I know that I skipped last week. Sorry to those of you who were hanging out for an update. I just got really bogged down again with all the things I need to get done. I am so very, almost finished with my Uni studies, and then I'll be ready to concentrate...on reports!
So, that said, this week I will give you a bit of fun from both weeks!
Show-Boating Show-Offs
We have been learning about rhythm patterns and using body percussion and basic percussion instruments. We learnt a Welsh lullaby last week and a simple song called "Jelly on a Plate" this week. Students have been playing ostinato (repeated rhythm patterns) along to the music on the CD.
Decimals
In Maths we have been working with decimals in the form of money and temperature. Students have been learning to round numbers and order them from least to greatest. They have also been exploring decimals using MAB.
Spelling
We have had an extra boost in an attempt to improve students' spelling. We are encouraging students to use dictionaries to check their spelling as they write. We are also using a number of websites to build word knowledge and an understanding of word origins. We found it interesting this week to discover that "astronaut" comes from "astron" meaning star and "nautes" meaning sailor. A great website to use for this is the Online Etymology Dictionary. Students have also been using a few sites to practice their spelling words. The hot favourite at the moment is Spelling City.
Pumpkin Patch
Our school is currently involved in a Pumpkin Growing Competition. This week we planted our seeds in the Sunlight Centre. Each month we will photograph and weigh our pumpkin to see its progress.
Band Performance
We have been lucky enough to have had lots of band performances in recent weeks. We had a Combined Year 5 band concert at our school last week and The Junior Concert Band performance this week. Our very own Fife and Drummers were at a Combined Performance this week as well. So much great music to be enjoyed!
Space
The rest of our exciting lessons have been space related, so you can check them out in Space Spectacular #2.
Showing posts with label sustainability. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sustainability. Show all posts
Friday, October 30, 2009
Saturday, September 5, 2009
Friday Fun - 4/9/09
This week we've done so many great things, but I don't want to get too wordy, so I'm setting myself a challenge: No more than three sentences per item. Hopefully this will help me to use my words wisely!
Fun this week
Change the Viewpoint
In Literacy we read a segment of Hating Alison Ashley by Robin Klein. As we read we jotted down Erica's feelings and viewpoint as outlined in the text, and considered Alison Ashley's feelings and viewpoint during the same events. Students then repeated this task with a scene from the books they are currently reading for Cooperative Reading Groups.
Dancing with Footsteps
We had a free trial lesson with Footsteps Dance Company to consider their possible use for further dance sessions early next year. Students learnt a Kung Fu Panda dance and absolutely LOVED it! The dance instructor, Rachel, confidently managed the group and taught about 120 students at once - very impressive.
Treasure Seekers
My iPhone alerted me to the fact that there was a geocaching adventure just waiting to happen right near our school. I gathered up my class and let them in on the secret life of geocaching and off we went in search of our treasure. On location (and with the help of some additional hints) we found our prize and traded some school magnets for a balloon to hang in our classroom. (Photo by: JC)
Progress with Promos
Students have now completed the planning phase of their ABC3 Promos and are well underway with making backgrounds, characters and scripts. I'm a little nervous as to how we are going to pull it all together by the 18th September, but hopefully we'll find a way! We plan to dedicate some decent time to the recording side of things next Friday.
Tie-Dying Delights
The students from my home group began their Alkira projects this week with the support of some instructions on KinderArt. Students used rubber bands to create their desired effects and dyed the material up to three colours. Next week we will begin stitching on some additional items to complete our Spring Designs.
Fife and Drum Combined Practice
On Thursday Mr Tucker took the Year 4 Fife and Drum Band to another school for a Combined Band Practice and Performance. They practiced about six songs together and then performed for the students of the host school. It was another great opportunity for our musical talents to be developed and shared.
Maths Coaches
On Thursday I paired up students from Mr Tucker's maths class with students from my maths class and got them to work together on solving some word problems involving money. The coaches really took their roles seriously and gave an appropriate amount of support. They then ordered the prices on some photos of grocery items and rounded the prices to the closest 5c.
Seedlings Sprout
In a few weeks time we will be opening our school's new environment facility - The Sunlight Centre. Students have planted some seedlings that will be on sale at the opening function. It is exciting to watch them grow (but hard to remember to bring them all in at the end of the day!)
