When school resumed this year I found a sign saying “Free to a good home” stuck on the furniture we had in the reception area of our front office. I quickly offered a home to the 2-seater couch and 2 of the chairs. Even though they were covered in faded yellow corded material which was dirty from wear and tear and dusty after the holidays I thought they had “potential”. I had also been inspired by some other Teacher-Librarians who had shared their LRC make-overs and thought we might have a go too!
Yesterday Mrs Collins and I tackled our make-over project ….we ventured off to Spotlight’s sale to investigate what we could use to transform our furniture. We ended up buying some single bedsheets to do the job! Back at school we got busy with our trusty wall stapler and scissors and went about covering our chairs and couches. Here is the final result with two cushions from Target’s 30% off cushion sale as the finishing touches on the couch…
Our make-over came to a grand total of $30.00 for our sheets and cushions and we think we have achieved our goal to create some comfy reading places in our temporary LRC! We hope you will enjoy these areas when classes resume in the LRC this week…
Let us know what you think of our new reading chairs and couch …
Welcome back everyone! As you know, each year at our school we have a motto to guide our learning though the year. This year it is
“WE is greater than me”.
We can learn a lot on our own BUT we can learn even more with and from others who share our interests. This year at SMOT we are focusing on developing our own Personal Learning Networks (PLNs). We will be exploring ways that we can connect with other people to learn and achieve even more together. Our PLN can be made up of family, friends, classmates, students at SMOT and other schools as well as experts and people from all over the world! We are going to have an exciting year of learning at SMOT as we connect and learn from and with people from near and far!
Our LRC Blog is already helping us to develop our PLNs by connecting us with people from around the globe who are interested in what we do in our LRC – just look at the dots on our ClustrMap!
Think about your Personal Learning Network (PLN)….
For the second year Google has given students the opportunity to design the Google Doodle for Australia day to be viewed on the Google Australia home page by millions of people!
This year’s winner is Jessie Du fromNew South Wales . The theme for the Australia Day Google 4 Doodle this year was“My Wish for Australia”. Entrants had to draw and write about their wish for the future of Australia. This is Jessie’s winning entry…
Our native animals make our great country unique and should they become extinct or threatened this would be appalling to everyone. The night sky studded with stars signifies that we must stop polluting the air so we can see the beautiful, gleaming stars. The flag represents peace with countries.
Congratulations Jessie!! I wonder how many times Jessie has gone on Google today to see her work!
You can view the 32 winning entrieshere. It must have been very hard to decide a winner from these creative and thoughtful entries! Don’t forget to read the person’s wish for Australia that goes with their doodle! Which one is your favourite Google Doodle – let us know!
I wonder if some students at SMOT might be interested in doing a Google 4 Doodle for Australia Day next year…we will have to keep an eye out for information…
I was at the movies today and saw the movie preview for one of our books in the LRC. How to Train Your Dragon is written by Cressida Crowell. It is about the adventures of an 11 year old viking called Hiccup Horrendous 111. He is the son of a viking chief who must capture a dragon to pass his initiation test. If he fails this test he will be kicked out of his tribe. Hiccup’s adventures begin from the minute he tries to pluck a dragon from a “Dragon Nursery” where 3000 of them are hibernating …Click here to read a bit of the story and enjoy some of the funny sketches from the book.
This is the opening line of the story…. Long ago, on the wild and windy isle of Berk, a smallish Viking with a longish name stood up to his ankles in snow. Now come to the LRC to borrow the book and read some more before you see the movie!
The movie will be out in March, but you can watch the trailer now.
After 22 months, Melbourne Zoo’s Asian elephant Dokkoon finally gave birth to a baby girl on January 16th at 1.10am. She is the first baby elephant in Melbourne Zoo’s 147-year history so her arrival is very exciting! The newborn baby girl weighs 111 kilograms. At the moment Dokkoon and her baby are spending time bonding together in the barn before they meet the public. You can see some photos and videos of the baby elephant here at the Melbourne Zoo website. Wouldn’t you love to be one of the elephant keepers so you could spend time with the baby elephant!!
Zoo keeper Tully Johns with the newborn calf. Photo: Supplied
What do you think the Melbourne Zoo should name their baby elephant?
With help from Felice Arena and his Stick Dudes I’d like to wish you all a MerryChristmasand enjoy your holidays! I’m looking forward to 2010 being our best year yet when we get to move into our brand new LRC!!!
Jambo and I are planning lots of walks and I have a BIG pile of books to read…we would love to hear about your holidays if you get a chance to pop into the LRC Blog…
There is a lot of excitement at the end of a school year, but there is also a tinge of sadness when we have to say goodbye to some of our teachers. This year we said goodbye to Miss Pitcher, Mrs Foley-Smith and Mrs Goonan.
Miss Pitcher came to our school as a graduate teacher and has taught Grade 1, 5 and 6. She has also had the HUGE job of ICT and e-learning Co-ordinator and has worked hard to ensure our school computer network is in tip top shape and we are up to date with technology. Thanks to Miss Pitcher we have a wireless network and all of the teachers have their own laptops. We know Miss Pitcher will enjoy her new challenges and that her new school will be very lucky to have her as their e-learning Co-ordinator.
Mrs Foley-Smith has been at our school for 20 years as a classroom teacher and in more recent years as our Literacy Co-ordinator. She has introduced CLaSS to our school and Middle Years Literacy as well assisting lots of students in their literacy development. We will miss Mrs Foley-Smith’s sense of fun and the way she is always perfectly colour coordinated!! Her new school will be getting a very knowledgeable Literacy Co-ordinator.
Mrs Goonan has been a Junior school teacher at SMOT for the past 14 years. Over the past few years she has taught Prep and the students could not have asked for a more caring teacher to introduce them to school. She will be remembered for her gentleness and beautiful smile. Mrs Goonan is retiring and will be enjoying going out for coffee, working in her garden and going on walks. We hope to see her sometimes as an Emergency teacher at school.
We are so lucky to have had these three wonderful teachers at our school and we wish them all success on the next step of their journeys as they leave us so much richer for their time with us at St Martins…
Our ClustrMap shows that we have reached visits on our LRC Blog page!! We had hoped we might reach 3000 before the end of the year and we have achieved our goal! A BIG thanks to all of those people who have visited our LRC Blog! It is exciting to see that we are getting visitors from other countries as well as teachers and students from our school who have visited our blog when on holidays in other countries. A BIG thanks to Mrs Viola who is responsible for all of the dots in Italy!!
Our male teachers took on a different look over November as they supported Movember by growing moustaches of various shapes and styles. Congratulations to Mr Zac, Mr Dom, Mr Conn0lly, Mr Thomas and Father Michael for their amazing efforts raising over $1500 for Movember!
A big thank you to Mr Zac who organised a poker night for the dads as well as a raffle. Thank you also to the generous St Martin’s community who have supported Movember.
visits on our LRC Blog page!! We had hoped we might reach 3000 before the end of the year and we have achieved our goal! A BIG thanks to all of those people who have visited our LRC Blog! It is exciting to see that we are getting visitors from other countries as well as teachers and students from our school who have visited our blog when on holidays in other countries. A BIG thanks to Mrs Viola who is responsible for all of the dots in Italy!!
