Bread Making and a Big Maths Day...

First up today we did our usual Spelling Bingo game. We then watched a short clip on R.L.Stine discussing how he became a famous writer and I read a chapter from one of his books. We have a cauldron full of them in the classroom. I am encouraging students to read for half an hour every night. Some students said the only time they read is during Quiet Reading. So each week we will have a small focus on a writer and their works.

The vital ingredients

And...now a big thank you to Andrea who took a small group for bread making in the Social Area. It all went very well and the bread tasted delicious.They learned a lot about the process. A big thank you to Annette who located a knife and who helped the boys cut it into serving size pieces.  In the classroom we have been looking at what yeast looks like under the microscope. 

The finished product...yum!

We had a big maths today. The first activity was looking at the term difference (in terms of subtraction). Students played a game called Lucky Dip  where they drew out numbers from a paper bag and found the difference between them and gave an explanation of how they worked it out. The numbers in the bag ranged from 11 to 130. Some students found this an easy task whilst others were very challenged by it, especially explaining how they mentally worked through to get the answer.They have been asked to complete this task tonight for homework. Students also had time to complete their Flat Cubes task from last week. We then did some multiplication using Monster Grids and students were allowed to refer to their tables chart. We discussed some strategies of how to approach the 9 times table and practised these. Students will be graphing their results using a bar graph. We discussed how to use the graph works and looked at intervals. We also got in two quick games of Guess the Number. 

In the  afternoon, students began their word walls for Marvellous Microorganisms and half the class started their microorganisms jigsaw puzzles. During Quiet Reading,  I worked with the grade 5 girls reading about optical illusions and sound waves and about how you can improve your performance on Sing Star. We talkid about how to pay attention to punctuation when reading to improve the clarity of their delivery.

Monster Grids

Planning the jigsaw

The Bread Without Yeast & Bread Making

Today students finished off their bread analysis looking at Mountain Bread Oat which does not have yeast as one of its ingredients. We discussed the use of  clear diagrams and labelling them to help explain scientific observations. 

Next we watched three short clips on the bread-making process and read through a recipe for bread making. Students will be working on their flow charts  to explain the basic steps in bread making over the next week. We looked at a simplistic flow chart and a much more complicated one.  Students can draw up their flow chart by hand or have a go at using an Excel application.

I found this flowchart download from microsoft very useful.

http://spreadsheets.about.com/od/excelformatting/qt/090805-excel-flowchart-template.htm

I suggested students plan their flowcharts in their Writer's Notebooks and then either draw them up neatly in their Marvellous Microorganisms book by hand, or use a template such as the one above to publish their flowchart.

In the afternoon, some students had their woodwind lesson and six grade 6 students did their Sports Leader training.

The remainder of students continued practising their blanket stitching making their needle and pin holders. A few students processed their The Otherside piece. We now have a class logon for the computers.