The week that was..

Another short one.. if only all the weeks were 4 days long.. in this computerised day and age, I don't understand why we don't yet have 3 day weekends as standard... anyhow..

Maths: we started looking at another division strategy. We already covered the linking of division to times table facts, eg. 3 x 7 = 21, so 21 / 7 = 3 and 21 / 3 = 7.

Last week, we looked at the splitting strategy, eg. 81 / 3 can be split into 60 / 3 = 20 and 21 / 3 = 7; then add 20 to 7 to get the final answer 27.

Going forward, we shall continue with the splitting strategy, working with larger numbers.

The top mathematicians in the class are working on their Maths projects; I had a meeting with them and they have also requested we look at the following: ratios, algebra and percentages. So apart from recapping what the rest of the class does, they will also be working on these areas.

We also did a session on Probability. Interesting how many children know that you have a 1 in 6 chance of rolling a number with a single die, but few knew that with 2 dice, the possibilities leap from 6 to 36 possibilities (ie. 6 x 6).

 

We also looked at the snail race game (ask your children..) and then the children experimented by rolling 2 dice a number of times, noting which number came up most (7,8 and 9 were the winners). We discussed why this might be.

Writing: we continued with narrative writing, using the cartoon strips they had created previously as the basis for their stories. The idea behind this was to ensure that the structure of their stories would flow smoothly and that they would be able to describe their story settings in detail. We also had a session that was purely proofreading and editing.. please keep hassling them about this at home.

Reading: comprehension using journals, SOLO activities, group work on reorganising information in a text when looking for an answer and of course, plays. The latter is the children's and my favourite.. excellent in terms of building their confidence and working on the voice projection skills required for Production.

Kate sharing a book with the class:


Other stuff: dictation and spelling are trucking along well. The children are getting the message about checking their dictation using the version on the board, as opposed to relying on the version in their heads. It's quite incredible the number of children who rush over, convinced they have made all of their corrections and have a 100% correct piece of work. They are crestfallen when I find a number of mistakes and only then, double check the version on the board. So the mission going forward: erase the ingrained incorrect spelling from their brains and replace it with the correct version!

Life Education Van: we had a session with Lynn and Harold the Giraffe on Wednesday. The whole middle block dedicated to learning all about what friendship is and how we also need to be good friends to our bodies by eating nutritional food and limiting junk.