Keep working on the Softies

I am encouraging the students to persevere with their softies because later I hope to get a Tasmanian author in to talk to them about writing picture books and they will use their characters to design and make a Mr Men type of book to share with their buddies in the future. As they finish students are given a camera to go get some shots. These will be used in the advertisements they are designing to promote their toys.

Instructional Texts and...Designing and Making Cubeses

This morning students learnt about instructional texts. They prepared a text for a science lesson they will be doing next Wednesday which will put the heat on yeast. They will be looking at the idea of a fair test. Tomorrow, they will design their own data collection and observation layout in their science books. I would really appreciate if students could bring measuring cups and funnels to school on Wednesday 14th. The gear they bring  would go straight back home again that night.

We then had a fifteen minute meeting in the hall about use of the playground.

Music followed recess and then students were given the challenge to design and make their own cube using a piece of cardboard. I wanted to see where their skill level was at in this area. There were many different approaches taken by students and varying degrees of success. Student were asked to evaluate their finished products. Tomorrow I will model a way of making a cube focusing on placement of the net on the card, accurate measuring, scoring, folding, cutting and the use of tabs.  Students will have a second opportunity at this activity.

Some of the finished cubes

After lunch we had silent reading and I focused on proof-reading with the grade 5 students and gave them a sample of a Naplan  spelling test to familiarize them with the format. Naplan is not too far away.
Students then could choose to work on:
their cube evaluation
The Pinballs assignment
Flat Cubes  or...
jigsaw puzzles.
A couple of students worked on their Softies.

Tomorrow morning after the test on the ei words, students will experience their first Maths Relay!

Junko Morimoto and ... The Pinballs for Homework

Today we focused on literacy beginning with Spelling Bingo as usual.  I again modelled the use of full sentence answers and using paragraphs. Students are really start to show great improvement in this area. Students were given time to finish answering the 8 questions about The Pinballs, the class novel, and another block of time to get another of the bigger activities done. Tonight's homework is to complete a third activity. The unit of work on The Pinballs is due in Friday morning. Students will be assessed on this using a rubric and some written feedback given. 

In Art this morning students finished off their banners. I guess these will be hanging in our classroom soon.

Woodwind students were in and out from 12-00 o'clock on. The grade 5s seemed to enjoy their first lesson.

In the afternoon, for the first 20 minutes, students had silent reading whilst  I worked closely with four grade 5 girls on the art of writing persuasive texts. Students then worked on their microscope sketches, their microorganism jigsaws or their softies designs.

We focused on illustrator Junko Morimoto for half an hour, looking at some of the books she has illustrated and written. She emigrated to Australia from Japan in 1982. We watched a short film about her experiences during the bombing of Hiroshima. She was thirteen years old at the time. I did this short lesson as students missed their Japanese lesson due to House Meeting on Monday morning. 

http://littlelibraryofrescuedbooks.blogspot.com.au/2012/03/phoenix-by-nan-hunt.html
Some students have also opted to read Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes which also provides interesting insights to the aftermath of the bombing.  There are two copies of this book in our class library.
http://littlelibraryofrescuedbooks.blogspot.com.au/search?q=Sadako

About 25% of the class read for half an hour every night. It would be great if we could elevate this percentage.

The majority of students handed in their Luck Dip maths activity.

One hydra coming up!

Bacteria anyone?

Preparing a softie design

Cutting out pattern pieces

Friday and Flat Cubes

Today in mathematics, we started the second lesson in the sequence looking at 3D shapes. We recapped on the terms  faces, edges and vertices (plural for vertex) and, today discussed the term net. Some students have these words on their Individual Spelling Lists (ISL). Students then drew up and cut out nets consisting of six faces and classified them into two categories of Works to Make a Cube and Doesn't Work. We discussed book work and the importance of organising things in a logical manner. Students will require another fifteen minutes to complete this task but worked extremely conscientiously on the task. They look after each other very well in their table groups. The lesson following this one involves students making their own net for a cube from scratch(without templates) and evaluating their efforts.

This one works!

Checking to see if the nets make a cube

Classifying the nets

Some  samples

Students performed well on the morning test on ough words and should be proud of their efforts. Any words misspelled were added to their ISL card and written out five times each. Next week's focus in on those rogue ei words and there are two levels of difficulty. These words will be used as the Spelling Bingo words for the week.

Today we also finished the class novel, The Pinballs, and students then watched the last film clip of the television movie. This helped any students who had been absent for any chapters of the novel. Next week, students will finish two more of the major associated activities and the comprehension questions. Well done to those students who submitted question 1, 2 and 4 for assessment.  We discussed what is a classic novel. This one was written in the 1970's by well-known American author, Betsy Byars, and has survived the test of time.  Below are some samples of the tension levels graphs the children filled in as we read each chapter.

