Congratulations, appreciation and big hi-5’s go out to Elaine, Min Ji and Chloe who so far are the only three to do the weekend’s optional homework of posting about their Time for Kids or Scholastic News articles. Come on guys, they weren’t the only students who took the magazine home with them.

While you are inside today wondering what to do with yourself, respond to one of the articles you read or check out some of the online news at the links above. There really is something for everyone on these pages, latest games, political campaigns, music and fashion. Check them out and blog blog blog…

See you tomorrow,stay warm and don’t throw too many snowballs!

Go to flickr.com to find some snowball fights or better still, put on some of your own photos

Well done to Mr and Mrs Hossack on the arrival of Blake Hossack.

Amy and Scott welcomed Blake William Mouncey Hossack (Saturday, January 19th) at 4:06pm! He weighs 7.1 lbs (3.2 kgs) and is 20.25 inches (51.5cm) long. I am sure Mr Hossack would love to hear from you wishing him well so leave a message on his blog.

Well done Team Hossack, we are all so happy for you!

Students, don’t forget to bring in as many wild and wonderful recycled materials as you can get your hands on over the next couple of weeks for our Goldberg Machine and for every ten you bring in, you will go into the draw for a great prize…Start hunting now! We want ours to be the best machine it can be. Check out this video as something to aim for, I don’t expect any of you to get there but it does show an amazing example of a Goldberg Machine at its best and for me the Japanese commentary makes it all the more entertaining, perhaps you can translate for us Remy!

[kml_flashembed movie="http://youtube.com/v/1kvdq8cRNBM" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]


This is our daughter Mimi who we should be able to pick up in about a month.

She is from Guiyang in Guizhou province and her birthday is on January 4th 2007. We received these photos on her first birthday. She has been in foster care since she was one month old and we are very excited to see her after submitting our paperwork over 13 months ago.

Hello gorgeous students on vacation all around the world. It has been exciting to hear from so many of you over the break. You really are doing an excellent job on the blogging. Sorry I can not say the same for me but Mr Power has a way of hogging the computer when we only have the one here. We have been having a wonderful time, the weather is very hot, the traffic is very light and the pollution, well, what pollution? Only clear blue skies here in sunny Ballarat.

Hannah had a wonderful Christmas getting spoiled by Santa and her family and friends and she has really enjoyed wearing shorts and t.shirts each day rather than 3 layers and a coat like she will have on next week. If you want to see where I am staying go to this website

I hope you have a wonderful new year wherever you are and that 2008 is a happy and healthy year for all of us.

Love Mrs Power

The verdict is in! The class disagreed with Lydia that her haircut was bad, we all agreed it looked fantastic. Of course I loved it as it matched my outfit so well…

What do you think? 

Here is a petition about anti-whaling doing the rounds at the moment. Signing it is up to you but as it is an environmental issue we have discussed in class I thought you might be interested. There is also a game you can play at this site. Whether or not you sign it I would love you to blog about your opinion on this matter.

Here are the assessment rubrics for the Space Project. Students are assessed on how well they complete each of the criteria as well as a separate rubric for how well they do as a team to present their information to the class.

The students will be completing these tasks between now and Christmas. They will finish the bulk of the work by then; research is being completed this week and now they are preparing for their powerpoint, blueprint and brochure. After the break they will be presenting their project in full to each of the other groups in the class.

Assessment for what is to be submitted

Science Space Rubric 

Hi

I read an article in an Australian Newspaper this morning that sums up some of the problems we teachers face being digital immigrants in a classroom full of digital natives…our students!

The article warns that simply providing the laptops is not enough, we must also provide extensive teacher training to get our educators up to speed. Even then we are facing an uphill battle. Have a read and see what you think.