Year 5/6 Goldfields Day

Last term Year 5/6 studied the 1800’s in our history unit on The Australian Goldrush and our Literacy Novel Study, ‘The Night They Stormed Eureka’ by Jackie French. This week, our class were treated to a ‘Back to the Goldfields’ Day as a conclusion to our learning. Our class dressed up in olden day clothing, typical of the Gold Rush Era in Australia’s History, coordinating with our class theme from last term – GOLD. We have studied many aspects of the Australian Gold Rush including the living conditions, how gold was mined, currency of the era, what people wore, where they lived and the way of life in the 1800’s.

We enjoyed a special one-of-a-kind tour of the Murrumburrah Museum. We even had an incredible look inside the old schoolhouse at the back of the museum. There were so many interesting displays to look at and learn from. These were all set up in sections and themes like ‘Gold’, ‘Military’, ‘Medical’, ‘Household’, ‘Farming’ and ‘Transport’. Miss Wade gave us a booklet to find answers to questions from each section. We all found out so much more about how things were in history through our visit to the museum.

After our arrival back to school we were allocated groups and made damper from an olden day recipe. This was fantastic. The cooking of the damper was perfectly timed to come out of the oven at Recess, so we all met in the classroom for a luncheon of warm damper with treacle and golden syrup. We also had the opportunity to taste Treacle Dumplings and Welsh Cakes which were typical foods eaten at the Goldfields.

In the afternoon we played olden day games including Knuckles and Marbles. During our experience we also visited the Bill the Bastard Memorial and were treated to a special talk from Carl Valerius about this amazing horse in history. We loved listening to Carl because he was such a fantastic story teller and he had our full attention! We made olden day toys including a marble-balanced spinning top, peg dolls and matchbox creations.

We all thoroughly enjoyed our travel back in time and would like to thank Miss Wade for all the work she put into giving us this special opportunity in learning. Thank you also to Mrs Burns for coming along to the museum with us. A special thank you to Robyn, Michael, and Carl for sharing their incredible knowledge of history with us.

Written by Ryan Sumich

Media and Communications Minister

This is what we thought about our ‘Time Travel into History’ day:

I loved learning about Bill the Bastard. I learnt lots of different facts about this magnificent horse and his place in history. I really enjoyed listening to Carl tell the story of Bill the Bastard’s life. (Zoe Lenehan)

My favourite part was being able to come to school dressed up as a bushranger. I dressed as Ned Kelly because he was a famous Bushranger of the time. (Shannon Kerrison)

I really enjoyed making damper because we all had a turn at doing something and even if we did something wrong, like add too much liquid, Miss Wade said it was easily fixed by adding extra flour. After everything was cooked, we were able to eat our damper and taste things like treacle and golden syrup. We also got to try out the Treacle Dumplings, which were sweet, and Welsh Cakes, which tasted a bit like shortbread. The damper was amazing! I liked it best with butter. (Phoebe Bassingthwaighte)

I loved the farming section of the museum. It was interesting to see the Windrower – and it worked! I liked all the farming equipment and tools on display. (Spencer Betts)

I loved everything about the museum, and I liked listening to the story about Bill the Bastard too. (Hamish Summerfield)

My favourite thing about the back in time day was the Schoolhouse. It was interesting to see what children were learning, the style of their classroom and learning about how their Education was so strict – some even got the cane which I think was a bit harsh. (Michael Oakley)

I liked playing the games the kids played back in the 1800’s. My favourite game we played was marbles. (Raphael Summerfield)

I enjoyed going to the museum and learning about the past of the Murrumburrah-Harden region and surrounding areas. I particularly enjoyed participating in the making of the Damper and eating Damper, Welsh Cookies and Treacle Dumplings. (Dara Olotu)

I enjoyed going to the museum and looking at all the cool and interesting things from the olden days. I also liked making Damper because I got to mix the ingredients and knead the dough. The best part was eating the cooked damper straight from the oven when it was ready. (Somer Oldfield)

I enjoyed playing Knucklebones because of the suspense of how many will I get on my hand – how many will the opponents get? It was a fun game that took a lot of skill to play. (Melanie Beal)

I loved how we got to dress up in olden day clothes and participate in olden day activities. I loved playing Knuckles and Marbles and I enjoyed looking at everything in the museum. (Jade Mottley)

I liked making the damper with friends. It was great. We worked in groups of three, so we were able to make a mini damper roll each. Eating the warm roll with butter on it was a real treat. (Thomas Edwards)

I loved the museum! I liked how much research goes into it and how many artefacts are in there. The displays were set up in themes like ‘Gold’, ‘Railway’, ‘Household’, ‘Education’ and ‘Military’ etc. This made it easy to follow and find answers to the questions we had in our booklets. (Bella Betts)

I enjoyed that I got to do such fun learning. There was so much to do and see over the day. I liked it all, but my favourite part was making damper with my friends. (Charlie Jackson)

I liked going to the museum and going into the Schoolhouse. It was interesting to see how things worked in the olden days and how things were so different. In the Schoolhouse I thought the ink well and blade pens were cool. (Grace Metcalfe)

My favourite part of the day was the museum. I learnt so much and found everything in the museum very interesting. The displays were great and had so much to look at in each section. (Bea Lucas)            

I really liked the museum and being able to see the old things in there. I liked the old sports equipment and the farming section. It gave me a chance to see just what life was like in the past. (Aidan Summerfield)

My favourite part of the day was our excursion to the museum, particularly going into the Schoolhouse out the back. I have always wanted to go inside and have a look in the Schoolhouse. It has so many great things in there showing how different school was in history. (Ryan Sumich)

Peer Support

This term our Year 6 leaders, with the support of teachers, will lead the Peer Support Program for K-6.

The training day for Year 6 is this Monday, 2^nd May at school. The Year 6 students are asked to wear mufti for this training.

We look forward to Peer Support starting at Trinity. This year the theme is ‘Friends and Positive Relationships’.