First set of Earthquake Explorers words for the glossay

asthenosphere
lithosphere
mesosphere
mantle
crust
ocean
core
tsunami
earthquake
magnitude
intensity
Earth
Richter Scale
Mercalli Scale
tremor
catastrophic
disastrous
ruinous
feeble   
destructive

Earthquake Explorers Assignment 1

 Each student has a new book for their Earthquake Explorers unit and the following instructions:

 

Earthquake Explorers: Shake, Rattle, and Quake!

Have you ever felt the floor below you shake? The ground we walk on seems solid — until an earthquake strikes. Suddenly the earth heaves and slides. Things topple off shelves. Deep cracks open in the ground where none were before. In the past few years, people everywhere have witnessed these events as major earthquakes struck their countries. The activity below will help you better understand how earthquakes affect people around the world.

Choose a partner. Imagine that you are both investigative reporters. You have been asked to write a news story about a major earthquake that really occurred. Your news story must give your audience enough information to understand how earthquakes work and to visualize the destruction earthquakes cause. Remember that your story should also answer who, what, where, when, why and how.

Research your earthquake thoroughly. Answer the questions below to help organize your information:

PART A Students all have a planning proforma

Earthquake Information
When did the earthquake take place?

      Where did the earthquake happen?
      Describe the places, the people who live there, and the types of buildings that are found there.
      What happened to the places during the earthquake?

      Why did the earthquake happen? Describe the type of land formations in the area.

      Describe the recovery efforts, and how people are preparing for possible future earthquakes.

 

Use your answers to help you write your story. Then review what you have written. Make sure your work includes enough detailed information to explain what happened during these events.

PART B

Create storyboards to illustrate your news story. Choose the most interesting parts of the story and create pictures to highlight these parts. If available, use a drawing or painting program to create your storyboards.

PART C

Present your news story and storyboards to your classmates as if you were broadcasting your story on the evening news. Make sure you pay close attention to your classmates' stories as they may help you present your own.

This is a link to a page describing the world’s biggest earthquakes:

http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/journal/the-10-biggest-earthquakes-in-recorded-history.htm

and here is another page listing earthquakes:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_earthquakes

Here is a sample of a quick one I started to give them the general idea of storyboards, we will be discussing what's missing i.e a map of Australia, what other pictures could be added, and how should the events be sequenced.

Our Portraits of Famous Aboriginal Australians

Applying what they have been learning about portraiture students chose a significant Australian to do a portrait of an an accompanying bibliography for their book publications. Here are some of them. Can you guess who they are?

Feedback on They Found a Cave given out...plus new display up - August 28th

All students who handed in their film reports received substantial feedback form (pictured below) and a future focus goal. This feedback is available in their portfolio for perusal.  There is a display of the work completed up in the classroom.

Students have been advised about the importance of:

*a thoroughly proof-reading the top copy
*the use of compound sentences instead of a series of simple sentences
*referring to specific examples in the text to support their ideas.

Honey I Shrunk the Kids - August 27th 2013

This latest maths unit focuses on taking accurate measurement, percentages and decimals, and rounding decimals to the nearest decimal place. Students each had to create a figure 25% of themselves dressed in their favourite clothes. Here are the first four in. Ample time has been given in class, 6 lesson blocks. This is the only homework task for this week. Students have also been furthering their knowledge of proportion when sketching people and applying it to this maths task. We presented our work in a whole school assembly.

Faces and Proportion

Over the last few weeks we have been looking at the human face in terms of fractions and getting the features of the face in the correct proportion. Students worked hard on this challenge. Here are a few snapshots (cropped).

Dusting in Love by Max Dann. Working on characters

We have just finished reading the above pictured humorous class novel by Max Dann and have been working hard on adjectives in readiness to do some in depth character studies. Students will be working in pairs or groups of three, depending on whether they have a major or minor character in the novel. Many students already have composed lists of words relating to the characters. We will be focusing on Thesaurus, Dusting, Gilbert, Grotty, Max, Phoebe, Millicent, and Mr Lord. Today students were exposed to about forty adjectives and had to draft up a sentence for each one, trying to use compound sentences. They then chose what they believed to be their best fifteen sentences to publish. Here are a few examples which were completed with no teacher corrections:

Students are now working in groups of three or four  on the following activities. The Plasticine figurines will be used later in the animations unit which will focus on two of Max Dann's books, Dusting in Love and Going Bananas. These books offer rich opportunities for students to study character development. There is a display up the front of the room for students to refer to.

Each group must produce:

An in depth character study, making reference to specific actions, statements and deeds in the novel to support their statements about the character.

A large wanted picture of their character stating what they are wanted for.

A cartoon strip or story board showing one scene or aspect of the story line

A Plasticine figurine, no taller than 10 cm. A design must be handed in before the group receives the materials.