The Wedderburn Burners Blog

Hi everyone! Welcome to our first blog for the year. We are hoping to have something interesting to blog about each week and if you have something to say you are welcome to blog back!

This term we have been learning about the history of our country and Evan made an interesting discovery that maybe the Portuguese found our coastline before the Spanish did. I wonder if anyone else can find out if this is true? Anyway it made me start to think, what if the Spanish or Portuguese had decided to settle in our country instead of the English. How do you think our lives would be different? What would we be eating, speaking or playing now? What else might be different?

If you have been in our room this week you may have noticed some special creatures we are looking after in an aquarium. What an amazing tranformation they are about to go through! Yes, I am talking about thirty tadpoles (give or take one or two.) They started life as a small black dot in a bubble of clear jelly, on the edge of my dam. I carefully scooped them up and brought them to school in a bucket. We were fascinated to see the next day that the black dots had changed to little black squiggles! Now those black squiggles are beautiful, fat tadpoles. Each day we peer down at them, feed them, talk to them and top up their water. We are looking intently for the next change, will it be today?

Mrs Mac

Our Grade is really enjoying reading the ‘Dragonkeeper’ and Garden Of the Purple Dragon’ by Carol Wilkinson. Each day I can’t wait until we find more about the dragon’s adventures. I think this book would really appeal to people who like fantasy. Isn’t it great when you get your nose stuckinto a book and just can’t stop reading, even though you Mum or Dad or HUSBAND are saying turn out the lights and go to bed ?  Has there ever been a book that you couldn’t put down?

Tell me about it so I can stay up late.

Mrs Tanya

We are finding it really interesting learning about life on the goldfields and some of us have been issued with our own “miner’s license” that we must produce when the “traps” come around! We found out that a miner’s claim was 3.6 metres by 3.6 metres. I wonder how many miners would have been working in the space that our room takes up or even our oval? Not many sleeps until we visit Sovereign Hill. I can’t wait!

Mrs Mac  (p.s do you mind if I bring my teddy to sleep with??)

Last night when I was reading our Sovereign Hill itenary Iwas trying to work out what my favourite activity would be. I think I’m going to like panning for gold. Imagine what it would be like to discover a large nugget. EUREKA! I think I would jump around on the spot like I was on hot coals!!

I hope you all had a great holiday and were looking forward to coming back to school?? I know I was! During the holidays our power went off and it made me realise how much we have come to rely on having electricity in our homes and lives. I couldn’t watch t.v, listen to music, use my hairdryer, boil the kettle or use the computer. For a while I didn’t know what to do, I felt bored. I ended up going outside to do jobs in the garden and later in the day we dusted off our monopoly game! Then I realised that it must have been like the olden days when my great grandmother was alive. I think life would have been very different, some things for the better and some things for the worse. What do you think?

Yippee! Yippee! Holiday time is nearly here. What I love most about the holidays is that extra cup of tea in bed in the morning. I love the holidays when the weather is perfect and I can wonder around the garden inspecting all the plants. Then at night when the weather is still fresh, I can sit outside next to the fire listening to the tranquil sound of my two boys…………………….SCREAMING at each other as they hurl cricket balls under lights in the nets! Oh, the peacefulness…… can anybody lend me some earmuffs?

At the moment my grade is reading a really amazing book about Helen Keller, a girl who was blind, deaf and mute. We tried to imagine what it must have been like for her by shutting our eyes and blocking our ears. We did this for about a minute and it wasn’t a very nice feeling.  Life must have been very lonely and frightening for Helen until a lady named Annie Sullivan helped her to learn to communicate with the world. Annie Sullivan was also blind when she was a little girl but had some operations to help her get her sight back. That is probably the reason why she was able to teach Helen so well. I think reading a book like this makes us think about how lucky we are. How do you think life was hard for Helen Keller? What are the things you would miss if you were blind and deaf?

On the weekend I saw  a very interesting footbal match. Well, it was interesting because it wasn’t Collingwood! Buddy Franklin kicked his 100th goal for the season. People were rushing onto the ground when the commentators stated numerous times to stay seated. Security guards were positioned all over the ground but could not control the crowd. It was amazing to see the excitement of the crowd but I did wonder later people could of been injured. In some parts of the world and for some sports they actually fence people in so they can’t run onto the ground. I hope they don’t have to do that here.

Well, the Olympics are now over and I must admit I miss looking in the paper each day to find out what the medal tally is or which athlete has done well. There were so many amazing performances during the Olympics that I don’t really know which was my  favourite.

You probably heard about Michael Phelps, the American swimmer who won 8 gold medals and broke just as many world records. He is now the most successful Olympic athlete of all time because no-one has ever won that many! Wow how good is he?! I heard someone say that it isn’t likely anyone will ever win as many as he did. What possible goals would he set for himself now?

Stephanie Rice, our golden girl, was also pretty impressive with 3 gold medals and 3 world records. I wonder where she will keep her gold medals when she gets home? Would you lock them in a safe, hang them proudly on the wall or hide them in your undies drawer!!

Did you hear about Anna Meares, the Australian cyclist. She had actually broken her neck seven months ago and somehow was able to get better and do well enough in her event to win a silver medal. She must have been so brave and determined to get back on her bike and train hard for the Olympics after her accident. I think a lot of people would have just given up. I’m sure there would have been people telling her she couldn’t do it but she proved them wrong.

I bet you all saw Usaine Bolt in the 100 metre sprint. He seemed to win it that easily that I wondered it he was trying as hard as he could. It actually looked like he started to slow down and celebrate his win before he crossed the finish line. Although he was a show off, I really loved watching the way he runs. He looked so athletic.

Steve Hooker, the Australian pole vaulter is another great story. He was the first Australian male to win gold in the track and field events in the last 60 years. It is amazing to watch how high they can get using their poles. He also showed great determination because he was only allowed 3 attempts at each height and often was only able to clear it on the last attempt.

Finally I loved watching the diving at the Olympics. How exciting was it that an Australian diver got a gold medal? He was coming fourth and had to do a very good dive to possibly win a medal. His last dive was amazing, scoring the highest score any diver in the Olympics has ever scored and putting himself ahead of all the other divers to win a gold medal.

I am now in training for the 2012 Olympic games but I just haven’t decided which sport I will win gold in! Any suggestions??