Assembly
The Year 4 students hosted this week's assembly and shared their completed homework projects for our Textiles and Design unit. The students from the Fife and Drum band were the presenters and our newly named "Showboating Showoffs" (previously Non-Fife-and-Drummers) performed dances they created themselves. The Year 4 Indonesian Dance group also performed, demonstrating how talented our Year 4s are when it comes to dancing.
Fun this week
Change the Viewpoint
In Literacy we read a segment of Hating Alison Ashley by Robin Klein. As we read we jotted down Erica's feelings and viewpoint as outlined in the text, and considered Alison Ashley's feelings and viewpoint during the same events. Students then repeated this task with a scene from the books they are currently reading for Cooperative Reading Groups.
Dancing with FootstepsWe had a free trial lesson with Footsteps Dance Company to consider their possible use for further dance sessions early next year. Students learnt a Kung Fu Panda dance and absolutely LOVED it! The dance instructor, Rachel, confidently managed the group and taught about 120 students at once - very impressive.
Treasure SeekersMy iPhone alerted me to the fact that there was a geocaching adventure just waiting to happen right near our school. I gathered up my class and let them in on the secret life of geocaching and off we went in search of our treasure. On location (and with the help of some additional hints) we found our prize and traded some school magnets for a balloon to hang in our classroom. (Photo by: JC)
Progress with PromosStudents have now completed the planning phase of their ABC3 Promos and are well underway with making backgrounds, characters and scripts. I'm a little nervous as to how we are going to pull it all together by the 18th September, but hopefully we'll find a way! We plan to dedicate some decent time to the recording side of things next Friday.
Tie-Dying Delights
The students from my home group began their Alkira projects this week with the support of some instructions on KinderArt. Students used rubber bands to create their desired effects and dyed the material up to three colours. Next week we will begin stitching on some additional items to complete our Spring Designs.
Fife and Drum Combined Practice
On Thursday Mr Tucker took the Year 4 Fife and Drum Band to another school for a Combined Band Practice and Performance. They practiced about six songs together and then performed for the students of the host school. It was another great opportunity for our musical talents to be developed and shared.
Maths CoachesOn Thursday I paired up students from Mr Tucker's maths class with students from my maths class and got them to work together on solving some word problems involving money. The coaches really took their roles seriously and gave an appropriate amount of support. They then ordered the prices on some photos of grocery items and rounded the prices to the closest 5c.
Seedlings SproutIn a few weeks time we will be opening our school's new environment facility - The Sunlight Centre. Students have planted some seedlings that will be on sale at the opening function. It is exciting to watch them grow (but hard to remember to bring them all in at the end of the day!)
Assembly
The Year 4 students hosted this week's assembly and shared their completed homework projects for our Textiles and Design unit. The students from the Fife and Drum band were the presenters and our newly named "Showboating Showoffs" (previously Non-Fife-and-Drummers) performed dances they created themselves. The Year 4 Indonesian Dance group also performed, demonstrating how talented our Year 4s are when it comes to dancing.
Friday, March 20, 2009
Friday Fun - 20/3/09
This week was busy and flavourful. For me, as a teacher, I was significantly challenged and stretched in the after school hours through meetings, professional development and the start of my Graduate Certificate in Educational Leadership. During school hours, I balanced normal teaching alongside assembly preparation and organisation for Harmony Day festivities.
Fun This Week...
Maths
The focus this week was on addition and subtraction. For fact practice, my group worked on adding a one-digit number to a two-digit number, and adding two-digit numbers with no re-grouping. We touched on subtraction with re-grouping, but students struggled to understand this. It is an area that we will need to work on some more, perhaps taking a step backward before progressing forward. We had some fun practising addition with a boat race game we found on Smart Kiddies - a maths teaching resource.
Harmony Day Activities
One of our students has arrived at our school from Malaysia. She is from the state of Kedah. We looked online at some facts and photographs of Kedah to get a greater sense of this student's background. We asked additional questions that came to mind. We then did a craft activity on the twin towers (Petronas Towers) in Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. The pictures were really colourful and effective on a black background.
Other classes learnt about harmony through stories, playing soccer together, making a paper chain with their names, poetry, multicultural games and craft activities. Each year level was responsible for determining how they wanted to approach the theme and presenting what they learnt in assembly.
