A Job Well Done

The reports are written and today we have finished compiling our portfolios reading for our three way conferences which begin on Saturday and continue on Monday and Tuesday of next week. Year Five did a wonderful job of helping me compile the portfolios. They have all learned excellent organisational skills this semester.

Faithful Witness Story 5 - Carolina

Separation
This is a story about my Dad.
Many years ago there was a war in the country where my Dad was born. He was then a very young man (teenager).
Many people were suffering because of this war, many peple were dying or sent to jail because they wanted a "better world".
My Dad tells me that he wanted to fight in order to help people and build a better future. However, one day, my grandfather told my Dad that it woud be better if he went away to a safe place. At first my dad didn't want to leave, but he realised there was no other chice.
So, in July 1975, my dad left his country, and came to Australia, leaving everything behind, his family, his friends, his country. He was alone in a strange land, very far away from everything he loved.
My dad tells me that during this time of separation and difficulty, the only thing that kept him going forward was FAITH.
Faith in God
Faith in Jesus
Faith in himself
Three year aftr his arrival in Australia, my dad was reunited with his family once again.

Faithful Witness Story 4 - Jessica

Devotion
My Mum and Dad's friend Ryll Burgin set up a business called STEP-UP. The goal of Step Up is "educating and exciting teenagers about what's possibe for the future in business and in life."
She started in November, 2002 in the United Kingdom. Ryll started Step-Up because she felt very inspired to make a difference to help teens aged 14-18 especially the ones in need. This made Ryll feel good about herself and that she was making a contribution to others. Her dedication to her comapny inspired others to rise to new challenges and take on new projects where they went to help others.
In the seven years that Ryll has been devoted to Step-Up her faith gave her strength and hope for the future. Step-Up has become her life's work and even through she has made sacrifices it was worth it to know that she was doing something good for the teens.
Everyone found out about Step_Up through newspaper articles, school visits and on the computer. Teenagers who went to Step-Up then told their friends and family and now over 11000 children have been to a fantastic, life-changing event.

Faithful Witness Story 3 - Zali

Grandad Bird - Loneliness
Grandad's wife died two years ago. They had been together for 57 years and had four children Ross, Julie, Robin and Miriam. She was always there for Grandad and her children. She would prepare the meals daily, do the washing and ironing, and would always look after the day to day activities. The biggest thing was that she was his companion and a true friend that he shared 57 years with.
So when she died he seemed to go into some sort of denial. "She couldn't be gone," he would think to himself, "She will walk through the front door any moment now." (But that day never came.)
His grieving process was very odd, because he felt angry that she could leave him. He felt scared because he was alone for the first time in 57 years, and also felt very confused with life. being 79 years of age he felt he was the only person in this world that could be feeling so lonely and not knowing how he would ever cope with the way he felt.
His loneliness seemed to grow and grow as time went by. With the help of his family he has learned to move on enough to survive each day but he does think about his beloved Joan every single day.

School Open Day Band Performance

This is our school band playing Band Room Boogie on our school's open morning.

Faithful Witness Story 2 - by Laura - Devotion

My Grandma devoted 11 months of her life to go to Tanzania to help the poor people. She worked with children from the ages of 3-5 years old. The teachers who worked ther came straight from high school and had no training. Grandma gavea lot of time to teach the teachers better ways of helping the children understand.
Grandma faced lots of challenges like there was no equipment in the school. So Grandma had to use cardboard boxes to make games for the children. She made the children plastic balls from plastic bags because the little prickly thorn bushes put punctures in the real balls and they had no place to pump them up. Another problem was that all the children and teachers spoke swahili, so Grandma had to get an interpreter to translate English into Swahili. After Grandma had taught the teachers for a while they were inspired to learn and try new things with the children.
Because Grandma is a Christian, she felt that God was giving her a challenge to go to Tanzania. Grandma shared her faith with the teachers and children in the school. The teachers were so poor they could not afford bibles so Grandma bought one for each of them.
Grandma mended all of the children's uniforms because the carers were too poor to buy anything to fix them with, so before she left she taught the carers of the children to sew and bought them needles and thread to keep and use.
I'm so proud of what my Grandma did.

