The Year 5 Productions theme was Hanging At The Bottom of the World. It was about Australia’s history, and the timeline of Australia, from its first discovery to how it was federated. I had 3 characters to play, I was a Bridesmaid, a Convict and a Fortune Seeker. 

In the final scenes of the play, the scene was about a cricket match, which would “determine whether Australia would federate into one great nation or stay 6 seperate colonies” announced Eddy (Max D). In this scene Henry Parks died before federation, and that’s what actually happened. He died before federation.

My favourite character that I played was my Fortune Seeker, the costume was a colourful shirt (it was too small), a small grey cap and a gold licence (a piece of laminated paper). 

My highlight was when the queen dies and the Sweepers tried to drag her (it was actually a guy but anyway) and every time they picked her up they dropped her because she was too heavy. And one of the sweepers picked up the crown when it fell off and wore it for the rest of the play.

Positive Learner Attributes (PLA’s) that I showed were, Courage because performing in front of a crowd was a really big and new thing, and it took lots of courage to preform especially if you had a role that came up more often. 

It also took Resilience because when we were told that we weren’t in character and when we got something wrong when we were preforming we didn’t stop and cry for failing, we just kept on going or repeated the sentence. 

And Knowledge to find out how to play our character to the best of our ability, including an accent, hand movements and body gestures. 

During the time I was back stage I had a character that was almost back to back with my other character I almost to late, but I just got my final button on as we were leaving.   

My school has been doing an activity we call book chat, it is like a book club, but compulsory… my favourite book I’ve read this year was called Rangers Apprentice Ruins of Gorlan. This book is about a young boy named Will who was an orphan getting to join a special cult called the Ranger Core. People believe that they use dark magic do hide themselves in plain sight but secretly they use this special camouflage cloth in a hood shape and when they rap it around themselves if used correctly you blend into your surroundings. 

This book is written by a man called John Flanagan. This book is my favourite book because of many things. One part is the main character has the same name as me, but also I like mystery and action books. This book is a fictional novel, their are 15 books in the series and a second series called Brother Band which is based in the same world but a different place and side. 

Other reasons I like this book are, the characters are likeable, and when the characters are sad or mad you feel that too the author has written it in a way that you really connect with them as if you knew them personally and you were there with them, each chapter leaves you on a cliff hanger so you just what to read more and more, this book has filled a lot of time for me and has left me on the edge of my seat every time I pick the book up. 

Have you read this book? Who was your favourite character and why?

I recently celebrated Halloween. This is a celebration of the darker side of things. More recently, people have focused on the tradition of ‘trick or treating’, which involves children dressing up in costumes and walking around their neighbourhood, asking for candy. Usually you say something along the lines of ‘Trick or Treat’. People usually choose to give the treats.  This was only the second year I have celebrated Halloween.  It is more just a fun time to hang out with friends. 

Halloween was started by the Celtics and was originally called Samhain (pronounced sow-in). This day marked the end of summer and the harvest and the beginning of the dark, cold winter, a time of year that was often associated with human death. Celtics believed that the night before the new year, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead was blurred. On the night of October 31 they celebrated Samhain, when it was believed that the ghosts of the dead returned to earth.

To commemorate the event, Celtic priests built huge sacred bonfires, where the people gathered to burn crops and animals as sacrifices to the Celtic gods. During the celebration, the Celts wore costumes, and tried to tell each other’s fortunes.

Do you celebrate Halloween?

2 weeks ago, on Tuesday we started our journey down to Toonallook (Toona). It took 4 long hours to get to Toona, we got one stop roughly mid way through the trip to go to the bathroom, and have some food, we got to watch movies on the trip but they weren’t exactly interesting, the movies we watched were Matilda and Mr. Bean. But it was better than nothing, once we arrived it was lunch time, the first day we had our food packed for us from home. Besides our dinner, that was tacos/burritos. 

The second day, we were taught how to play this really fun game called King Ball. It was instantly popular. And everyone would rush to get their cabins clean and to finish what they were doing as fast as possible to play King Ball.  It was definitely a class favourite game. We went kayaking and biking, all around Toona. We saw 31 koalas on the biking trip. 

The Third day, was our Expo Day, it was pretty cool. It was my first time in a tent, I thought it would be smaller and a bit less greasy and smelly. But it was a great experience, it was definitely my highlight of the camp. We sat around the campfire playing this game called empires. You make a made up name and the others have to guess what your made up name was. It got down to the final groups it was me and one of my friends in a group vs the rest of the entire class. I lost my made up name was Winnie the Poo, the other person was Pennie Wise. I lost sadly but I’m proud to say I came second. 

And the final day was pretty simple we packed our stuff went back to the main area to clean up somethings and left and I can say it felt like the trip home took double time. But I was so happy to see my mum waiting outside at the bus to come pick me up. 

What was your favourite camp experience?

Over the past a few months we have had a topic of the Gold Rush. I personally have really loved everything about this topic. The things we have done are go to Sovereign Hill and witness what school was like back then first hand. Build an historically accurate diorama out of a shoe box, sticks, dirt, glue and paint. We have also made a 1850’s style newsletter. These were all really interesting and enjoyable projects. 

It was strange to see how people were treated back then and how there would be 3 grades in one class. It was also interesting to see how each gender was treated. If you were a girl you couldn’t run, play sports, draw or get a job. All you could do is sew. If you were a boy you could run, play sport and draw and you could get a job. It was strange because boys were treated as if they had a higher value than girls. You also couldn’t use your left hand, because it was known as the devils hand. 

We learned about Peter Lalor and his oath and his significance as a part of the Eureka Stockade. His oath was: “We swear by the Southern Cross to stand truly by each other and defend our rights and liberties!” He was the leader of the diggers. The Eureka Stockade was built out of rough logs and wood for the walls. They got the blacksmith to give them weapons and had a password to be able to access these weapons. The password was Vinegar Hill, as it was a time relative place in Ireland. Overall this was a really great topic to learn about and if there was a second part to this I would be more than happy to keep learning about it.

Over the past a few months we have had a topic of the Gold Rush. I personally have really loved everything about this topic. The things we have done are go to Sovereign Hill and witness what school was like back then first hand. Build a historically Accurate diorama out of a shoe box, sticks, dirt, glue and paint. And make a 1850’s style newsletter. These were all really interesting and enjoyable. 

It was strange to see how people were treated back then and how there would be 3 grades in one class. It was also interesting to see how each gender was treated. If you were a girl you couldn’t run, play sports,draw or get a job. All you could do is sow. If you were a boy you could run play sport and draw. You could get a job, it was strange because boys were treated as like you had higher value than a girl. You also couldn’t use your left hand, because it was known as the devils hand. 

We learned about Peter Lalor and his oath and his significance as a part of the Eureka Stockade. Hi south was: We swear by the southern cross to stand truly by each other and defend our rights and liberties! He was the leader of the diggers, the Eureka Stockade was built out of rough logs and wood as the walls. They got the blacksmith to give them weapons and had a password to be able to access these weapons. The password was Vinegar Hill, as it was a time related place in Ireland.

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Over the past few weeks we have been coding a Sphero to go around our 1850’s style diorama. The building we built are mostly historically accurate. We have also been making a video on directions to get from one building to another. Here are the 2 videos we have been making.