Welcome to Week 4

Our learning today looked as follows:

Week events are featured on our class calendar:

Our helpful superhero classroom assistants today were:

SHARED READING

What better way to start the day than learning about frogs? We have noticed that a lot of our students are interested in animals so we decided to enjoy an information text about frogs today. The title of our shared text was: Fabulous Frogs.

We discovered some interesting facts ….

This so-called Flying Frog is found in the forests of South East Asia. It looks like it flies between trees, but it is really using its webbed feet to glide. We wondered if some of our parents who were born in countries like Vietnam, the Philippines, Myanmar, Thailand and Cambodia have ever seen one of these frogs. We’d love to know if you have seen one!

The second picture below shows a Hairy Frog, which is found in West Africa. We wondered if Williams’ family have ever seen a Hairy Frog in Nigeria ….

Dylan told us that: ‘I know some frogs are poisonous’. Then, surprise, surprise, on the very next page were the South American Arrow Poison frogs …

For our literacy activities today the children were split into groups. Over the course of the week, the children will have the opportunity to do different activities as we rotate and swap the text-based responses.

Today our Year 1 students were doing one of two activities.

LABELLING A FROG & AN INTRODUCTION TO SIMPLE DIAGRAMS

The first was to label the main features of a common frog and then write a sentence to give a fact(s)  about frogs, which they knew or had discovered from our shared text. We talked about how authors use diagrams to give information in a way that is easy for the reader to understand. We looked at an example of a diagram in a book and discussed how it worked. We then completed our written task. It was great to see and hear the children using segmenting to spell words: back = b-a-ck.

FROG BOOKS AND ILLUSTRATIONS

A second group of Year 1 students were invited to view a range of fiction and non-fiction texts featuring frogs. The students were encouraged to have a go at drawing or writing about a frog they found interesting.

Meanwhile our Reception children were busying themselves with other forms of learning.

CONSOLIDATION:  S (sound /s/) AND A (sound: /a/)

This group had two grids in which to sort pictures. The children were encouraged to say the word associated with the picture, listening carefully to the initial sound. When they had finished, there were two spare squares on their grid so they could add another object beginning with a and s. Here’s an example: this is Riaan’s super learning.

LEGO AND PLAY DOUGH FROG MAKING

In our outdoor space, two tables were set up with the provocation of trying to make a frog using either play dough and/or Lego.

After recess it was time for some initial work on pattern.

NUMERACY: PATTERN

We began by looking at some patterns in our natural environment and then we watched a short video about patterns, which told us that patterns are indeed everywhere:

After viewing this the children quickly began to identify patterns in the classroom including on their lunchboxes, drink bottles, uniforms and so on.  Harnessing this enthusiasm, we moved on to let the children explore making different patterns with access to a range of materials. This was an exploratory session in which we were talking with the children, asking them questions and observing what they already knew about creating patterns. This data will inform the next steps in our learning about patterns.

PLAY INVESTIGATIONS

The children enjoyed one lesson of play investigations today. Everyone was busy indoors and outdoors. A special mention for Abel, who asked Mrs Handforth for the multilink cubes and used his imagination and creativity to build a city …

RELIGION: FAMILY

Mrs Papillo spoke with the children about the word ‘FAMILY’. We looked at some pictures of families and noticed how different they can be but how special and wonderful each of them are. The children were then invited to draw a picture of their family, selecting from a range of media with which to work. Available were: crayons, oil pastels, watercolour paints, textas, pencils, Sharpies and chalks. Some are still works in progress, but here are some of the pictures thus far … oh! and some are still on Mrs Papillo’s iPad, so we will post those tomorrow.

See you tomorrow for a terrific Tuesday!