On Friday 8 April, the last day of Term 1, our school celebrated a very special event. This day was called Crazy Sock Day. Each student was invited to wear a pair of crazy looking socks to school and bring along a gold coin donation. All money raised will go towards purchasing art supplies for our school. As you can see 6R wore very crazy socks. How do you think we look?
Dimi
Yippee, Dimi is our “Student of the Week” trophy recipient this week! Dimi is a very responsible and incredibly sensible young man. He’s so aware of cyber safety and knows exactly what to do if things just don’t look right whilst on the net. Dimi also knows what it takes to live up to our class motto of “Don’t let anything get in the way of you achieving excellence,” he moves away from all distractions and knuckles down to work of his own free will. Good on you Dimi, we’re so lucky to have you in our class. You’re a star!
On Wednesday 30 March, all of Year 6 attended an excursion to Brasserie Bread in Botany to learn more about the role of yeast, a micro-organism, in the bread-making process. Matt, our tour guide, told us that two specific types of yeast are used at their bakery. One is used to make sourdough and the other is used to make non-sourdough bread and pastries. The sourdough bread is made from wild yeast culture while the other bread and pastries are made from fresh compressed yeast. The wheat used at the Brasserie Bakery is wheat grain. When the bakery makes their wholemeal bread variety, they use the whole grain – including the husks. Matt reported that grinding the husks in with the wheat grain makes a wholemeal bread mixture. This is a much healthier bread mix than when the husks are left out because the wholemeal mixture has more nutrients, vitamins, minerals and some proteins. The two yeast varieties are pictured below.
Fresh Compressed Yeast
Wild Yeast Culture
In the photo above you can see some children dipping their fingers in the wild yeast culture. The majority of children didn’t like the taste and said it was like powdery sour yogurt.
Yummy sourdough bread
In the picture above you can see loaves of sourdough. These loaves took three whole days to bake and were made by mixing icy cold water and the wild yeast. This is in marked contrast to the bread making process adopted at school. Our bread only took 3 hours to bake and we used warm water with a temperature of 37 degrees. Matt explained that the cold water slowed down the process enormously, allowing the natural sugars to escape the yeast and expand throughout the mixture. This provides the yummy distinctive sourdough flavour.
Bread rolls in the making
These bread rolls were made using the fresh compressed yeast. Here, they are waiting to fully rise before being baked in the large ovens.
We got to bake some sourdough bread ourselves, as well as small pizzas. Here we are in the thick of it! Take a look and let us know what you think.
Have you ever made your own bread or pizza? It’s a lot of fun as well as being fabulously delicious.
Having fun on our Brasserie Bread excursion on PhotoPeach
Having fun on our Brasserie Bread Excursion 2 on PhotoPeach
Eating our very own creations! on PhotoPeach
Last week our school celebrated Harmony Day. A lot of students wore their national costume, representing their cultural heritage. Here’s Talia and Charlene representing the cultures of Croatia and the Philippines. Other students wore orange, the colour recognised worldwide for Harmony Day. Our school is highly multicultural, meaning that we not only have a great deal of cultural diversity in our school but we are encouraged to demonstrate our cultural traditions as we play and learn together in harmony. So celebrating world Harmony Day makes perfect sense to us! One of the activities we did on the day was to write Harmony Poems. Here’s Charlene’s poem. Thanks for sharing Charlene
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Trini
This week’s “Student of the Week” trophy recipient is Trini! Trini is an excellent student. She always does her best and produces brilliant work. She constantly tries very hard as she works quietly and carefully while doing so. Trini is a cooperative team member who not only contributes effectively when completing group tasks but thoroughly enjoys collaborating and sharing ideas with her peers. Trini is a valuable member of our class and we are certainly lucky to have her. Well done Trini, you’re a star!
The result of bread mixture with yeast.
As you can see we have one loaf of risen bread, it actually rose quite high. This is the loaf that contained yeast. This risen loaf of bred was made with 1kg bread mixture. The bread making machine used to bake our loaf had a limit of 750g. Therefore, the top of the loaf did not bake because the mixture rose so high it hit the lid of the machine. The mixture took up every bit of space in the machine. A 1kg micture was obviously too much!!!
The result of bread mixture without yeast.
The loaf of bread that did not rise didn’t contain yeast.
This loaf was as hard as a rock, so hard in fact, Mrs Quealy couldn’t even cut it.
The crew responsible!
Our Year 6 students ate most of the loaf that had risen. It had a rather salty taste and felt like a sponge. The uncooked top portion was quite moist and doughy, feeling a bit spongy, so we didn’t eat that bit!
Toby
Toby is this week’s “Student of the Week” trophy recipient because he is a quiet achiever who never ceases to amaze us. Toby always works in a calm, cool and collected manner, he never seems flustered or bothered, he just gets on with it no matter what and achieves a very good standard in doing so. Toby is a great example of the old saying: “Slow and steady wins the race.” Toby has a pleasant and appealing demeanor, attracting all those around him. We love having Toby in our class, he adds a sense of peace and tranquility.
In Science, we have been investigating the micro-organism, yeast. Yeast is a micro-organism because it is a single living cell and it is impossible to see with the naked eye. We know yeast is alive because given the right conditions (temperature and food), yeast will grow and multiply.
Through our first experiment, we discovered that yeast produces a carbon dioxide gas and alcohol when mixed with water and sugar. We came to this conclusion because we saw bubbles forming at the top of the yeast solution which was the gas. This gas then inflated the balloon attached to the plastic bottle containing the yeast solution. We could smell the alcohol when we held the neck of the balloon attached to the bottle to our nose. When it was time to dismantle our experiment, we smelt the alcohol again when Mrs Quealy removed the balloon from the bottle. It gave off a disgusting odour, it was YUCK!
Bottle 2 balloon inflated
Can you see why the other balloons did not inflate? Why don’t you let us know your ideas and post a comment! Maybe knowing what the ingredients of each bottle would help further understand!
Bottle 1 = yeast and water
Bottle 2 = yeast, sugar and water
Bottle 3 = sugar and water
Bottle 4 = yeast and sugar.
In our second experiment, (finished products pictured below) we wanted to find out what the best temperature was for yeast to be active. We learnt that the best temperature for yeast to be active was 37 degrees – not too hot and not too cold, just right!
Science Experiment on PhotoPeach
Here we are feeling very pleased with ourselves having just finished our second Science experiment investigating micro-organisms.
This week the student of the week trophy goes to Sarah. Sarah has applied enormous effort to complete her work, especially in Maths and Science. Sarah found herself developing a better understanding of tricky Maths concepts simply because she kept on trying. Her Science experiment, which she completed with fellow classmates, was recorded brilliantly on her Google ePortfolio. Well done Sarah, great work. See what you can achieve when you work hard, it’s amazing!!!
PS Sorry about the sporting injury, Ouch!
Sarah
Our “Student of the Week” this week is Justin, our Mathematician! Wow, talk about a student who never gives up, demonstrating that sheer determination and perseverance is the way to success – that’s our Justin! Justin was able to solve some pretty challenging Maths tasks. It took him a day or two but he got there in the end. Well done Justin, brilliant work.
Justin
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