week 15 Weekly letter

It was good to back after the Easter break. The students have been full of energy and focus which helped us get through a lot of work over the week. We started the week with  new units of Maths and writing and a moved focus in our Inquiry. we also took advantage of the great weather and had some open air lessons.

This week in reading groups we all started on new books, we will be spending the next few weeks focusing on novels and getting lost in a good book. This change has been welcomed by the students who were getting tired of reading non fiction books. In writing we have moved from report writing to essay writing (which we will need for our coming POI project). We were introduced to essay writing by us making a statement and then backed it up with three strong points. One of the statements that we had to make was to say if Little Bo Peep should of gone and looked for her sheep (why or Why not?). At the moment we have now started to develop our essay skills further and we have all have began to write an essay about fat - good and bad fats from foods. One we have written down our thoughts and ideas we will look at how to construct our introduction, body and conclusion (week 16).

Learning how to do breaststroke on your chair

To finish up our focus on report writing (we will be continuing to write reports between now and the end of the year) homework was to teach a skill to the class. This was done with some great success with the class not only getting some report writing practice but also learning some fun skills as well. We learnt how to; play a song with a cup, make a paper aeroplane, magic and swimming.

see more here: http://photo.net/no-words-forum/007jbW

In maths we have started our unit on geometry. During the introduction of the unit the class reflected about geometric shapes and where we find them. We also spent time reconnecting to how mathematics and geometry is always around us. we learnt a bit about the golden ratio and golden spiral (find examples here, here and here). We spent time learning the relationships of shapes and generally getting reconnected to shapes and the relationships between each shape

(I will be putting the scope and sequence outline for Geometry soon in a different post)

The spring show will soon be upon us (15th May) so the class sat down to decide what they wanted to do for the night. After some discussion we decided that we wanted to do something that involved dancing, bright colour and having fun. From this we worked out that we will be doing an interesting number that during the main part we will be dancing as a group to LMAO's Party rock anthem. Below is a link to the song on YouTube and as well as a link to the dance moves that we will (if we can get it down) doing. I have asked the students to start looking through their clothes to find things that are bright and colourful, parents think 1989.

 

We continued with our unit on the human body with our focus being on what we should be putting into it. We started writing an essay after we learnt that our body needs certain types of fats. We also learnt how important water is and what signs to look out for if we start to get dehydrated.



Michelle explaining the different colours in relation to dehydration


making an experiment to show what the different colours of urine will look like

optimum hydration--------hydrated--------dehydrated------------seek medical help

Just slightly off topic: a while ago the class was doing persuasive writing. During the unit we had the task of retelling a fairy tale from a different point of view. Last night I found this, it's not exactly what we did but I found it very interesting in the retelling of a classic tale.



This video was found on a website called http://dreamdogsart.typepad.com/

Slagsmålsklubben - Sponsored by destiny from Tomas Nilsson on Vimeo.

Weekly letter: parlez vous francais?

The week we go straight back into the swing of things with our Inquiry, language and maths work. On Monday the Maths and Inquiry projects where given out to a chorus of cheers and a thousand questions. You can view the Inquiry assessment on the blog here. For the maths project the class was split into groups and asked to make a real treasure map for the rest of the class to follow. The instructions where simple; demonstrate what we have learnt about girds and coordinates;

Grid points and coordinates

Data handling

Learning outcomes

• understand that scale can represent different quantities in graphs

Transferring meaning

• identify, read and interpret range and scale on graphs 

They also had to make it complex enough to demonstrate their depth of understanding, have multiple clues and they have to make it fun and challenging for the people who are going on the hunt.

After giving out the two assignments the biggest problem I am facing now is trying to to stop working on them and go home at the end of the day!

In writing, all the students are still enjoying working on their explorers journals so we have continued to work on them.

Have a good weekend!

Because of the lack of time I have been able to spend on the computer of late I have not been able to put everything  we have been doing on the blog. Below  is a bit of a pictorial essay of some of the things we got up to the week before the Autumn break. 

sisters making plates together during International week.

International week morning tea. We had steamed buns, dumplings, rice and egg noodles

we mixed our Chinese Yum Cha with the snacks we brought from home. The best thing I saw was a German student eating a pretzel with chop sticks

more food

Ever Monday we spend half an hour helping year 1 with their reading. We also helped out our Year 1 friends collect bugs, worms and creepy-crawly and at the same time using our exploration skills


On Friday afternoon I played a song as everyone was leaving. I informed the class that I was continually surprised by the great work of some of the students this week and when I though about it I realized most of them are expats from one country.

P.S. I was also planning this Monday to gloat about Australia beating France in rugby again. But after watching the game on Saturday night I think I will keep quiet...

AAr a compass!

Some students have said that they miss understood the homework in regards to making a compass. So here it is again;

1. Go into Google and type 'how to make a compass' , Leane and I just did this and Google found 35 million results, so you should be able to find something to help you.
2. make your compass, and write what you did, how you did it and the results (did it work?)
3. bring in your observations (short journal) to school. If you like you can bring in the compass as well.
4. Hand in your homework.

So, if you find yourself lost in the forest all you need is a needle and a magnet, or a magnetised needle :)

The narrator mentions that you stick the magnet onto the needle and leave it for a day. You can also achieve the same result from rubbing the needle in one direction for about a minute. Just make sure you are rubbing the right way otherwise you might find yourself heading south! 

POI Beliefs, Values and Perspective

What would Danny's Beliefs and Values be towards riding, practicing and pushing himself. Can you think of other people who share similar Beliefs and Values in different careers and life paths? politics? health service?

Maths Strategies

Hi everyone,

as I was sitting around tonight thinking about maths (as I do most nights) and that there must be a better way to learn the maths strategy 'make a ten'. After having a look around on the net I found this nice one. The thing I like the most about this video is how the lady subtracts using 'make a ten' (Yannik, this is for you ;)  ). It starts at 2.30 min.

I'll try to find some more videos and games that will help you practice for the maths review next Monday.

I also encourage you to use Kahn Academy http://www.khanacademy.org/  This is a great resource that has great videos to help you to understand new concepts and in-depth activities. I have already added two videos from Kahn Academy on the blog on rounding, click here to go directly to the videos.

:) Christian

  

Rounding Numbers