We began our day with assembly. The year 5/6 AE & HM showcase some amazing learning for us to enjoy.
After we had brain break our buddies came to our class and reflected about our learning and what we enjoyed from the assembly.
Habitat
You might have seen our fish happily swimming in their aquarium in our classroom. Today we talked about their habitat and what they need to grow, be happy and safe.
The children recorded their ideas in their learning journals.
At the end of the day our ‘Home Learning’ books will be going home – I will talk to the children about ways they can use these books at home. Please come and ask me any questions about ‘Home Learning’ and your child, I am available before and after school for a chat.
Hope you all have a wonderful weekend – See you on Monday.
We welcomed Eann to our class today – everyone made him feel very welcome which was wonderful (I was not surprised at all as our class is full of very caring people).
After ‘Come Read with Me’ we moved into our literacy rotation groups.
Literacy Focus
Letter ‘Pp’
Letter
High Frquency Words – recognition, reading and writing
Identifying initial sounds and match with pictures
Play dough letters.
Building words
These small groups are working. very well, as it enables quality intentional teaching time to small groups.
Today we talked about the character strength of LOVE – This will lead into our conversation about God’s love for us.
Valentines – What is it?
Ishpreet – It is about that you love your Mum and Dad and your whole family.
Laura – Valetines is about giving and sharing and being nice.
Adum – Valetines is for giving to others and being nice.
Jed – Valentines is like giving a card.
Love makes us feel happy and safe.
We talked about giving and we made a small gift for someone special.
After lunch we read the book – In my Heart
This book is about feeling (including Love) in our heart.
The children reflected about the special people they love:
Kalil – I love my Mum because she helps me.
Elnathan – I love my family because they are nice to me and they help me.
Mya – I love my sister because she helps me pack up my toys.
Bibi – I love my Mum because she makes me food and she makes be strong.
Jordan – I love my Mum because she helps me write long sentences.
Laura – I love my Mum because she makes me so happy because she makes me laughs.
Alexa – I love my Mum and Dad because they cook me food and they buy me stuff.
Owen – I love Mum and Dad because they take me bike riding.
Adum – I love my family because they let me do what I want and they help me.
Emily – I love my sister because she helps me write.
Eann – I love my Mum because she always helps me write letters because they are tricky.
Keth – I love my Mum and Dad because they make me laugh.
Senay – I love my Mum because she give me a present.
Jed – I love my Mum because she helped me.
Hendrix – I love my Dad because he is helpful to me.
Felipe – I love my Dad because he helps me do tricky things.
Bior – I love my Mum and Dad because they help me swim.
Ishpreet – I love my Mum because she always makes me laugh and she helps me when I hurt myself.
Jerry – I love my Mum because she is beautiful.
McKayla – I love Mum and Dad because they give me my favourite toys.
We started our day with ‘Come Read with me’ – this is wonderful way to begin our learning in R1 MR.
Then we moved into Literacy rotations which explored many areas of literacy including:
Oral Language
High Frequency words – writing and reading
Sentence building
Strategies to build/write unknown words
Letter and sounds identification
Letter formation
Library – New books have come home tonight for you to enjoy.
Numeracy
To begin our exploration we need to begin with the children – what do they know about patterns? So we started by asking the following questions –
What is a pattern?
Where do you see patterns?
Jed – It is on our shirts
Alexa – A pattern is like something you put a c0lour and then you put a different colour and then again.
Jordan – It is when one colour and another colour comes and they make a pattern.
Elnathan – It is something when you have numbers and you see numbers come and they keep going every time.
Ishpreet – A pattern is like you have blue and then red and then blue and then red.
Adum – when you put a colour and then a second colour and it keeps going.
Keth – When you see a number and you see more numbers it keeps going.
After our discussion we created a girl, boy, pattern with ourselves then we used different materials around the room the make a pattern. The children then recorded their ideas in their mini maths books.
Before lunch we shared the book about patterns which explored patterns in the nature and patterns that are made by man.
After lunch we reflected upon the question – What is a game? This is the beginning of a project that we will explore, extending our learning into cross curriculum areas.
What is a game?
Keth – A game is something that you play.
Emily – A game is playing with your friends.
Adum – A game is a kind of fun thing you play.
Jordan – A game is like when you play on your laptop.
Elnathan – A game is something you play with your friends and you make it up with your friends.
Jed – A game is like a iPad.
Felipe – A game is when you use your imagination.
Hendrix – A game is handball.
Laura -A game is like on the oval and at home or you can play inside.
Ishpreet – You can play on intend Switch.
Jed- You ca play spot the difference.
Senay – You can play tennis.
Alexa – A game is basketball – it is game.
Bior – A game is soccer.
Mya – A game is making things.
Jerry – I play football.
Bibi – You can play with LOL’s
McKayla – You play with toys.
We had a quick reflection after Play Investigations about the games we were playing.
Key words include: Making and Building, Helping and Making it better – these are key elements to a ‘fun’ game.
Ishpreet – We were making – we were making dresses and things for a bed.
Alexa – I was helping.
Jed – We were next door neighbours.
Keth – I was making a paper plane.
Elnathan – Owen, Felipe and I were in a base and we made it better.
Making connections is the way I believe children learn. Each day we offer the children different ways to engage in learning but to consolidate and build upon their knowledge and skills the children need to make connections.
I am sending home a book which is one of the ways to support children making connections through sharing learning at home.
This books will be sent home on Friday – Last night at the parent information night we talked about making connections with learning and communication between home and school.
