being a Black Smith can be harder than it looks, and can be dangerous at some points too. - Chace We went into a theatre to watch a man purify gold, real gold! The gold was worth 260,000 dollars. It turns out he had smelted that gold thousands of times! – Cristabella We panned for gold. I found some too! - Paige It was a wonderful experience and I learned new things. It was fun, interesting and educational. – Saman
Students in Yan Yean Learning Community imagined they were explorers, stepping into the unknown Australian landscape and seeing unique Australian creatures for the first time. Students wrote a description of an animal but did not name it. They then read aloud their descriptive text and other students tried to guess the animal. Look at our amazing display wall with the old, journal-like paper (stained with tea!) and a sketch of these unusual creatures! In Yan Yean Learning Community we had a cracking end to term one. YYLC students had a blast creating a procedural text on how to dye traditional Easter eggs. YYLC students worked hard creating their own procedural text, ensuring their writing piece was specific and easy to follow. We put our writing to the test and used our procedure to hard boil, then dye Easter eggs. YYLC students had a fantastic time participating in this Easter tradition. To round up Term 1, Yan Yean Learning Community participated in the 'Measurement Olympics'During Mathematics in Term 1, students learned how to estimate, measure and compare the length, width and height of objects using centimetres, metres and other metric units.
Mixed Tennis
In Term one, the Mernda Park Tennis team won the premiership. We are super proud of our tennis team this term. They put in the hard work and effort into reaching the set goal we had in our minds. It is the first premiership win that we have achieved in tennis in our school’s short history! Getting back to sport after these two years of lockdown gave us a boost in confidence, energy and excitement. Throughout the season, knowing that we had had some loses and some wins it was really hard to tell what was coming next. We are now heading into the Division Finals in Term 4 and…we cannot wait! Eli Quarrell & Johnathon Li Mixed Cricket Mixed Cricket was an electrifying season, packed with many plot-driven games. It was immensely exhilarating and every match had astonishing results. Every team played fairly, allowing us to enjoy an ideal and pleasurable tournament. As well as having an extraordinary season, we achieved runners up, winning all but one match. Thanks to everyone from MPPS that helped to make this tournament possible, all players that participated and played their best to endure a challenging season. We hope you all had as good a time as we did! Ruben Page & Hersh Patel Girls Cricket This term has been absolutely incredible. Before this year girls cricket had never won a game but this season our luck changed. Not only did we win all of our games except one, it was just so awesome to be back into sport again. It finally seems normal! All the girls were fired up and ready to win, finally being out of lockdown it was a boost of enthusiasm. Our competition was fierce and we finished the term equal first, meaning it came down to percentage. Although we didn't win outright, we are so thankful to have had such a fantastic season. We’d like to shout out the entire team and coaches for the amazing season full of games. We would also like to thank them for their hard work and dedication towards the sport. We appreciate all the schools that came together to play after this challenging two years and we are now looking forward to our new sports in Term 2. Paige Smith-Briggs & Cristabella Lekakis |