Debney Meadows Primary School Blog

On Wednesday 23rd November, 2011 the Prep class from Debney Meadows Primary School went on an excursion to ArtPlay at Birrarung Marr. The students took part in a Lego workshop contributing to Building the Green City of the Future.

While at the workshop students had the opportunity to think about what designs they may create, have access to thousands of pieces of Lego & have ample time to create their constructions in a friendly & supportive environment.

The DMPS students were also able to bring along their iPads to the workshop. They were able to take photos of their time at the Artplay workshop and of their Lego creations. These photos then became a basis of their literacy focus back at school. On the following day the students used their photos to create language experience books on their iPads. The students used the Book Creator application that creates personalised books which utilises photos taken by the students and text created by them.

What a great experience!

By Mary

Street Smart, Street Savvy is a full on fun packed day. It’s educational, active and fun. The entire grade 5s had a blast with learning self-defense, hip hop and also playing some mini fun soccer games. Plus you learn how to be safe online and other safety stuff by a police officer.

I can’t wait until next year when I can go again!

By Maewa

Wow, what a show! Tonight after school our Year 4 – 6 students participated in our school play, The Sultan’s Daughter. Our students certainly stepped up on the night and everything ran to plan. Our parents and families came to watch and support their children. It was a great turn out and a full house.

Looking forward to a grand performance by our big kids – years 4 -6 this Tuesday. See previous post – The Sultan’s Daughter.

In Art and Library students from years prep to six have been learning about the author/illustrator Eric Carle. We have read many of his books, viewed online books and interviews of Eric Carle. We have been learning to make collage in the style of Eric Carle, first analysing his work and then practising the techniques. We experimented with paint, crayons and tissue paper. We have been painting with our fingers, matchsticks and brushes, making textures and patterns. We then used our textured paper to make a collage. The students’ work demonstrates their wonderful creativity and developing skills.

by Louise

‘The Sultan’s Daughter’ is the story of Ali who sets out to prove that he is worthy of his father and who comes to a city ruled by by a cruel princess. Our students from Years 4 – 6 will be performing the play on Tuesday 8th November.

Here is some great artwork from the children.

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

This performance is based on an African folk story from a collection of Nelson Mandela’s favourite African folk-stories. It is the result of a ten week artists’ residency in the school by experienced teaching artists from Western Edge Youth Arts and local young, emerging artists.

I’m really looking forward to seeing our older students perform in just over a week. Parents and families are welcome to come along. (More details to follow.)

Many of our families live very close by to the school and most of them walk to school. We have a beautiful park and council oval behind our school building. The students cross the parkland to get to the school. The trees are quite majestic and provide plenty of shade for our students (luckily I don’t suffer with hayfever too much). In the mornings I do my yard duty in this area shown in the photo above. This give me a chance to meet the children and their parents or guardians first thing in the morning. It’s great to have a friendly chat before the day starts and to get to know the parents.

On Wednesday 26 October we had a pizza party. This was because we all finished the Premier’s Reading Challenge. Every student in 34A read 15 books each.

Anita, our teacher, and our literacy teacher, Terri, bought the ingredients so we could all make and enjoy our own pizza.

We constructed a recipe including our ingredients, equipment and steps. Then we started making our pizzas. When they were ready we ate them.☺

by Jamal and Anisa

At Debney Meadows PS we are lucky to enjoy the extra support for learning by The Song Room. Our teacher is Zoe, and she works with all of our students once a week. Our students explore themes around identity and storytelling. They use their imaginations, share ideas, collaborate on song writing, sing, move and build confidence in the process.

Our Year P and 1/2 students have been using songs to think about ways they can deal with new situations, new people and being part of a group – a community. They are performing Yellow Bird on Wednesday 2nd November at Melbourne Town Hall as part of the Carnavale performance. As principal, this will be my first performance that I have the pleasure to watch. I can’t wait
Our 3/4s have had fun looking at the characters and stories in fairytales and fables and messages of dealing with challenging situations.

The 5/6 students have explored emotions through rap and blues and have worked together to create their own raps.

Check out more about The Song Room here…

Thank you TSR for the great work you do with our students.

Today on my walk around the year 3 – 6 learning areas, I noticed that there were some great authors selected for independent reading time. One of them was one of my early favourites as a teacher – Roald Dahl. I always loved reading his stories to my own class, including the BFG, Charlie and the Great Elevator and especially The Witches. Two being read today were James and the Giant Peach and The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me.

Check out the official website.

What’s you favourite Roald Dahl book?