Term 1 of 2009

Welcome back to Village School!
The teachers have chosen many exciting themes for the first term. They range from holidays and the beach to early days and convicts. Here are some resources to get each of the groups started on their journey. Please check back over the next week as more resources will be added to the Projects Hotspot.

Tanya's Group
Starting off with an exploration of life as an early settler, each student has been assigned a persona. Studies will venture forward through immigration and then to the gold rush. These sites may help you learn more about what it was like back then.

Why Melbourne? is a website all about the settlement of the Melbourne area. This section of the site deals with early European settlers to the area.

City of Melbourne - History and Heritage This is a site published by the City of Melbourne local government. It is easy to read and tells all the early history of the settlers to this area.

Women's Work is one of the pages of the National Pioneer Women's Hall of Fame's website. It describes some of the chores that were traditionally done by women and has a few photo's of what women used to do them in the early part of the 20th Century.

Picture Australia is the Australiana collection of the National Library of Australia. Do a search with keywords such as 'convict', 'gold rush' etc. It will bring up photos, paintings and more. These photos are public domain photos which means you can copy them without breaking copyright laws. Try out one of their picture trails too.

National Library of Australia also has a general picture collection that is worth searching. Again use keywords. If a thumbnail picture does not come up it is because the picture must be ordered from the NLA. the ones with thumbnails are available online. The online pictures are all public domain.

Gold!
This website was created by SBS and has lots of information on all the Australian gold rushes including life on the fields, laws, entertainment, bush rangers, maps, and much much more.

Gold Rush
This is an interactive for 8-12 year olds from the National Museum of Australia. Head for the gold fields but make sure you have everything you'll need! This is fun.

The Enterprise is another interactive from the National Museum of Australia. This one lets you explore the PS Enterprise, a paddle steamer on the Murray-Darling rivers.

History of Our Nation is put together by the State Library of New South Wales and has many 'discover collections' to choose from. Try clicking on "Exploration - trailblazing the Australian interior" then exploring using the links on the left side of the page. There's also a discover collection for the gold rush.


Mary's Group
Many of the site above may also be of use to Mary's group as they study Australia's early history beginning with Convicts.

Convict Creations
I've marked the history section out for you. There are various links on the page worth exploring. You may need someone to help you read some of the words. Lots of good information about what it was like to be a convict including women convicts.

You've got Buckley's ...
This site by the Australian Museums Online has the story and history of John Buckley, a convict who escaped and lived with aboriginal people near Geelong. He later helped John Batman as he established Melbourne.

Convicts to Australia
This site was created by and for people who are tracing their family tree, geneologists (DPS). It is very easy to read and has lots to explore including what it was like on the convict ships, in the factories and more.


Edith's Group
The class will be exploring and discovering all about shapes and solids, both in the traditional mathematical sense but also expanding to include a creative and non-traditional sense of shapes.

Flat Stanley
This is the official site of the Flat Stanley Project. An email/pen-friend journal activity. Giving students the chance to make contact with students in other countries and learn about the international community.

Building Big 3D Shapes
This PBS website helps you to understand how the shape of something affects how strong it is.

Flickr Group - Life in the Round
Explore one of the many flickr photography groups. These guys are mad about circles and find them everywhere. You may like to join or set up a group or challenge of your own and post to flickr. I wonder if there are groups for some of the other shapes?

Tetris
The ultimate shape game! You have to make the pieces fit together to fill up the rows to get points. Maybe keep track of your scores, see if you improve over time.


Wendy's Class
Preps is a year of settling in and learning how to go to school. Term One is a settling in time and what better way to get to know each other than to share the excitement of holidays and the beach (where many of us enjoy our holidays).