International Association
of School Librarianship

GiggleIT in Oceania

Our Lady of Dolours School
Queensland, Australia

Our GiggleCritters

Babies GiggleCritter Writing GiggleCritter Rockin GiggleCritter

Our Country 

Australia

Australia is located in the Southern Hemisphere and is made up of the mainland, the island of Tasmania and lots of other islands in the Pacific Ocean and the Indian Oceans. Australia’s neighbours include New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, East Timor, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, New Caledonia and Indonesia.

Australia was settled more than 40 000 years before European settlement. It was in 1606 that Dutch explores first discovered Australia but it wasn’t until 1770 that it was claimed by Britain. Australia was settled by the English in 1788 and it became a penal colony.

On 1st January, 1901 Australia became a Federation when the six colonies joined together to form the Commonwealth of Australia. Australia now has a population of about 22 million people and most of the people live in the capital cities including Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide. Canberra is the nation’s capital City in the Australian Capital Territory.

Australia is an island and has many unique places, animals and plants. Some famous natural places you must vist include Uluru, The Great Barrier Reef, The Twelve Apostles and Kakadu National Park. You would have to also visit the Sydney Opera House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge on any visit to Australia.

Our animals are cute too. Make sure you cuddle a Koala, jump with the Kangaroos and try to keep up with the emu. Not to mention run with the dingos, chat to a galah or two and go swimming with the platypus. Check out our vast landscapes - rainforests, deserts, beaches and bush make up the beauty of Australia.

Nowhere on earth can you experience the endless blue skies, the friendliest of people and a lifestyle that is relaxed.

Our City 

Brisbane

Brisbane is the capital of Queensland and is the third largest city in Australia. Brisbane is named after the river on which it sits which was named after Sir Thomas Brisbane, the Governor of New South Wales from 1821 to 1825.
Brisbane offers a perfect lifestyle to its 2 million residents, it is a bustling city with lots of art galleries, live music and lots of great outside living events. People in Brisbane are laid-back and you can still experience the feeling of a sleepy small town attitude.

The first settlement was at Redcliffe in 1824. This was the first penal colony in Queensland. Free settlers moved into the area in 1842. Brisbane was chosen as the capital in 1859 when it was separated from the New South Wales colony.

Brisbane has a subtropical climate, and some of the most picturesque landscape in all of Australia. The Gold Coast and the Sunshine Coast are only a short 1 hour drive away.

Brisbane held the 1982 Commonwealth Games, World Expo in 1988 and the Goodwill Games in 2001.

Tourist attractions in Brisbane include the Storey Bridge, Kangaroo Point, The City Botanic and Mt Cootha Botanic Gardens, Lone Pine and Southbank. Travelling further away you can visit places like Mt Tamborine, Mt Mee and Mt Glorious.

Brisbane is home to the Broncos League Team, Lions AFL Team, Brisbane Roar (Soccer) and the Reds Rugby Team. Stephanie Rice is a famous swimmer who comes from Brisbane.

Our School

Our Lady of Dolours

Our school, Our Lady of Dolours (O.L.D.) is in the Brisbane suburb of Mitchelton. There are 180 students at our school. We are a Catholic Primary School teaching students from Prep to Year 7. Most of us walk or ride to school. We are about 15 mins away from the CBD. Just down the road we have Blackwood Street, which makes our school feel part of a small bustling community. There are trains and buses that can take us to lots of places. The ambulance station is just across the road from us and sometimes their sirens can be very loud.

This is our school song which tells you a little of the history of our school:

We are the kids who come from OLD
And we are like one great big family
Living and loving and learning in Christ
Together we can do it
Yes we can.

Our school was built in 1951
By the Sisters of the Good Samaritan
With Mary as our model
And Jesus as our guide
Together we can do it
Yes we can.

We don’t have much space at our school. There are houses all around us and our oval is very small. Sometimes we go to the local park so we can do lots of running around. We don’t mind not having much space because we all get on really well.

Our school vision is to think, care about others and act to make a difference in our world. Our three house colours are red, green and gold and our house names are Benedict, Samaritan and Nugent. They are named after important people in our school story. We also have three key values which include Compassion, Justice and Wisdom. We try to live these everyday in how we live, love and learn.

We have had lots of fun and success this year.

  • We won both the Regional and State finals of Optiminds and the team are now going to NZ for a cultural exchange;
  • We came third in the Zone 4 athletics;
  • A year 3 boy made a new Zone record in the long jump;
  • A group of yr 5 -7 students talked to a palaeontologist on the radio;
  • Students in yr 7 entered a debating competition;
  • Students participated in a kids event called Kids Connect;
  • Students in yr 6 entered a public speaking competition;
  • We sang at the Active Travel Roadshow and at the Remembrance Day ceremony at the RSL;
  • We participated in the ANZAC day march;
  • We participated in the National Sorry Day ceremony in our local park.