In the book there will be focus words and letters. It is also a place to record reading, write notes and share information. The focus words and letters can be used in a flexible way and some ideas have been included.
Literacy
We are continuing to establish our morning routine of – Come read with me – then moving into our ‘Focus’ letter and writing tasks.
Come Read with Me – It was wonderful to observe all the children engaging with books during this time. Thank you Felipe for taking photos while I was listening to reading.
Today the children were introduced to the ‘Aa’. We talked about the sound, words and formation.
During writer’s workshop our focus was upon building sentences. Some of the children started their writing with ‘Look at the ..’ Then we add a sentence – what happened next? Children were encouraged to use correct punctuation (capital letters and full stops).
Numeracy
Numeracy tasks included:
Ordering numerals to 20
Formation of numbers on whiteboards
Grouping – counting by 2’s
Counting and value
During these tasks the children were collaborating, consolidating their knowledge, revisiting learning, challenging their thinking and persisting. Great work team 🙂
House Liturgy tomorrow morning(Friday) at 9am – All Welcome
Come Read with me
Literacy Rotations –
This is how our literacy learning will be set up most mornings, as it allows small groups to flow through specific literacy focus tasks and myself to work with a small group within this time and intentionally teaching the focus areas (e.g. sound, word, concept)
Today was about becoming familiar with the idea of engaging in a task and then rotating to the next activity.
Today’s Tasks
Writing our names (Handwriting book)
Teacher led task – What are our goals for this year?
Writing on the white boards
Healthy Lunch Box game
Thank you Felipe for helping me take photos today.
PE – Ask you child about the fun rotations they did today?
Numeracy
Today we explored the following questions –
What is a number?
Where do we see numbers?
What are numbers used for?
Owen – There are numbers on a clock and it tells you when to go to bed. There are numbers on the racing cars and motorbikes.
Jed – Numbers are on laptops
Jordon – There are numbers in cars called number plates. Number aisle at the shops. There is numbers in cash
Alexa – Numbers are on passwords.
Keth – You use numbers to check the time.
Kalil – There are numbers on money.
Bibi – There are numbers on the price.
Annabelle – Numbers help you counting.
Emily – I see numbers in books.
Hendrix – Numbers are on money.
McKayla – On our door.
Mya – I see numbers at the shop.
Jerry – I see numbers at the shops.
Laura – There were numbers in the Pete the Cat book.
Senay – There is number 1 on the the sign.
Ishpreet – You see numbers when you write them.
Elnathan – A number has pointy edges and curved edges. I see numbers on your house.
Kalil – Numbers are on your basketball shirt
Jordan – They help you know the time.
Adum – You see numbers at school.
Bior – There are numbers on books.
Felipe – You can write your own numbers. The driver’s plate have numbers
The children then shared with me and recorded their knowledge and understanding of number in their Numeracy book.
Play Investigations
Time to be challenged
How can we do this?
Kalil – Making laptop – we might count by 5’s
Have you thought about how you can change your screens?
Bibi – Dressing up and a puppet show.
Learn a new dance and tell a story.
Ishpreet – Play with the duplo and animals
Play with your friends, share and listen to ideas of others.
Annabelle – Play with cards
Make up a new game.
House Liturgy tomorrow morning at 9am – All Welcome
Today we began our morning with ‘Come Read with me” outside in the court yard as it was World Read Aloud Day.
Many classes join us and it was really fun.
Back to the classroom to read the book – My friends are all different
This book led into the discussion about friend and how we can have many friends that we can play with all the time, or some that we play with only sometimes. We explored the questions.
What is a friend? What do friends say? What do I do with my friends?
Some of the ideas from our discussion include:
Jordan – They help you
Ishpreet – Being a friend is about being nice, kind and play
Jed – They ask if they can be your friend.
Annabelle – Making new friends when they come up to you
Bibi – Can you be my friend, please? (Is what you say)
Kalil – Play with them
The students then created books about friends using their own or the sentences below.
I play with my friends.
I help my friends.
I share with my friends.
I say kind words to my friends.
The language we use in the classroom is positive and reflective. The children maybe asked to reflect If their words are kind? How do they think another child is feeling? How can we help?
This all leads to a positive, supportive learning community.
Library – after recess we borrowed some new books to share at home.
Numeracy – Sorting, classification and creating a group.
The children had the opportunity to create various groups with a friend or independently today using a range of materials. Then we had the challenge of recording these groups in their Numeracy books. The children collaborated well with their peers and created many different groups using their different properties, such as colour, size, shape.
Play Investigations
This is a time when I am often observing and wondering where to take the children’s ideas and curiosity to extend their thinking and challenge their ideas (and checking off the curriculum)
This is a the time the children are exploring and expressing their ideas and thinking using different languages or ways.
This is a time of collaboration, negotiation, curiosity and creativity.
Did you know that your child is able to learn an instrument at school? Information and enrolment booklets are available now; you can pick up a copy from the school office, Music teacher or Music blog. Please return them as quickly as possible as instrumental teachers have already begun planning their timetables and waiting lists may apply.
You may like to choose one of the following –
violin, drums, singing, classical guitar, piano or keyboard.
Also Recorder, flute, saxophone – subject to enrolment numbers.
Don’t miss out on giving your child the gift of music.
DRUM LESSON SPECIAL– $15
Nick our talented Drum teacher is offering shared lessons this term. Two students in a 30 minute slot. $15 each student. This is a fantastic opportunity to try drumming at half price!
