Today was so funny. I was spending some time in the classroom with some students who wanted to just have some downtime in the classroom during the lunch break (and for once I didn't have duty) when one grade 5 boy produced the biggest apple that I have ever seen from his bag as part of his lunch...then a grade 5 girl proceeded to produce possibly the smallest apple I have ever seen. It was so funny. The large apple could have easily fed three people! The other one was cute, but would never qualify for export. It's something a budgie might chew on for an hour or so. I talked to the small group of students about camera angles and how they can further exaggerate something and took a photo. Animations unit coming up. BUT believe me, this particular apple fell from the table of the Titans and would be a real gum masher.
Sadly, sorry to say... today we didn't hit the the mathematics as hard as I wished but we did finish the tenth monster grid. So I gathered them up and had a look at the two biggest improvers as well as their graphs. There are two mini Rubrik's cubes up for grabs. Tomorrow, we start on the Maze Grids which deal with a wider range of mental arithmetic which might appeal to some students as well as knocking a few others off their comfort perches. Arrays is also on the cards.
This morning in our 'new' expanded space, I read students a very powerful picture book called The Enemy written by Davide Cali, and illustrated by Serge Bloch,who incidentally is one of my favourite illustrators. We also have his book which is filled with idioms called Butterflies in my Stomach in the classroom which I read to students earlier in the year. Ask your child about this aspect of the literacy curriculum. They know what idioms and chocolates are and are now very quick to point out when I use one in class.
We did a quick think, pair, share about what students believed to be the central message of the book. Not one of the students knew about propaganda, so we discussed the term and I will be very interested to see the final persuasive poster produced by two of my most literate students on this one. Over the next few days, students will be working on the visual literacy-driven persuasive poster, promoting their given picture book. All the picture books focus on conflicts in which Australia was involved. Students worked very hard on reading and unpacking their given books. They also recorded in their Writer's Notebooks the types of things they need to include in their poster and have started to plan their approach. Ten students shared an exerpt from their book in the ANZAC asssembly today, and I must add that they did a fantastic job, even our very popular student from New Zealand managed to say The Nek instead of The Nick. (Love him to bits.) I also managed to find the time to sit down and individually conference eight students about yesterday's persuasive text discussing their successes and their future areas for focus regarding the next persuasive text on mobile phones.
Students had their normal 45 minute music lesson.
The Anzac assembly went off quite well and I was proud of the respect my students showed during the bugle playing and the one minute of silence.
Homework tonight is for students to finish off The Lorax film/book comparison unit. This should be handed in tomorrow with the accompanying rubric. This, like the persuasive text, will be something which I share with parents during parent/teacher discussions. I now have received 21 replies out of 24 regarding interview times.
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