Public Speaking and Homework

What a lovely rainy day we had today.  We still did sport but it consisted of a variety of activities in the hall.  Then we practiced 'friends to 14' and played Around the World.  ZS equalled AR record.  The great thing of course is the recall of number facts and attention to number combinations.

After recess and scripture it was time to knuckle down to some very quiet handwriting.  Many of the year 3s are still not forming their letters in the right way and I am spending most of that time with them. The year 4s are heading to pen licences with KM asking for the year 4 teachers to look at her work and decide if she's ready.

This afternoon we watched the first in the "Life in the Undergrowth" DVD's.  Mrs Hughes has the whole collection and a lot of great conversations were had, especially with the giant earth worm that is several metres long!! (Yes metres!!!)

I have just finished next week's homework and all the information for the Multicultural Perspectives Public Speaking Competition.  I hope this helps and that the students do a good job.  I can't believe we are already half way through the term.

Met the parents & addition chart

Last night was a great night to meet some of the parents of students in my class.  Many were surprised when they found out I had told the students that they didn't have to do their homework, especially if they spend their time being kids and climbing trees.  It is an individual decision for families to make if they are able to support their child with homework.  Some families don't have space for a desk or the environment is too noisy or simply too busy.

Sharing a great book with a child is one of the most powerful ways to instil in them a love of learning.  My 15 year old daughter and I still enjoy reading together and have read great books like The DaVinci Code and Mao's Last Dancer as well as The Power of One.  These great books stimulate a lot of grown up discussion about our world and our role within it.

Today we started our focus on "Friends to 18".  This is one way to help students quickly recall number facts up to 9+9.  When they can do this then their knowledge of place value can take them to the bigger numbers.  Students at this age should be using a variety of mental and written methods to add 2 digit numbers and begin to do the same with 3 digit.

We started an 'Around the World' game where students are sitting in a circle and one student stands behind another.  These 2 students are in a race together to match the number I give them with the 'answer'.  Today the 'answer' was 12 and then we had another game where the answer was '11'.  I say a number and they have to say, as fast as possible the number that matches it to get the answer.  If I say '4', the first person to say '8' moves onto the next person.  The aim is to see how many people you could be faster than to hold the class record. AR is our record holder at the moment with 10.  I don't know that she will hold it for long as there are some very competitive people in our class ;-)

Here is a copy of the addition chart I gave the students today to help them practice the number combinations.

life in the undergrowth

I just saw on Gem on Tuesday night @7 they are showing Life In The Undergrowth with David Attenborough.  This is a perfect show to tie in with our unit on mini beasts and micro environments.  I will be watching.

Heading into Week 5

It is a nice feeling being busy and active.  When I got to the end of last week I thought, 'wow, the weeks feel like they are flying by!"  I guess that's because we are doing so much, having fun along the way and the beautiful weather keeps everyone cheery.

Our swimming carnival last Thursday was a great success.  Year 3 were very keen for their novelty events and learned a lesson in patience as they were the last group to have a turn!  The weather was outstanding (we were a bit worried after Wednesday's rain!) and a great day was had by all.  I am hoping a lot of Year 3, and possibly Year 4 students, will sign up for swim school at the end of the year and we can get even more students involved in this really important skill.

There was a good response from Week 4's homework with about half the students managing to get some things done.  There didn't seem to be anyone too stressed by what they had to do and most students who completed the tasks found them enjoyable.  Here is week 5 homework.  I always read through the tasks with students on Monday and check if there are any questions.  If there are any problems during the week I hope parents will email me.

For students who want a challenge and who have internet access, I like the www.jigsawdoku.com site.  It is a free sudoku game site where students can change the levels to suit their abilities.  Sudoku is a fantastic logic game that improves maths skills.

Addition and bigger numbers

I love starting work with young student when we get to discover the wonders of bigger numbers.  With almost certainty once students think past the one thousands they go straight to millions.  Explaining we need to go through tens of thousands and then hundreds of thousands is quite mind blowing for some.

It is important for students to make connections with the place value of numbers before starting addition and subtraction.  When they only see numbers as single entities and not as holding a greater value based on its position in a number then they have difficulty adding and subtracting.  The great thing this year is that I have some students who are quite confident reading, writing and ordering up to five digit numbers.  Their challenge now is to see how well they can add them.

My own teenage kids still enjoy board games like Ticket To Ride, RISK and Monopoly, where skills in fast addition are still needed.  They started playing them at a young age and I am reminded of how helpful these games are to teach children basic number facts and how to work with them quickly (especially if they're competitive and want to win!).  I wish there was more time in class to get kids to play these games.  If you have kids at home, play board games! They're fun for the whole family.

We're also keeping with the mini beast theme and exploring the components of an information report and applying this knowledge to new knowledge.  We are learning all the gory facts about blood sucking insects and cow dung living critters.

The Sochi Olympic Games medal standings always spark our early morning conversations as students share what they've see of these fun but often unusual sports.  Most students haven't even seen ice.  We were glad to see Australia get off the bottom of the table and hold its 21st spot.   We know just one gold would push us up the ladder by several spots.

Swimming carnival tomorrow is sure to be loads of fun :-)

Time For Homework

Coming into week 4 it is probably time to send home some homework.  I have really mixed feelings about homework.  It is compulsory for me to give it out so I make sure it is well thought out but the stress it causes some families can be horrific.

