The week that was...

Well, Monday started with a spot of Samoan dance as it was Samoan Language week... it was a crackerjack performance!

In Maths this week we worked on statistics by using the data from the Fitness-a-thon as the basis for the investigations. For number, we carried on with subtraction. Next week, we shall start work on division strategies. Please keep practising subtraction at home. Another strategy that is quite useful is 'equal additions'. eg.

1.67 - 0.79
(add an amount to the right hand side to round it up to an easy number.. in this case, 0.21. Then add this amount to both sides of the equation..)

1.88 - 1 = 0.88.

In Writing, we looked at how to plan our work using either a SOLO map, or whatever strategy works best. We also continued with free writing and daily dictation.

In Reading, we continued with comprehension work and also looked at the skills required to summarise a text.. ie. the ability to find the main ideas and the key words that support the main idea, and the importance of ignoring supporting, superfluous details.

Lachlan sharing a book with the group. This 'getting the children to share a story with the group mullarky' is becoming a regular feature.. they seem to really enjoy it!

Friday is reading plays day.. we had mikes, booms, props..

 .. a rainbow monkey

.. and even a whale...

On Friday, a few lucky members of Room 26 were invited by our buddy class to go and help cook some Samoan doughnuts.

Finally.. enjoy your Monday off.. and don't forget that we have a sports exchange on Tuesday afternoon.. so the children must come to school with all of the required kit.

And for all you gooners out there.. FA Cup Champions again... yeeeeehah!!

The week that was..

Monday: well, we spent all morning in the Garden to Table room making Bliss Balls and Moro Bar slices.. guess which one was the healthy snack! Many thanks to the mums who came in to help and a massive thanks to Birgitte Harris for putting it all together. The children had a great time and a real world learning experience. The experience has given the children an insight into the amount of rubbish that goes into unhealthy food and how relatively simple it is to create much healthier snacks. I am hoping they will be able to draw on this experience when they begin their own inquiry work into creating a healthy snack and a business plan to market it.

Maths: we spent the whole week on subtraction of whole numbers and subtraction of decimals for those that were ready. The children who are competent at subtraction worked on Maths projects and then started thinking about how to create their own.

Writing: we followed up the G to T day with some procedural writing. The children simply had to write the procedure for either making Bliss Balls (BTW. a lot of snickering in class when I say this name!) or Moro Bars using the correct structure. We also did a short story writing drill.. in answering a series of leading questions, the children create a story. 

Reading: not much to report here.. I introduced some SOLO reading tasks to the children that will be a part of the reading rotation in the future and continued with comprehension work. 

Augie sharing a book with the class:

Mia Harris, adopting a classic 'let's get down to some serious writing' pose...

Fitness-a-thon: REMINDER!

The children MUST bring back their sponsorship cards so that I can write in the percentage improvement and sign them. Naturally, I shall be taking the opportunity in Maths to teach the children how we work out percentages and then I will compare my answer with theirs..

A dynamic game of octopus.. 5 minutes after the Fitness-a-thon run!! Where do they get the energy?

The week that was..

Testing, testing...

On Monday and Tuesday I focused on getting the Maths and Reading assessments finished. The children helped by getting on with their independent work and helping each other when they were stuck; this was particularly impressive in Maths where they were basically teaching each other.

On Wednesday, one of the Mums who has set up her own baby food business came in and told the children all about it in terms of how she came up with the idea, how she got started and what's currently happening. The children were really engaged and had many questions for her. Clearly, this is all part of our Inquiry this term.. Nutrition and the Food Industry.

BTW. on Monday, the children are going to spend the morning cooking an unhealthy snack and a healthy one. We are then taste testing. During the cooking process, we shall be emphasising the quantity of sugar used and discussing/demonstrating alternatives ie. do you really needs heaps of sugar and salt to make something palatable. If not, why does the food industry do it? (I will also be taking the opportunity to bang on about measurement/units of measurement/accuracy measuring etc. as we are doing this for Strand Maths). Thanks again to Mia's Mum for organising this.

Charlotte sharing a book with the class while I had a well-deserved break :-)

On Friday, the children had a great time rehearsing and then performing plays for our year 3 buddy class. The buddies really appreciated it and I used the session to get an idea of the acting talents we have on hand for this year's production.
 
Maths HW last week: subtraction issue. A few parents mentioned that their child struggled with the decimal subtraction HW problem last week.

The strategy we have been using for this type of question is reversibility:
eg.

2.3 - 0.875

0.875 + ? = 2.3
0.875 + 0.125 = 1
1        + 1.3     = 2.3
0.125 + 1.3 = 1.425

NB. This is year 7 level work. So if your child is struggling, don't worry. If you are helping at home, just look at applying the strategy to 2.3 - 0.8 first and only then try with the 100ths and then with the 1000ths. However, we will be covering this in class in some depth, so there really is no need to worry... and we will not go past 10ths for those that are not ready.

PS. Writing is gong really well, as is the daily dictation. I am trying out a lot of new teaching ideas this year and so far, so good. :-)

The week that was..

Our first full week back!

On Monday we had the 'Science in a Van' people visit the school. The Year 6's were treated to a fun science afternoon. The school also had various science experiments happening at lunchtime and I gather that most children took part in them and had a great time.

On Monday and Tuesday Naomi the nutritionist came in to talk to the children about nutrition and how to avoid food and drink with too much sugar and salt. On Wednesday, we went to Eastridge New World where the children did an activity that forced them to read food labels. Many, many thanks to those parents who came and helped with this trip despite the short notice :-)

Apart the above, we continued work in Maths on division and we looked at aaawwubbis in writing (ask your children to explain). Reading took a back seat as I used that time as the time we had with the nutritionist.. we did, however, do plays on Friday..

We also continued the dictation and spelling work and in te reo, the children demonstrated the initial basics of a conversation. We also had some fun during te reo singing a couple of Maori classics:

On Friday, while I was busy with the Maths Gloss testing, the children created Mother's Day cards. I hope all you Mums had a relaxing Sunday and enjoyed the cards.

Next week, I will continue with the Gloss testing (10 children to go) and the children will also be doing their Reading assessments.

BTW. So far, most of the children seem to have found the mult./div part of the test easiest and the fractions part the most difficult. So I shall do a lot more work on the latter this term.

The week that was..

A busy, short week.

In Maths, we continued with multiplication using either place value or rounding and compensating. The extension children were multiplying decimals. Next week, we will start looking at division, specifically linking it to multiplication facts. At home: please continue to remind your children of every day fractions and decimals in the 'real world' as it will help them remember the work we covered last term.

In Writing, we worked on narratives... how to create an exciting opening to a story, how to use our senses to describe either a character or a setting. The emphasis was on getting past the writer's block some of the children sometimes face; the key being, keep it simple and then make it interesting by using your senses to enliven the description for the reader.

On Friday morning the children did their Asttle writing assessment. Hopefully, they all went well. I did emphasise the importance of carefully checking for silly errors.

In Reading, the children looked at an article on Processed Food - what it is, what it is made of etc. as a tie in to our Topic work. We also looked at the reorganisation skills required to find answers in texts when the questions and answers do not run in sequential order.

For inquiry, the children had an initial foray into the world of marketing; they had to come up with a new product, design a poster and then create a jingle, rap or song to help promote the product. I gave them only about an hour for all of this and they surprised me with how quickly they came up with something.

Homework
This had been going really well. As we have our first 5 day week this week, I shall be allocating additional homework to those children whose parents requested it at the parent/teacher meeting.