Three tension levels graphs

We also looked at one of Australia's poets, Steven Herrick,and I read a couple of his poems. We have two of his book in our classroom library. Students then watched a couple of film clips of him reading his own poetry.  I am encouraging students to read as much as possible. They were pretty amused by the following poem about things parents will never say to you:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3jZyonew2Y&feature=related

In the afternoon, students had a visit from a nice fellow from Life Be in It encouraging them to enter the triathlon to be held at at Blackmans Bay Beach in the very near future. The information will be given out on Monday when I have had a chance to photocopy it. Students who had completed the homework requirements for the week continued with their Softies. I modelled the tacing off of... and use of pattern pieces, layering, cutting out, and also economical use of resources. Many students have now finished their needle holders and are preparing their pattern pieces. I made two Softies which are on display in the cabinet to give them some idea of what is possible with persistence and effort.

One very cute monster

A well-planned Softie, attention to detail

Cutting out the pattern pieces

A finished needle and pin holder

Sample toys I whipped up!

One student's plan and front piece

First Art lesson, 2D vs 3D, and...a Softies update

Another busy day with a long meeting at the end, but a productive one. First up it was Spelling Bingo and a partner test on the individual words and then we had two more chapters of the class novel, The Pinballs, before my darlings trotted only next door for their first art lesson with Mrs MacCrum. Students are designing their own personal banners which will be hung in the classroom when they are done.

After recess I took them through compass usage and students constructed their own Venn diagrams to compare the attributes of a plane shape and a 3D shape. This was completed in their large activity where will will do some problem solving and other lessons in the Measurement and Geometry strand of the National Mathematics Curriculum. Some students decided to take it home to add more to it. We will revisit their efforts on Friday and students will add missing detail in another colour.  I am endeavouring to make students aware of book presentation and to take pride in their work. We played three quick games of Guess the Number just to break up the double maths lesson. I was impressed to see so many students taking the initiative to consult the wide variety of Maths dictionaries in the room to clarify their thoughts and to investigate angles, area, volume and axes of symmetry..

In the afternoon I tested a handful of students working on level 4 of the demon words(tricky words) whilst the grade five students went off to do a music test. All students have had a test on level 1 (fifty words) and about a third on level 2 and a sisxth on level 3.  The words they are having trouble with are listed on their Individual Spelling Card and I would appreciate any testing parents can do on these at home and sign off on any words which have had five partner tests. The remainder of the grade 6 students did some quiet reading. Then I sat the grade 6 students down and talked about threading needles, using blanket stitch in order to make their needle holders. Each students has a large, resealable storage bag which at the moment houses the felt for the holder, four pins, a needle and a double-sided sheet demonstrating some basic stitchery they could use when sewing their softies. Two of my grade 6 boys really surprised me with their amazing sewing skills and both were very helpful when I was trying to teach so many students to thread needles, knot cotton and use blanket stitch. About half of the grade 5 students have made a start on this, we will catch up with the remaining group tomorrow. Homework was to finish the design of their softie in their Writer's Notebook and to make notes about materials etc. on the other side of the page. Students need to think carefully about the application of their practical skills to the design, too fussy or too many sharp small angles or thin sections can be a disaster when it come to the actual cutting out of the felt and the  sewing. I have also asked students to personalise their notebooks so they are special. We will be using this book a great deal for planning and producing quality written pieces. I have encouraged them to review the PhotoStory of softies made by students their age in the third last blog,  and keep it simple. I didn't take any photo as I was far too busy threading needles and sorting out some quite amazing knots. 

Also, after a hectic day,  I also now  know how to do a canteen duty at lunch and a supervision on the top car park after school,  which will be  my pleasure every Wednesday. Gotta love the fluro jacket! The ultimate fashion statement.

She'll be right - Tuesday 21st

Today we got off to a flying start. We read four more chapters of the class novel The Pinballs and students made their contribution to the being positive poster which will be displayed in the school hall later. They made a sign from shells and added one thing positive from the last week. A large number of students also learnt how to use a glue gun. The shells are from our very own beach at Blackmans Bay. My neighbour Sonia and I collected them last night and they were washed and bleached, hosed down and ready for use. O did a great job of organising the shells and also explained the task well  to classmates.

Students also started three lists of describing words about the main characters in the novel. This will be useful when they come to do the associated unit of work which goes with the novel. Students also had a punctuation exercise to do on an excerpt from the novel and they could work individually on it or in a mall group. We also watched the first part of the tele-movie based on the novel which helped reinforce some students' understanding of the plot, and the relationships the children in the foster home are beginning to form with each other.

After recess students completed a small skills test in mathematics and then did some reading.

In the afternoon, after three quick "riddle offs" where students learn about play-on-words (puns),  I introduced the Softies unit and shared what materials we have in the room. Any donations of cotton, ribbons etc would be greatly appreciated. Students have started their preliminary sketches of their monsters. Overall, it was a most productive day.