From the Primary School
There has been lots of exciting learning happening in the Primary School including our outdoor classroom day and the Year 4 Planetarium Incursion.
Outdoor Classroom Day
Despite the chilly weather, the Primary School girls enjoyed the opportunity to take their learning outside the four walls of the classroom to celebrate Outdoor Classroom Day. Outdoor Classroom Day is a worldwide movement designed to celebrate and inspire outdoor learning and play. Why? Well, outdoor learning improves children’s health, engages them with learning, and leads to a greater connection with nature.
Lessons held outside on the day included Year 1 hunting for animals in our school habitat in Science and Technology, Year 4 conducting a hands-on investigation in Maths on perimeter and area, and Year 3 venturing outside to use informal measurements to measure the distance between two points during as part of their current maths investigation of ‘A Snail’s Holiday’. The gardening club girls took a walk across the road to the Frances Newton Community Garden to engage in a scavenger hunt and take a look at some of the vegetables growing in this important community space. We are certainly glad this rain held off to allow us time outside!
Year 4 Planetarium Incursion
Excitement filled the classroom last week as the girls took part in an interactive journey using a mobile planetarium to look at our Planet, Solar System and Galaxy.
The Superdome was equipped with the latest technology and offered the girls a 360° movie experience that explored the relationships between the Earth, Sun and Moon. It complemented the girls’ learning in the classroom and provided a wonderful opportunity to consolidate their understanding, allowing them to question how we experience day and night on Earth and changes in the seasons around the world.
The girls learned about our very own Milky Way and the origins of its name, given to it by the Ancient Greeks and Romans. There was an audible sound of amazement when they discovered that the Sun is just one of hundreds of billions of stars, and that it is only classified as a medium star despite its gigantic size. Particularly astonishing were the images of the Milky Way’s beautiful spiral structure and how it forms into an extraordinary and flat galactic disc.
This immersive experience concluded with a look at how stars can form recognisable pattens in our night sky, including the Southern Cross, one of the best-known constellations in the Southern Hemisphere.
Gabriela Grocott
Year 4 Science and Technology Teacher
