Week 3

This week we are celebrating Catholic Education Week.  It was kicked off with a Grandparents' Liturgy.  Our guests were then invited to visit the classrooms and then share a morning tea.  We had some  visitors that watched our Literacy group activities.  Thank you to those Grandparents and a few stand ins who were able to join us. Unfortunately I didn't catch all of them in photos but here are a few.

We are collecting winter warmers for the disadvantaged in our community.  Please send in tins of soup or stew for this good cause.  Other classes are collecting different items, please see the newsletter for details.  Perhaps you would prefer to send something else.  

Do you have an old mobile phone at home that is broken or no longer needed?  We need some for our work and they do not need to work. Please send them in without the cords.  Only send something if you do not need it returned.

Thank you to those families who sent in an old mobile phone.  If you do not want me to keep it please send a note and I will return it.

MONEY

Last week we started learning about money.  The children have a huge difference in their understanding and if they rarely handle money in real life it is very difficult to help them get to the expected level of understanding.  Below is a general guide for the levels we have.  It would be great if you tip out a piggy bank or your wallet (there isn't much in many people's due to eftpos and credit cards) and have a little practise at home. 

• little understanding except some are notes and some are coins
• can recognize and name coins and notes
• can order coins and notes according to value or worth
• can count coins of the same denomination (e.g. $1, $2, $3, $4...) and tell total value
• can count coins of the same denomination past the next dollar (e.g. 20c, 40c, 60c, 80, $1, $1.20...$1.80, $2, $2.20)
• can count coins of multiple denominations before and after a dollar (e.g. 20c, 40c, 60c, 80, 85c, 90c, 95c, $1, $1.50...)
• can look at a price e.g. $4.99 and decide if they have enough money and which note is best to hand over
• can understand that prices are rounded e.g. nothing is really $9.99 and they won't get 1c change
• can accurately determine change e.g. price is $2.20, change from $5 is $2.80

My aim is most children will be able to meet the purple goals. Your help at home would be appreciated.

Term 3 Week 2

Homework.  On Wednesday your child will come home with the homework grid for the term and their new spelling list for the whole term.  You will notice that on the homework grid the spelling area is highlighted.  This is because this activity is designed to be completed every week.  Every week your child is to write out their spelling words (the whole list for the week) four times and write five of their words in sentences.  Last term there was a lot of confusion about homework and some parents thought it was optional.  The writing out of spelling, writing sentences and the science sheet are compulsory.  Please send your child's homework scrapbook in to school every Friday so I can check who is completing their work satisfactorily. Your child is tested on these words every Friday and the test book is sent home that day so you can check their progress.  Please return it on the Monday.  We back up this at home learning with word sorts and spelling activities in class to help them learn their words.  The rest of the homework grid is to be completed at your leisure throughout the term.  Just tick off the activities as you do them. This less structured time frame is to cater for busy family home lives.  I regularly update the blog literacy and maths links to match the concepts we are covering in class for extra practice.

Spelling Activities


Today the children prepared their weekly word sort and started on rotational activities designed to learn the spelling pattern in their spelling words.  The favorite activity today was "Magic Glasses".  When you wear the magic glasses you search through a book for your spelling words and put a dot beside them on the list when they are found.  One child commented, "Wow! These really work!  I've found 3 already!"

The other activities this week include writing spelling words in sentences, making the shape of the words, using highlighters to write the list, painting the list using water colours and typing the list using Microsoft Word and manipulating the colours and fonts.  

Theo was sick all of last week but has come back and working super hard.  He is doing so well at maths with Mrs Harper and Mrs Hutchins.  Look at his great concentrating on numbers up to 30!

Today the children watched a great episode of The Magic School Bus to learn about the water cycle.  I am looking forward to discussing their knowledge of new terms; precipitation, evaporation and condensation tomorrow.  If you would like to see the show again watch the link below.

Today we listened to an audio version of The Princess and the Pea.  We then wrote a simile about the Princess.  I was very impressed with the work, below are some examples.

We have been trying to improve our expression when reading.  This movie on You Tube shows our improvement.

In Science we have been learning about water.  I found a You Tube song by Mr Davies and added it to my own Power Point Presentation so the children can learn the words to help them better understand the water cycle.  After a few late nights, one of our 'techno savvy' teachers showed me how to do it in 5 minutes!


I do not know what happened to all your comments you wrote on Friday.  They seem to have DISAPPEARED into cyber space except one.  Sorry.

Welcome back to Term 3

I hope you have all had a wonderful holiday and I look forward to hearing all your stories tomorrow.  This term we will be learning about how to write a Narrative in English.  A narrative is a story that has an orientation (what, where, who, when and why), a sequence of events, a complication (something that goes wrong or a problem) and a resolution (a solution).  I have loads of fun and engaging activities ready about Fairy Tales and Aboriginal Dreamtime Stories.  If you have any books, audio books or DVDs you would like to bring in and show us please do.  Remember to put your name on your belongings.

During Science we are learning about water.  How we use it and how to conserve it.

In Maths we have some great investigations to complete and new work to learn.

In Religion we will be preparing and learning about the Sacrament of Reconciliation.  This means turning back to God when you have made a mistake and saying sorry.


I can't wait to see you all tomorrow. Today was our first day back and the children got straight back into their work. One of the activities we did was to gather information about what the children know about Fairy Tales.

We did lots of Maths, some new work first about number lines to 1000 and then som IMaths Tracker pages to recap last term's work. in Science we are learning about Water so we gathered information about what the class already knew.

I purchase a new IPad in the holidays so updating the blog will be easier and much quicker.  Geordan wanted his photo taken.  Looks like he had a fun day!

Today we examined the story The Three Little Pigs.  We read 5 versions of the story and compared the similarities and differences.  Two of the books war Fractured Fairy Tales.  They changed the characters to make three little wolves who were good and a big bad pig who was not.  Some children began making the houses from straw, sticks and bricks and others created masks for our display boards.

At Get Set Go this week we began learning skills in preparation for our Athletics carnival.  The children practiced walking and running on the balls of their feet with their knees up high.  They also learnt how to leap.  It certainly wore them out.

We began out science experiments about water.  Did you know that most of the water on Earth is salty?  We made salty water and had a taste of it.  We all had a turn of stirring the mixture until the salt disappeared.  The children then made predictions of what happened to the salt and could we get it back again.  We put the salty water on the doorsill to wait for the sun to see what happens.  Today we checked them and a number of groups observed some salt seemed to be stuck on the side of the cup.  I wonder what it will look like tomorrow?