Assembly
In our school we aim for fortnightly whole-school assemblies, however due to other events that occur on Fridays, there are generally only three or four per term. Year levels take turns to host the assembly. The parts to an assembly are:
This week's assembly was a special "Harmony Day" assembly, so as well as the normal routine we had a parade of national costumes, class presentations of Harmony Day activities and two special songs that everyone in the school had been learning. It went for longer than usual and concluded a long, hot, tiring day and so students were more restless than usual. The general feeling, however, was that it had been successful.
Eco Bus
Because our school is taking great strides in terms of Environmental Sustainability, we had three bus loads of visitors come on Friday to see our approach. The Enviro Squad was on the job, proudly explaining our recycling system and taking visitors on a tour of the school. Tim and Tina, the Trash Twins, were out and about enthusiastically promoting the appropriate use of our bins. Everyone was doing their bit in the classroom and on the playground to demonstrate what we've learnt about protecting our environment. It was a superb effort from all the teachers involved in the Sustainability Committee and a credit to the school community's commitment to Environmental Sustainability.
Readers' Theatre
Students learnt and performed a readers' theatre of the story "The Amazing Laundry Hamper" This was a fun story with a lesson to encourage children to be helpful and clean up after themselves.
We're planning a performance for parents in two weeks time. They will be able to come along to see students present readers' theatre scripts and hear the Fife and Drum band play. The performance will be in the morning, so if we find that parents are unable to attend, we may see if some of the students from Years P-2 would like to come and watch.
Rowan of Rin
To read the next installment of our Rowan of Rin literacy unit click here.
Fun This Week...
Maths
The focus this week was on addition and subtraction. For fact practice, my group worked on adding a one-digit number to a two-digit number, and adding two-digit numbers with no re-grouping. We touched on subtraction with re-grouping, but students struggled to understand this. It is an area that we will need to work on some more, perhaps taking a step backward before progressing forward. We had some fun practising addition with a boat race game we found on Smart Kiddies - a maths teaching resource.
Harmony Day Activities
One of our students has arrived at our school from Malaysia. She is from the state of Kedah. We looked online at some facts and photographs of Kedah to get a greater sense of this student's background. We asked additional questions that came to mind. We then did a craft activity on the twin towers (Petronas Towers) in Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. The pictures were really colourful and effective on a black background.
Other classes learnt about harmony through stories, playing soccer together, making a paper chain with their names, poetry, multicultural games and craft activities. Each year level was responsible for determining how they wanted to approach the theme and presenting what they learnt in assembly.
Assembly
In our school we aim for fortnightly whole-school assemblies, however due to other events that occur on Fridays, there are generally only three or four per term. Year levels take turns to host the assembly. The parts to an assembly are:
- a welcome
- an acknowledgement of country
- the singing of the national anthem and school song
- one or more class items
- the presentation of merit awards (usually 2 per class)
- other announcements; and
- the presentation of a class award for good audience behaviour
This week's assembly was a special "Harmony Day" assembly, so as well as the normal routine we had a parade of national costumes, class presentations of Harmony Day activities and two special songs that everyone in the school had been learning. It went for longer than usual and concluded a long, hot, tiring day and so students were more restless than usual. The general feeling, however, was that it had been successful.
Eco Bus
Because our school is taking great strides in terms of Environmental Sustainability, we had three bus loads of visitors come on Friday to see our approach. The Enviro Squad was on the job, proudly explaining our recycling system and taking visitors on a tour of the school. Tim and Tina, the Trash Twins, were out and about enthusiastically promoting the appropriate use of our bins. Everyone was doing their bit in the classroom and on the playground to demonstrate what we've learnt about protecting our environment. It was a superb effort from all the teachers involved in the Sustainability Committee and a credit to the school community's commitment to Environmental Sustainability.
Readers' Theatre
Students learnt and performed a readers' theatre of the story "The Amazing Laundry Hamper" This was a fun story with a lesson to encourage children to be helpful and clean up after themselves.
We're planning a performance for parents in two weeks time. They will be able to come along to see students present readers' theatre scripts and hear the Fife and Drum band play. The performance will be in the morning, so if we find that parents are unable to attend, we may see if some of the students from Years P-2 would like to come and watch.
Rowan of Rin
To read the next installment of our Rowan of Rin literacy unit click here.
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