Friday Fun - 26/6/09

We've nearly come to the end of term (thank goodness). The reports were fine-tuned this week, and I finally feel like I'm getting on top of things again. I even managed to clean my desk and file papers this afternoon! I don't feel I did a lot of teaching this week, with all the extra bits and pieces I was released for, but it was still a really great week.

Fun This Week
Term 2 Performance
This term while our Fife and Drum students were learning to play Australian songs, the remainder of the group learnt how to perform short plays. The plays we selected were from the book 12 Fabulously Funny Fairy Tale Plays and were the traditional fairy tale stories with a twist. Students were placed in their groups early in the term and had a chance to play a few of the roles in the beginning weeks. Groups then selected the best people for the roles and began rehearsing. Students were responsible for designing their own costumes (using things they already had) and bringing in any props they wanted to use. Mr Tucker organised the making and painting of our backdrop by some of our students. Students were encouraged to memorise their lines unless in the role of narrator. They did a really great job with their performances and it was another fun opportunity to invite parents in to see what they've been working on. We're playing with the idea of dancing next term...

Goodbye Captain Lister
Captain Lister had his final day with us and taught us all about bushrangers in Australia's history. He focused in particular on Ned Kelly and Ben Hall and the people in their gangs. Even the teachers got to act out the roles this time. Mr Tucker willingly took on the role of Ned Kelly. It has been absolutely amazing to have Captain Lister join us each week and we have been very fortunate to learn from his expertise.

Problem Solving with Money
This week in our Maths lessons we focused on a range of problem solving activities involving money. We pulled out the calculators to help us work things out, and it came to my attention that there is still so much that needs to be understood when using calculators. On the first day we were working out the comparative prices of cans of soft drink when bought in multi-packs. Students were able to type in the numbers and operation, but weren't sure what to do with the answer. Many assumed they had got it wrong when a long decimal answer came up. It was a great opportunity to discuss how decimals relate to money. On the second day we used canteen menus from the school canteen and students created their own multiplication problems for others to solve. They then used the "stand up, hand up, pair up, share, trade" method for mingling and working through a number of problems.

Planning Day
Mr Tucker and I were given Thursday as a planning day to determine the things we plan to achieve next term. It was a very productive day for us - we developed a basic plan for all areas of the curriculum and planned out the Integrated Inquiry in detail. We are particularly looking forward to: getting creative with Textiles & Design projects, getting some dance happening, and training the kids up to play Touch Football at a Gala Day (if it's still on this year). While we were busy planning, the kids got to do some fun, new things with the teachers who took our classes.

Peer Support
In all classes across the school this week, students completed a survey about their experiences of bullying at our school. Today, during the peer support session, students watched and discussed the movie A Bug's Life under the guidance of their peer support leaders, while teachers tallied the results from the survey. It will be interesting to see the results of the whole school when they have been compiled.

Friday Fun - 15/5/09

It has been a great week - productive with a sprinkle of fun. I've been feeling good as I've been getting back into my morning run which seems to do wonders for managing stress! Miss Eschauzier and I did a lot of team teaching throughout the week which meant we could do more targeted teaching.

Story Writing
This week students in my literacy group worked with Miss Eschauzier to determine features of quality writing. In small groups, they read books that have been nominated for awards over the years and considered elements of characterisation, plot, and language. As a class, they then put together a Kidspiration mind map to organise their ideas. Students then did a self-evaluation of their own writing and considered areas to work on further.Miss Eschauzier introduced a planning tool we developed for writing stories. Students used this for planning new stories.
Indigenous Australians Project Groups
On Monday students decided who they would like to share a cabin with at camp. We rearranged the desks in the classrooms so that they could sit in these groups during our Integrated Inquiry lessons to work on a project together. The task is for students to research the history, culture and traditions of Aboriginal Australians from a particular region and present the information digitally (audio, video, PowerPoint Presentation, Museum Box or other as negotiated). These digital products will then be stored on our My Classes page so that students can explore the work of their peers and reflect on the similarities and differences between the regions.

As a group we created a rubric that will be used to grade students. I provided some books that I borrowed from the local library and we arranged for some extra sessions in the computer lab. Students have made a great start to the task and are learning a lot about how to research in the process. We taught students where and how to look for information that is useful and relevant. We also explained about the copyright licensing surrounding online images and showed students how to find pictures they can use and how to give appropriate attribution.

Fractions and Decimals
In Maths this week we explored Fractions and Decimals using a video and one of the manipulatives on Math Playground. Students completed drills adding and subtracting fractions with the same denominator using worksheets from Math Drills. We also used MAB blocks to represent decimals and played with a range of fractions games and activities.

Peer Support
Our Year 5/6 students have been leading mixed-aged groups through activities to explore issues around bullying. These lessons are supplemented by lessons in home classes in alternate weeks. This week we discussed issues around bullying and students made this Y chart about how bullying looks, sounds and feels:
For more Friday Fun, click here.