Welcome to our Blogging Buddies!

20/10/2013

8 Comments

 
Hello Blogging Buddies! We are excited to be this week's focus class! We are Marsden, a Year 5 and 6 Class at Warwick Farm Public School.
This year, all of the classes at Warwick Farm are named after an Australian author. We are Marsden, named after John Marsden. One of his most popular books is Tomorrow When the War Began, which has been made into a movie. It's a book for older kids.
 
Even though our name is Warwick Farm Public School, there are no farms around us. Maybe there was a long time ago, but most of the homes around us were built around the time of the Second World War, so there hasn't been any farms for a very long time. The closest farms are about 20 minutes away. Our school is about 30km South-west of the centre of Sydney. There are a lot of unit blocks around us and single story homes. Our school is next to a creek, so we have a lot of native birds in our playground as well as families of ducks. We also get some Red-Bellied Black Snakes.
Our School is very Multicultural. Seventy three percent of students at Warwick Farm come from a different language background (English is not their first language) and we have over 40 different nationalities represented in our school.
How many different cultures are there in your school?
Have you ever heard of John Marsden? Have you read any of his books?
Have you read a book by an Australian Author? (look on our school website to see some other names)
How far is your school from a big City?
8 Comments
Mrs. LaCrosse link
22/10/2013 04:13:12 am

Thank you for sharing your school with us. The BMX track was really cool. We were wondering if you have your own bikes. We wish we had a veggie garden too! What do you plant in your garden? Your school has many amazing features.

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Marsden
22/10/2013 03:10:31 pm

Hi Mrs Lacrosse's Class,

Thankyou for visiting our blog!

We do love our BMX track! Our school was very lucky to receive a donation of 30 refurbished BMX bikes, as well as brand new helmets, gloves and knee and elbow pads. BMX is part of our Active After Schools program. Some Terms it is on 2 times a week, but this Term it is only on a Thursday. 30 children are in each group and we are allowed to bring our own bikes if we have one. Does your school have any after school activities?

At the moment, in our veggie garden we have huge cabbages, raddish, carrots and strawberries as well as some herbs. We plant different things depending on the season. We have a Gardening Club that meet at lunchtime, and they take care of the planting, weeding and harvesting of the plants. Soon some of our Year 3 and 4 students will be planting a new vertical veggie garden as well.

We look forward to blogging more with you soon,

Marsden

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Mrs. LaCrosse link
23/10/2013 04:09:27 am

Hi.
After school, we have basketball, chess club on Mondays, Ecology Club, wrestling, Lego Club, volleyball, and LOGOS at our Methodist Church.

We would really like a vegetable garden. Having a club take care of the garden is a good idea. We have a butterfly garden in the front of our building. There are stink bugs, butterflies, spiders, grasshoppers, worms, bees, and many others!

Thank you for writing back.

Julie
22/10/2013 08:42:38 am

Hi Marsden and Mrs Chegwidden,

Before I knew our class was named after an author, I had no idea who John Marsden was. No, I have not read any books written by him.

Yes, of course I have read a book by an Australian author! One of the books I have read is called Uncooked! by Paul Jennings, an Australian author who writes hilarious books.

Who's your favourite Australian author?

From your classmate/student,
Julie

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Mrs. Weth's Wonderful Workers link
23/10/2013 12:03:47 am

We loved watching your video. It helped us picture the campus.

You are so lucky to have a BMX track. We have some jealous students now!

We have not heard of John Marsden but we will research to see if we have any of his books in our library. Some of us have read Possum Magic by Mem Fox.

We have a question about year 5 and 6. What ages is that? What age do you begin school (when you start for the very first time)? We start in kindergarten which is age 5.

We also wanted to know what a unit block is? Is it a place where more than one family lives?

When does your school year start and when does it end? We start in late August and end in late May.

It's a pleasure to blog with you!

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Marsden
23/10/2013 08:49:52 am

Hi Mrs Weth's Wonderful Workers,

Thanks for visiting our blog!

Children in years 5 and 6 are 10-12 years old. In New South Wales (the state Sydney is in), Primary School is from Kindergarten to year 6. We start Kindergarten when we are 4 1/2 or 5 years old. High School goes from year 7 to 12. Some of us will be going to high school next year. We are going to 5 different schools, which is a bit sad. Our school year starts at the end of January and finishes a week before Christmas. We have 3 two week holidays during the year and in Summer we have 6 weeks holiday. You seem to have almost 3 months holiday in your summer! Does that mean you get less holidays during the year? You seem to get more holidays than us! Our school day is 6 hours. What is yours?

We think you call a unit block an apartment building, but ours are not as tall. They are only about 3 or 4 storeys tall. Most of the buildings near our school have 8-12 units in each block, but some of us live in bigger blocks.

We look forward to blogging with you again soon,
Marsden

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Grade 4 Bears link
23/10/2013 02:50:24 am

Hi Marsden!

We really loved your video. We enjoyed learning about the different things you do at your school.

The things we liked the most was the veggie garden, the canteen and the BMX course. Do you get to help in the canteen? What kinds of vegetables do you plant? We have one box here and we plant pumpkins, squash and beans. How big is your BMX course? That must be awesome to have a professional biker to teach you! What grades can participate?

Is your playground under a tarp because of the sun? How hot does it get there?

We are a very small school and we don't have many cultures. The cultures that we have are mostly Ukrainian and German, and Miss Ariss is Lebanese. We've not heard of John Marsden or read his books, but we looked at his website and might look for some of those books.

We are about 170KM from the nearest city which is Edmonton. That is about a two-hour drive.

We are excited to talk to you soon!

Grade 4 Bears

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Marsden
23/10/2013 09:37:40 am

Hi Grade 4 Bears,

We used to help in the canteen but now we have enough community volunteers to help out. Most of us bring our own lunch from home. Do you have to bring your own lunches or do you have a cafeteria like we've seen on TV?

Our veggie garden has some pumpkins too, as well as carrots, herbs, cherry tomatoes, raddish and strawberries. Last winter we had so much pumpkin that the canteen had pumpkin soup every day. It was delicious. We even entered one in the Camden Show. Lots of us didn't know what squash was. Those of us who have had it didn't like it. Do you enjoy it?

The longest path on the BMX track is about 120 metres, but there are other paths that you can take. All ages are allowed to participate but not many kindergarten kids do because it is tricky and they can't ride well enough.

Our Cooinda (the playground we showed you) is under a shadesail and we have several of them in our school. Cooinda is an Aboriginal word that means 'happy place' or 'gathering place'. We also have a big COLA (covered outdoor learning area) where we play if we don't have a hat. Under the COLA, we play handball, skipping or sitting down games. It does get very hot here in summer. Even though it is still 6 weeks until Summer starts, last week we had a day that was 38 degrees celsius. It was also very windy and so there were terrible bushfires around the outskirts of Sydney. 193 homes were completely destroyed. Sometimes in summer it can get above 40 degrees but it is normally between 30 and 35 degrees.

From your Blogging Buddies, Marsden

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