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.

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.