During Numeracy we have had a big focus on Addition and Subtraction, we have been spending much of our time playing games to learn these concepts! I know this does not sound productive, but it is much more beneficial and engaging than sitting and calculating sum after sum on a worksheet, which I am sure is a very familiar scene for many of us adults.

Believe it or not, our numeracy lessons have involved play dough, plates, counters, Lego, dice, and so many other materials you would not have dreamt of  seeing during a Numeracy lesson 20 years ago.

The fact is, times have changed, because far more research has been done about the ways in which children learn best. Learning is about keeping learners engaged, and stress free and we achieve this by making the learning exciting and also by setting activities which are ‘low floor and high ceiling’ activities. What this means is that the activities are designed in a way which allows all learners to engage in the task at their own level. They all have the same learning intention, but they achieve it at a difficulty level which suits them.

In the photos below you will see the children engaging in a task where pairs had an agreed amount of counters (dependent on the level of difficulty). One child would close their eyes while the other child hid some counters under a plate. Once the other student opened their eyes it was their job to calculate how many counters were under the plate by looking at how many counters were left.

In this second activity students worked in pairs again. This time they each had a tower made with Lego, their towers were the same height made from the same amount of Lego pieces and again, the height of the tower and amount of Lego pieces used to make the tower was chosen based on difficulty level.

The children had to take it in turns rolling a die then removing that amount of blocks from their tower, they would then record the subtraction sum and answer to reveal how many Lego pieces they had left in their tower. The student to remove all of the Lego pieces from their tower first, was the winner.

Yesterday we were thinking about different  foods we would like to see in the canteen.

As a group we decided on five,

• Fish and Chips
• Hot Chocolate
• Banh Mi
• Honey Soy Chicken
• Cheese

Then we each set off and asked each member of the class which option they preferred, and made up a tally for each option.

Today, we had a look at our tallies, and drew a picture of our most voted for option.

We then met together as a group and used our pictures to create a picture graph. By doing this we were able to reveal  which option was most voted for overall.

The most voted for option was…

HOT CHOCOLATE

(perhaps yesterday’s weather influenced this choice)

This Term in Science we will be studying the Earth’s resources, including water, soils and minerals and learning how they are important in our daily lives.

Learning Intention:

At the end of this unit, students will be able to independently identify and discuss different natural resources and their importance to our everyday lives.

Students will be able to explain where water naturally resides, how it travels from one place to another, and how it is used.

Yesterday, we started by studying one of the Earth’s resources which us extremely familiar to us – WATER!

First, we explored our different senses and how we can use them to explore water. We had a cup of water in front of us, and we tasted it, smelt it, felt it, listened to it and looked at it and recorded our discoveries as a group.

After we analysed our water, we independently answered some important questions about our water…

Thomas

Bior

Bior

Ali

Carter

Welcome back families!

Today, it has been wonderful seeing all of the children and their happy faces again.

I have enjoyed listening to the children tell me stories about their holidays, children have been to Melbourne visiting family and the aquarium, other children drank a lot of bubble tea, went shopping, went fishing and caught their largest fish yet, had plenty of sleep overs with friends and family, visited Hahndorf and some, unfortunately spent the time in isolation.

One wonderful thing I have noticed is that we have all started Term 2 right on track. We have all picked up where we left off and we are straight back into routine with no reminders.

Have a look at this fabulous work from 2EF during Writer’s Workshop today, the books they are creating are amazing!