Year Five goes Digging

In year five we went to the sand pit at the top of the school near prep. We dug out 56 bits of ceramic tile and stuck it together with glue to make passages from the bible.We dug the ceramic tiles with plastic shovels and brushed them of with paint brushes. There were five passages altogether.We did not find all the pieces and we could not complete some of the passages. Each group got diffrent coloured writing. Some people found other thing in the sand pit like plastic dinosaurs, plastic letters and plastic fish. After we got out of the sand pit we were all sandy and we had to wash our hands and shoes. Then we had to put the spades in the store room. When we found the pieces in the sand pit we sorted them by the writing colour. I think everyone in the class really enjoyed doing this task.
By Maggie

Faithful Witness Story 1 - by Lucy T

In this activity students explored ways in which people draw on their faith to deal with life’s experiences. Students were required to conduct an interview with a member of their family or a person in the local community.
Students created a Faithful Witness Story that recounts a time when their interviewed person experienced one of the following themed scenarios and how the faith of the person assisted them to deal with the situation involved.

Devotion Mystery Fear Hope Loneliness

Joy Separation

I was so moved by the stories that were eventually submitted that I asked permission for them to be published on this blog. This is the first submitted by Lucy T


It was a hot, steamy Sunday afternoon and mum who was then a teenager was looking forward to going out that night with her sister Michelle to listen to a band.

Mum’s parents had gone to Melbourne on business so as the oldest she was in charge while they were gone.

Mum and Michelle got dressed and then went to the kitchen to have an early dinner. Suddenly the sky went very dark and the wind started screaming through the trees outside. The two teenage girls began to feel quite nervous. Without warning the double glass window of the kitchen smashed and the glass was sprayed meters in just missing both of them. They both screamed and started to panic as driving rain was now coming inside the kitchen.

The noise of the wind and rain outside was now deafening and things were to get worse. Rain started to pour into the lounge room through the ceiling down the walls. It was at this time that Michelle became extremely upset and Mum knew she had to be strong to cope with this situation.

Mum’s family had a strong belief in God and went to mass every Sunday, always prayed at bedtime and also prayed as a family for people in times when they needed God’s help.

It was now that Mum drew on that strength praying to God to help her and her sister. Mum told Michelle that everything would be alright. She grabbed a broom and swept all the glass to one side. She then got lots of towels and placed them on the floor in the kitchen and lounge.

Mum then ran to get help from her beautiful neighbour Mr. Schaffer who always looked out for them. He was amazingly already on his way over the fence with a ladder and tarpaulin to patch their roof. Mum helped Mr. Schaffer by holding the tarp as he steadied the ladder. Mum had never prayed so hard as Mr. Schaffer climbed the ladder because she was extremely worried that he would fall off the roof in the terrible conditions. Mr. Schaffer patched the roof with the tarp using broken tiles to hold it in place.

Soon the storm passed and Mum’s family got everything fixed. Mum will never forget that scary night and how her prayers got her through.




By Lucy T

A Liturgy for Mary by Priya

On the 5Th of May year five had a class liturgy we did it about Mary because it's the month of Mary which is May. We started of with the introduction that Rhiannon said then we sang the song Mary said yes. We also did a song at the end called Queen of all. We did a small slide show of different names to call Mary that we had chose and the name we chose we had to draw a picture of Mary being thatway.We also did a small act of Mary and the angel Gabriel. We also had Mrs.Shaw ask us a few questions about Mary and about what we have learned. While we were singing queen of all Mrs Mac had pictures of Mary on the slide show. At the end evryone clapped and said it was a great liturgy.

The Fantastic Cross Country Race by Abbie

In the morning we walked to Oakman Park for Cross Country. Year 5 was the first to race because we had instrumental music. Just before the race we got our photos taken in groups.we did some stretching with Mrs Nohreiter. When Mrs Nohreiter blew the whistle all of the year 5 girls ran as fast as they could go but only Maddy was in the lead. Every one had fun and tried their very best in all of the running. I heard a lot of pepole encouraging other pepole and being a good sport.

Instrumental Music Workshop by Priya

On the 27th of April St.Ignatius and St.Josephs gathered with instruments. We had many different instruments including; Trumpets, percusion, trombones, flutes, clarinets, saxophones, alto saxes and many more. We started slowly not sounding like a band but with the help of the two music teachers from both schools who were Mrs. Williamson and Ms. Williamson we ended up sounding like the best band in the world. We had practised really hard so we could get this good. We were all playing at the same time and did what we had to do. We played the songs Amazing Grace, Beethovens Ninth and another two songs. We had played in a concert with parents and students from St.Ignatius. We played and everyone really enjoyed us and best of all we met new and old friends and had an awesome time.

