Sarah’s Class: Term 2 Week 7

Dear parents,

This week, included in our topic on “The World’s Oldest Storytellers” we travelled even further back in time to the 1600’s to learn about voyages taken by a small Dutch ship called Duyfken which landed on the west coast of the Cape York Peninsula in Queensland. The ship belonged to the Dutch East India Company. Looking at an interactive timeline map the children collaborated in small groups to research and discover goods traded around the world.

This is relevant to our topic due to the fact that the Duyfken landed on the Country of the Wik people who had lived on the west coast for millenia. The captain, Willem Jansz and his crew were the first Europeans on record to meet First Nations people of Australia. The contact predates James Cook’s arrival in 1770 by 164 years.

Prior to starting this research we had a discussion and reviewed all that we have discovered and now know about ‘Country’ and the meaning of this to Aboriginal people. We talked about the Invasion and the difference between the ships which arrived on ‘Country’ and left and those who stayed, to conquer and then colonise. The children wrote some very heartfelt passages from an Aboriginal perspective on how they might have felt/feel having their ‘Country’ taken away from them and destroyed.

Thankfully, we managed to get through the first of our 4 tennis lessons on Tuesday without getting rained on. It was grey and drizzly but not wet enough to keep us under cover. The focus was mostly on hand eye coordination using the racquet and ball with next week seeing us hit more balls ‘over the net’.

In our Maths unit this week, we looked at different types of lines and transformations of shapes. We watched a couple of short videos which showed where we find Reflections, Rotations and Translations in real life situations. The children’s projects are almost coming to an end and presentations will all be combined and presented on Tuesday, 30th in the last week of term. I think I have already mentioned that along with Jess and Susan’s class, we will be holding an afternoon tea (exact time to be announced) where the 2 classes will present their projects to their class over an afternoon tea.

Love, Sarah