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Saturday 29 August 2015

Seesaw

Our Seesaw trial is up and running. All parents should have received a letter explaining the trial and instructions on how to join our classroom. This is a great opportunity to share the children's work from school with their parents at home. 

The children will be sharing their work, mostly of the learning journey that they are on.  The Seesaw entries will show a progression of your child's learning, with the children reflecting on their current learning and their next learning steps.

We are all learning about Seesaw, and the many different ways on entering data, so please enjoy.

If you have any questions please let me know. 

Remember, the idea of this trial, is to get feedback from the parents. We would love to know what you think of Seesaw and what you would like to see, and the benefits and disadvantages from your point of view, so please share these with me.

Team Building

This week, we have been working on our Team Building Skills before camp.

The task was to move the hoops around the circle the quickest. The only trouble, was that everyone had to be holding hands. This tasks called for communication, listening and observation skills. 

 These skills will be needed at camp next week.





Week 7 Notices

Only 5 sleeps until camp!

Thanks Nadia and Nadija for next weeks notices.

If you have any concerns or questions about camp, please let me know.
I am getting very excited!





Friday 21 August 2015

Week 6 Notices

Thanks Manav and Wesley for next weeks notices.


We only have 12 sleeps until camp! It is not long now!
Next week we will be doing a number of camp related activities to prepare ourselves fully. 
It will be fun, exciting and challenging.

Tuesday 18 August 2015

Camp Rotation - Only 15 Sleeps until Camp!

We have started to prepare for camp. Working in their activity groups, the children will get the chance to make bandanas, learn orientation skills, prepare a skit for camp and improve team building skills.

This was the bandana making group yesterday. There were some very creative designs.






Friday 14 August 2015

Week 5 Notices

Thanks Quinn and Regan for the Week 5 Notices. This is the first time that both boys have presented our notices this year, so well done for trying something new and stepping out of your comfort zone.



Monday 10 August 2015

Week 4 Notices

Thanks Marissa and Nadija for our notices for next week.
Today we said goodbye to Olivia, who is heading back home to Korea. We have thoroughly enjoyed having her in our class for the last three weeks.


Tuesday 4 August 2015

Critical and Creative Maths Thinking

Yesterday I was lucky enough to go on a Maths Course. The course was on Critical and Creative Thinking in Maths. Instead of having a black and white questions with only one answer, the task is to ask open ended questions that could have a number of different answers, with the children sharing and justifying their answers.

Sounds strange, doesn't it?

Here is an example: 


A shape is more like shape A than shape B. 
What would it look like?
Shape A
Shape B

As you can see, there are endless possibilities. You just need to justify your answer.


I gave another question to the Array Maths Group, this is it. 
See if you can work it out.




They worked well together and shared ideas. They have not given up.

The process has clarified their understanding of area and perimeter and the relationship these two have on each other.

Can you solve it before they can?





Football Training

Every Tuesday this term we will be having football training with Chris.
We have been learning many new games. Especially games to help with team work and co-ordination.

Today we played "Soccer City". The ball was the "car" and you had to drive your car around the streets. You had to be able to control your car, stop it, fill it up with petrol and make u-turns, we even needed to trade them in.

Sydney was caught carrying her car. When asked about this she replied: "I had to stop, after crashing and ask the other driver for their number plate so that my insurance would pay for it."
Priceless!









Telescope Text

This morning for our writing warm up with used a website called: Telescope Text
http://www.telescopictext.com/

We started with a simple sentence:
I made tea.

We had time to add more ideas to this sentence and expand it. After we had improved the sentence, we looked at how Telescope Text improved the ideas in the sentence. This is what it came up with:

"Yawning, and smearing my eyes with my fingers, I walked bleary eyed into the kitchen and filled the kettle with fresh water from the tap, checking with my hands to make sure it was cold The best tea comes from the coldest water. I glanced outside for a minute at the city mist. I could almost taste the grey. I plugged the kettle in and switched it on. As the kettle began to hiss, I looked for biscuits. Anything bigger than crumbs. I found some fusty digestives. For some reason, biscuits are always nicer when they've gone a bit dry and stale. I took the milk out of the fridge and poured some into a cup that I'd left out from having used earlier. The kettle began grumbling fiercely so I took it from the cord, threw a teabag into my cup and poured boiling water onto it. I watched brown swirls rise up through the muted white of milky water. A few minutes passed. I removed and squeezed the teabag, then flicked it into the bin. I picked up my mug and left the kitchen with a nice, hot cup of strong tea."

Wow! What a difference.
This is what we are going to be working on with our writing over the next couple of weeks.