Inter-School Sport with Natasha

In Inter-School sport everone goes to a sport that they have signed up for, there is Soccer, Netball and Rugby. Everyone goes to a ground where they play at every Friday. Before going, everyone walks to the undercover area to meet up with the teacher or coach that goes with a group,you will go in a bus and will get dropped off at the ground. The first week we went in a maxi taxi everyone got surprised and some excited. When you find a spot to sit, the teacher or coach will give you a place to play in. Netballers will be given a bib with two letters on it there's WA wing attack, GK goal keeper, GA goal attack, WD wing defence, GS goal shooter and few more. Everyone tries to do our best and knows it just a game that means no one cries about losing a game and we always work together. To put all your water bottles two or three people use someone's bag for water bottles and other stuff to use. Inter school sport is really fun its gets you active if you don't do sport, thats why I like Fridays.

Year 5 - The Flock That Rocks! by Maddy

In year five we have been doing instrumental music and we all have our own instruments. On Thursdays we have times that we go with our group and play our instruments with Mrs Williamson. When we are at instrumental music we learn new keys, duets and band pieces. Now we have band practise all together in the morning at 7:40am on a Thursday. That's when we all get together and practise our instruments for the school band. When we first did our band practise for the first time we sounded a bit funny and then once we kept practising we got much better. Mrs Williamson had some very good news for us when we finished our band practise. She said we were going to have a workshop this Monday and we were going to have a day off school playing our instruments with another school and that's all day long. People like me who play the flute will be very dizzy! After we've practised for a whole day, at 2:00pm we have to play in front of the whole school. We are all very excited about it and thats all about instrumental music.

by maddy

Getting ready for NAPLAN by Lily

Lately in Year 5 we have been practicing for the NAPLAN tests. The tests are going to happen on the 12th, 13th and 14th of May this year and we have to do a Maths test, a Writing test, a Language Conventions test and a Reading test. The year 5 students have been practicing every day this week. Most people feel nervous but others are confident. Everyone feels better now that we have done a practice test and we are all ready.

When we do the real test we have to be split up and we are not allowed to speak or look at each other's work.

Every student in Year 3, 5, 7 and 9 in every school in Australia have to do these tests.

I think the NAPLAN test is a good idea because it helps people with Maths and Writing and Language.

You should just try your best and not be scared or worried because we all know that we have done our best to get ready.

First Day for Term 2 by Hilary

We lined up outside our classroom standing in front of our drawers not knowing what was going to happen to us. The captain of the ship that we got transported on (Mrs Mac) called out our names and we went up, collected our sentence, got our drawers and belongings, entered the room, chose our ship and opened our sentence. Many people got a huge surprise including Lily who stole cheese! The captain of the ship said we have to choose the name of our ship. We got HMS Sirius. The class were picking their ship names when I opened the envelope with the sentence in it. My name was James, 28 years of age and I was being transported to the country of New South Wales because of assault and robbery. Others got things like stealing clothes and linen, cash and personal belongings. Later we watched a video of what it was like for the convicts of England.

(The Picture is some of the year 5 "convicts" with their "sentences" from the Old Bailey in London. They are not very happy about being sent to a strange land and possibly never seeing their families again!)

Looking Around Our Classroom

I started back at school teaching today after 4 weeks of sick leave at the end of last term. My blood pressure is fine now and I am hoping that Year 5 will help me to keep it that way! We've had an exciting day beginning our unit of work on how the Europeans first came to our great south land and the Year 5s have all been accused of various felonies which I will let them tell you about.

In the meantime I have a couple of photos from our classroom. First is our prayer table "dressed up" to help us celebrate the Easter season. And then is the stunning display of Canrivale masks that the students created with Signora Connie while I was away. I'm glad to have the masks to enjoy for a few weeks longer as they are truly great works of art!

Perhaps year 5s would like to respond to this post and tell us their "convict name" and what crime they have been accused of!

Photos by Oxfam

Canvas For Change

View more presentations from tess22au.

Two very able representatives of the Year 5 class of 2008 were photographed and interviewed for the Oxfam quarterly magazine on Monday. There were also pictures taken of the class with the artworks.
We are looking forward to seeing our work published on Oxfam promotional material and translating it to use on a traffic signal box!
For the parents who have been asking, there are three Oxfam shops in Brisbane -in the city, Chermside and Garden City

Canvas for Change 2008 - We're on the Internet

Click here to see a story about our winning entries which is appearing on Brisbane Catholic education's News Page this week.

From the "Earth" group - Year 5 2008

From the "Water" group Year 5 2008