In our class we have been discussing the Australian flag and we have decided that it is time to change the Australian flag since it does not acknowledge the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders who are the original owners of this country. Click on the video above to listen or read about the Behind the News article.

What do you think about the Australian flag?  Do you think the flag represents all the people of Australia? Should the flag be changed? Please share your opinion with us! Stay tuned for photos of our new Australian flag designs!

This term our Inquiry topic is “Who Lived Here First?” and this week we have been learning more about the Stolen Generation. We listened to Archie Roach, watched a few interviews of Indigenous people of Australia telling their stories or their family’s story and then we watched a clip from the movie “The Rabbit Proof Fence” and wrote an imaginative recount of what happened. Check out our writing pieces below the videos.

What  did you learn about Sorry Day or the Stolen Generation? What does this make you wonder? How does this make you feel?

We read in the story “The Day We Lost Forever” how Aboriginals used to hunt for possums by setting fire to a  tree to scare them out and then they would eat the meat and use the fat and blood to make paint and use the fur  to create clothes like jackets. Therefore (WALT) we are learning to draw a possum as our art warm up. 🙂

Check out some of our artwork below.

To honour past and present Australian soldiers we have been reading some stories about WWI and WWII and we have been learning about some important symbols such as poppies and medals. We also did some art activities and wrote cards to give to war veterans on ANZAC Day. Below is some of our artwork.  

Lest we forget!

In class we have been learning a lot about Geography and about Australia. We have even learnt about some landmarks. In art this week we are learning how to draw some of the landmarks. Stay tuned for some of our art work.

We are learning about geography in our class for Inquiry. What did you learn after watching these videos 3/4s? What do these videos make you wonder about?

To commemorate ANZAC Day we did a few activities to help us learn. On Friday, we read the story ‘My Mother’s Eyes’ by Mark Wilson. After reading the story we learnt about the rations the soldiers were given for their survival while in the trenches. The students made poppies, and also made some watercolour pieces of art inspired by the illustrations in the story. We also got to  read and follow the recipe to make ANZAC biscuits. Here are a few photos to show some of our work.

For our Inquiry topic of ‘What makes you Australian?’ students learnt about the reasons why people immigrate to Australia. Students went home and interviewed one of their family members to find out their story. We learnt so much from our teachers, parents and grandparents journey to Australia. Amy was especially inspired by her mother’s story and asked if we could act out the interviews. We decided to dress up as one of our parents and show our learning of immigration through the interviews. We pretended to be doing an episode of ABC’s wonderful program ‘Australian Story’. In between the segments there are adverts. Think about the advert: what is advert trying to convince you to do? Who is the advert aimed for (gender, age group)? Thanks to our parents and grandparents who gave us their time and shared their stories with us! Enjoy our video!