Our school is very welcoming and we have lots of building happening at the moment. We have lots of computers in the classrooms, lots of lovely artwork around the school. Our school is full of colour, happy faces and lots of happy noise. We have great teachers who help us with our learning. We love our school and coming each day to learn and be with our friends.

Our Class

Our Year 5 class only has fifteen students in it. We usually get on really well, but with such a small group we can get on each others nerves at times and there is just nowhere to hide. We always seem to be able to work things out and we try to always leave each day being happy with each other. We are always excited about coming to school and we love to learn.

Here is a poem one of the students in our class wrote about each person.

There’s a group of kids in a class of fifteen,
Lead by their teacher who is kind and never mean.
In his free time Dom likes to play ball,
And for her age Maggie is fairly tall.
Will collects crystals, he’s shown us a few,
And finger-knitting is something that Shivani likes to do.
Phoebe likes to sing and she’s pretty good.
Benjamin would be a rock star if he could.
Tristan does Aikido, it keeps him fit,
Jasmine is fun, never boring one bit.
Adrian enjoys basketball which is really cool.
And Tiffany feels right at home in the pool.
Soccer’s a game that Shamus likes to play.
And if Clare could she’d read books all day.
Kayla can play the violin,
And in almost every sport Alex will win.
At maths and science Liam’s a wiz.
This is our class and that is our biz!

We have been in the same room for two years, so it feels like home. We have two teachers who are both really nice to us. In our lunch breaks we really love to play soccer and handball. Others like to read and draw.

We have computers and an interactive whiteboard in our class. We learn Japanese, dance, art and drama from specialist teachers.

Our Photoshoot

 Our Lady of Dolours church
Our Lady of Dolours church
Our deck
Our deck
Play equipment
Play equipment
Our vegie garden
Our vegie garden
Rose - a symbol of our community
Rose - a symbol of our community
The Good Samaritan Way
The Good Samaritan Way
Our old library
Our old library
  Our temporary library
Our temporary library
 Our new library - growing
Our new library - growing
 Our community painting
Our community painting
Our memory place
Our memory place
Symbols from the past
Symbols from the past
 Our oval
Our oval
Our oval garden 
Our oval garden
 

About Us ~ Year 5

Our Year 5 class only has fifteen students in it. We usually get on really well, but with such a small group we can get on each others nerves at times and there is just nowhere to hide. We always seem to be able to work things out and we try to always leave each day being happy with each other. We are always excited about coming to school and we love to learn.

Here is a poem one of the students in our class wrote about each person.

There’s a group of kids in a class of fifteen,
Lead by their teacher who is kind and never mean.
In his free time Dom likes to play ball,
And for her age Maggie is fairly tall.
Will collects crystals, he’s shown us a few,
And finger-knitting is something that Shivani likes to do.
Phoebe likes to sing and she’s pretty good.
Benjamin would be a rock star if he could.
Tristan does Aikido, it keeps him fit,
Jasmine is fun, never boring one bit.
Adrian enjoys basketball which is really cool.
And Tiffany feels right at home in the pool.
Soccer’s a game that Shamus likes to play.
And if Clare could she’d read books all day.
Kayla can play the violin,
And in almost every sport Alex will win.
At maths and science Liam’s a wiz.
This is our class and that is our biz!

We have been in the same room for two years, so it feels like home. We have two teachers who are both really nice to us. In our lunch breaks we really love to play soccer and handball. Others like to read and draw.

We have computers and an interactive whiteboard in our class. We learn Japanese, dance, art and drama from specialist teachers.

Our Gigglecritter Designs

     
     
     
     

Our Projects

Year 5 - Our Family Jokes

We used Comic Life to present our jokes.
Clipart from - http://www.openclipart.org This clipart site aims to create an archive of clip art that can be used for free for any use.

  

  

Year 5 - Our Aussie Jokes

We used Comic Life to present our jokes.
Clipart from - http://www.openclipart.org This clipart site aims to create an archive of clip art that can be used for free for any use.


jail - prison; tucker - food; whoop whoop - a long way away; dunny - toilet



roos - kangaroos; kangaroo - native Australian animal that hop (bounce)



barbie - barbeque; chook - chicken          possum and fox - animals that roam
snag - sausage



wombat - native Australian animal



kanga - nickname for a kangaroo



lolly pop - candy on a stick


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