THEME – Old Worlds, New Worlds, Other Worlds

Book Week is being held in Week 6 of this term. Our annual Book Week Parade will be held on Wednesday August 25^th. Further information about this will come out later in the term, but in the meantime, get your thinking caps on and start working out how you can dress up either as a book character or in a style that reflects this year’s theme.

Author Visitor

Rosanne Hawke is a writer, teacher, writing workshop facilitator, and on occasions, a storyteller for children. She is coming to Hawker Area School on Wednesday August 18 to share with all our students about her life, being an author and the process of writing.

Rosanne says about herself…Even when I was little I would run around with a jotter and a pencil, trying to write a story but not knowing how to spell anything except Dick, Dora and cat. My mother used to get me to tell stories. A lot of my stories were just in my head, for being the youngest and living in the country didn't bring many opportunities for an audience. I was born in Penola, in South Australia. We had a sheep farm there until I was six, then we moved to a property in Central Queensland. I went to school at a one teacher school in Banana, a little country town named after a bullock. If a friend came to visit, we would write clues for treasure hunts or pretend we were characters from films. 

My first short story was published in the Moura State School magazine in 1967. At 14, I moved back to South Australia and attended Gawler High School where I won an Arts Scholarship to complete Years 11 & 12.  I started a romantic novel when I was 17 but I burnt it later. 

I loved teacher's college, studying education, art, music, literature & history. But it wasn't until I was working (for ten years) in the Middle East and Pakistan, teaching ESL, bringing up kids, when I started to write seriously. My kids loved the stories I told and one night after telling a story, my daughter asked me to write it down.

Scholastic Book fair

Our annual Scholastic Book Fair will be held from Tuesday August 31 – Thursday September 1. On Tuesday, the students will be able to view the books and write out a wish list. The fair will be open for sales on Wednesday and Thursday, including during Open Night. Students will be able to use their book vouchers during this time.

Media Arts

This semester, the students will be working in Media Arts.  Media arts involves creating representations of the world and telling stories through communications technologies such as television, film, video, newspapers, radio, video games, the internet, and mobile media. 

Throughout Term 3, the F-9 students will be focussing creating a video using Stop Motion Animation software. Think Shaun the Sheep, Lego Movie and Morph and you will have some understanding of what stop motion animation is. Already, we have discovered that a 20-minute cartoon takes around 26,000 frames (photos) to create. To get the effect of an inanimate object to appear to be moving seamlessly, you need to have at least 12-15 frames (photos) per second of video, with each frame having one slight change in movement of the inanimate object. It takes a lot of time and effort to create these kinds of videos but it’s a lot of fun.

Digital Literacy

Scratch Jr is a free app for iPads/tablets, that allows the user to program their own interactive stories and games. Learning about the needs of pets and designing their own pet is leading the F-2 students on designing a game about their pet this term.

Did you know there are only around 3,900 tigers in the wild, a huge drop in the 100,000 tigers there were at the beginning of the 20^th century. In their lead up to using Scratch Jr, the 3-5 students are researching information about tigers.  

Children and Teens author, Rosanne Hawke, will be spending time with the students on Wednesday August 18, sharing about writing and the stories she has written.

Book Week, Week 6 Term 3 (August 21-27)

Theme: Old Worlds, New Worlds, Other Worlds. 

Book Week Parade will be held on Wednesday August 25. 

Book Fair will be held in Week 7, Term 3 (Tuesday August 31- Thursday September 2)