There are some studies which state homework is of little value to primary school students but it does refer to the drill type nature of homework.  If homework is collaborative and compliments the learning in the classroom then it can be beneficial.  I think crucially….

Where parents are over-controlling or interfering in their student's homework activities, then that's been shown pretty clearly to not be beneficial," he said.
"But where parents support their children's autonomy and essentially try to provide guidance and assistance rather than being interfering and controlling, that's beneficial for students."

I think this is really good advice to parents. I try and set homework that is open ended, relevant and fun.  I have attached a copy here

Hopefully all families will find this homework suitable for their child. 

3/4G were learning how to round numbers to the nearest 10, writing numbers in words and expanded form and using the greater than and less than symbol.  A quick test on Friday showed very pleasing results.  Some students are ready to do the above with 4 and 5 digit numbers.  

After students did such a great job drawing insects in their book, I gave them an A4 piece of paper and challenged them to replicate!  and they did not disappoint :-) I'm going to put them in for the school newsletter but thought I'd put them here first.  They are awesome.

Well done 3/4G :-)

Found something cool

I was searching for resources and found this

http://www.fishpond.com.au/Games/Clever-Kids-Creepy-Crawlies-Wii-DVD/5036675012531

It is a Wii game based around mini beasts and it is on an incredible special, on $15!  It wouldn't be appropriate at school (we don't have a Wii here!) but could make a good present for someone who loves creepy crawlies!

Circletime & Mini beasts

Today was an interesting day.  I decided to start the day with Circletime.  Circletime is a structured sharing time designed to help students feel happy and safe to share their thoughts and feelings about what is going on in their life.  A few students have found the transition to Year 3 or Year 4 difficult with some parents reporting they're upset in the mornings or not sleeping well.  Good learning cannot happen unless children are feeling happy and safe so we talked a lot about change today.

We discussed how good change can be for us and that when we take a step by step approach to our learning then things can be so much easier.  We also talked about how we can help each other and work together to achieve our goals.  I challenged the students with a really fun activity where they make a circle and all face the same way and when I say 'go' they sit on each other's knees.  There was lots of squeals of delight and of course rolling on the floor as they 'fell'.  It was great hearing them laugh so hard with each other.  I videoed the event so I can share it with parents on Meet The Teacher night which is on Wednesday 26th February.

We talked more about our Core Values, read more of Rowan of Rin and did 2 more pages in the handwriting book.  The class went to computers just before lunch and came in for more reading before starting on their mini beast drawings.

Yesterday students explored posters which had a variety of information about 12 different mini beasts.  With a partner they had to read the information, look at the photos and illustrations and then report 3 pieces of information to the class.  Using these posters was a good reminder to me that, although technology is so important in our modern way of teaching and learning, students still appreciate learning from a variety of sources, especially when they are in charge of looking at them and presenting from them.

Today they could choose their favourite and, using the illustrations on the posters, draw their own mini beasts in their book.

Here are some

I love the detail they captured and the perspective.  From this we will look more closely at the different parts of insects as well as life cycles.  I know I am starting early but we will be going on an excursion next term and with NAPLAN just before it, we won't have a lot of time so I wanted to do some work each week.

A happy, smiley day was had by all.

Paint and glitter in first week

Well this is definitely a first for me!  I am no artist and find setting up for paint lessons rather messy and time consuming!  But I was inspired by the upcoming Winter Olympics to do something different, so I thought I'd get us as close to the snow and ice as I could.

I got some great outlines from activity village website and blew them up to A3 and then got the kids to use watercolours to paint them.  We discussed how bright and colourful most Winter Olympic uniforms were so they could stand out against the white.  Then we set them out in the various disciplines like on the slopes, in the rink and down the luge!

Then came the snowflakes!  I used a Youtube video that showed how quick and easy it was to do a 6 pointed snowflake (apparently that's how they are in nature!).  The students picked it up really quickly and made about 3 or 4 snowflakes each. They look fabulous….as you can see

Some kids did the free drawing of the mascots.  They turned out so well. They have real character.

First week back

Saturday February 1st

Last Tuesday the school year started for thousands of teachers across NSW with School Development Days.  Schools in our local area arranged for an occupational therapist to present current research and latest ideas for teaching students who have some sort of learning delay that is impacting on their learning.  It was a very long presentation and a bit of death by powerpoint (I hate it when they read the information on the slide to you and slides that are full of text grrrrr) but there were some very practical ideas I hadn't tried yet.  I made a commitment to give them a go with my class this year and I have already noticed some interesting things!

The first 3 days with my class have been delightful.  I have 17 Year 3 and 11 Year 4 students.  I love having 28 in my class :-)  You can divide it evenly so many ways, so I am happy.  With the space I created with the desks at the wall, I got them moving, a lot!  I never had them sitting for more than 10 minutes and got them stimulating their large muscles, hugging themselves tight and letting go and shaking for 1 minute.  I read somewhere that shaking stimulates our bodies and minds and is great for getting ready for writing.  Gee I was impressed with the results.  The kids wrote something each day and I noticed an improvement- I love that.

I'd have to say writing is my favourite subject to teach.  I love how creative and imaginative kids can be with the spoken word.  I love using Circletime to get to know my kids.  They really open up when they feel happy and safe within the class.

I am really looking forward to this year :-)