Maze Grids, Composite Numbers and more arrays...and Writer's Notebook

This morning, following spelling bingo, we started with a vocabulary and listening skill. I spoke to the class about the "How to increase your word power" section in Reader's Digests I used to do these religiously as a kid and eventually was scoring full scores after a couple of years of persistence.  I have just brought a whole bag of of them into the room and they will inhabit the bottom shelf in our newly acquired withdrawal area. We focused on a list of words with dog as part of their structure, eg dogmatic, dogleg, dogfight etc...

After that we hit The Writer's Notebook and discussed the major genres they need to focus on this year. Students now have the following list written out  so they can keep a tally of the text types they do and eventually publish for the portfolios.


Narrative: to entertain

Recount: to retell events or experiences

Procedure: to explain how to do something

Report: to present factual information in a logical sequence

Exposition: to persuade others to think about an issue from a
                    particular viewpoint

Explanation: explains how or why something works or happens in the world

Then we really got stuck into maths and completed three lessons. It was then off to library. In the afternoon students had time on their mould investigations and their persuasive posters promoting the war-themed picture books for older readers which are due in tomorrow.

One persuasive poster complete

I am still chasing The Lorax film/book report from four students. Two have assured me they will be handed in tomorrow. Students  now need to be firmly focused on their Science reports on their mould experiments and be chipping away at each section a bit at a time. These are due before the end of term, one month away.

Writing Science Reports, Arrays and Prime Numbers

All the grade 5/6 classes assembled today in Mr Moore's room for a presentation all about how to write up a Science report. The session went for forty minutes and there was question and answer time. All of the grade 5/6 teachers presented some aspect of the presentation. Students were also shown samples of works done by students from lasts years grade 5/6 classes. They have four weeks to write up their reports. Students all have this guide which can serve as a check list in their Science books and I gave my students an additional copy to take home and keep near their computers. Students without  access to computers at home, which is a third of my class, will be given some time in class to word-process drafts they have written. 

 Here is the guide they were given:

Writing up an investigation as a scientific report

Step 1 Background /Introduction

Write a section explaining about what moulds are then...

• Briefly outline what you are going to investigate.
• Give a reason why the research is important and why you and other people would want to know the answer to the question

Step 2 Hypothesis

• Your prediction(what you think) will happen.
• Give good logical reasons to support this.
• Refer to the information you already know

Step 3 Equipment and materials

• A list of equipment

Step 4 Method

• Use clear sentences to explain each step taken to set up and undertake the experiment
• Order paragraphs so that each step is a new paragraph
• Make sure they are in the correct order
• Include a discussion of how you are making sure the experiment is a fair test.
• Be clear about which variables you are controlling and how.
• A digital photo of the equipment set up or a diagram would be useful to illustrate what you are saying.

Step 5 Results

• You need to have kept good observations all the way through your investigation
• Look at how you can put your observations into a table or graph
• You may have a selection of photos or written observations

Step 6 Discussion

• This section explains your results and gives a chance to discuss why you think certain things happened
• You can include a section of what worked well and why
• Discuss what didn’t work well and why
• Think of ways you would improve the investigation if you did it again, e.g. were there variables that you could or should have controlled?
• Suggest ways to build on from what you have done; another experiment to take the investigation further or to investigate new questions you have.

Step 7 Conclusion

• What you have learned and why this is important to know.

Step  8 References/Cited Sources/Acknowledgements

A glossary could be included

Following this session we continued on with our arrays work started earlier in the week. This will be marked and returned to students on Monday morning.

After recess we spent thirty-five minutes completing the boundary walk of the school grounds to ensure the students knew where they can and cannot play during their recreational breaks.  It was then straight onto looking at their bread samples to make observations and to work on the bread mould unit up until lunch.  I assisted two students setting theirs up as they missed the lesson yesterday. So for them this was day 1. One pair of students found that one of their samples already had mould growth which was visible to the naked eye.

Students can access photos of their samples on the student drive. Students now all have their individual log-ons.

After lunch we did a lesson on prime numbers and looked closely at Sieve of Eratosthenes. 

We discussed instructional texts and they way they are set out. Students had to read this with care in order to sieve out the prime numbers. The solution was then displayed on the board.  

We finished the day with the second half of the story I started yesterday called The Sorcerer's Apprentice and looked at the use of alliteration in the book as well as a lot of new vocabulary.  I also added some Colin Thiele books to the classroom bookshelves. Nearly all the students have read Storm Boy. We will be viewing the film soon.

Maze Grids, Arrays and Persuasive Posters

This morning we started off the day with Maze Grids, which  another approach to encouraging fluency with mental arithmetic. It was then onto arrays discussing the difference between rows and columns and mathematical sentences which would fit given arrays. We looked at the importance of order of operations and ways to quickly estimate the number of items in an array.

Students were also given back their Monster Grids and I have recorded their individual best times. We will do a revisit to Monster Grids once we finish the Maze Grids.  Ten new calculators turned up today as well as a large container of 2cm square blocks which were very useful in illustrating the concept of arrays. This lesson will be continued next Tuesday and Wednesday.

An array of 5 x 10 which can be partitioned in a number of ways

After recess we revised the components of a persuasive poster and looked at the important elements which would be needed to promote their picture book. Below is a selection of books the students are currently trying to promote.  New to The Little Library of Rescued Books is Caesar the Anzac Dog, which is worth reading:
http://littlelibraryofrescuedbooks.blogspot.com.au/2012/04/caesar-anzac-dog-by-patricia-stroud.html
After lunch we looked at a couple of new idioms, did silent reading and I managed to do a writer's conference with 8 more students regarding their recent persuasive texts. Then students were given the remainder of the afternoon to work on their persuasive posters, A handful opted to take them home. Students, who handed in their Lorax assignments will receive their feedback on Monday and the outcomes will be shared at the parent/teacher discussion. Eighteen students out of twenty four met the deadline. Well done!

My two amazing Daily Physical Education leaders from Mr Moore's class and Mr Stafford's class now have a music disc with some great dance songs on it. Thank you my wonderful friend Glenda Paton for organising that for me, much appreciated.

Also I now have 22 replies and a possible 23rd reply indicating attendance at the parent/teacher discussions which will be held on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday afternoons and evenings.