Big Apple, Little Apple and other riveting things...

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.

The Persuasive Text and Maths

A busy day, home at last after a long staff meeting. Mr Matt Stafford and myself will be co-ordinating the school student council and hope to have our first meeting next week.

Today, in the classroom, students wrote up their persuasive texts about the use of animals in warfare. They were given 50 minutes to plan, write and check their finished copy. I have collected them and they will receive an assessment which I will share with parents at the upcoming parent/teacher discussions along with other assessments and the social progress of the students. Most students were given their interview times today but other with a number of siblings will receive their times tomorrow. I am still short  9 responses from parents; hopefully they will come in tomorrow as these discussions will be very informative and productive.  Below is the criteria the students are being assessed on for the persuasive writing they did today:

Comments will be made on all of the above. Hopefully we will do another text about the pros and cons of mobile phone ownership in a few weeks. 

Following this we learnt how to play two place value games to increase students knowledge in this area and to help them further understand the concept of regrouping. These games are located in the back of their large scrapbooks. It might be interesting to ask your child about these games. Some of the music option students (woodwind) didn't get to play the Race to 1000 game as they always go for their lesson at 12-00.

In the afternoon we had silent reading and a number of students went to guitar and choir and grade 5 woodwind. The remainder either went to a rugby clinic which was held on the oval for upper primary students or published some of their written drafts, or stayed and caught up on some work because they were behind. We now have five operating computers in the room and are expecting one more in the near future.

The new withdrawal (ex-Science) room is starting to come together and at recess I managed to recover the display board, and move some furniture around. Some of the grade six boys assisted me in placing some shelving in the room  and cleaning stickers and mess of the walls, thanks guys! There will be two computers in this area and an animations area where students can make and photograph their creations soon. Science will have to be a major focus next week where we will be looking at mould and the conditions it needs to grow.

Tomorrow morning their will be an ANZAC Day display in there. Students will be looking at a range of picture books which focus on primarily Gallipoli, and the wars in which Australia has been involved. In pairs students will be designing and promoting their chosen picture book to create a persuasive poster, which will cover some of the components of the visual literacy aspect  of the Australian Nation Curriculum.

Half of the of the class has now read the novel Storm Boy. Keep the four books circulating please. 

Writing Persuasive Text, The Lorax continued...

First up today I read students Krista Bell's book Lofty's Mission as a way of introducing the ways in which animals were use or abused in warfare. The book is fiction, but in Australia between 1942 and 1943, during the Second World War, home breeders like Charlie Morris donated more than 13, 000 baby pigeons "squeakers" to the army to be trained as messenger pigeons. Several Australian birds won the Dickin medal for bravery. We also looked at some non-fiction accounts and examples of the ways in which animals were employed during the major wars Australia has been involved in. Students will be writing a persuasive text either in favour or against the use of animals in warfare tomorrow. Today they were also provided with a structure to assist them.  This ties in with all the work we have done on emotive texts and use of rhetorical questions over the last three weeks.

Structure:
Introduction
– include a statement to give the author’s opinion
– preview important arguments
– engage the reader’s attention
Body
– include a series of paragraphs
– give a new idea or argument with reasons and examples to support it in each paragraph
– use persuasive language
– use quoted or reported speech
– use cohesive language to link ideas between paragraphs
Conclusion
– restate the position of the writer
– sum up the main arguments
– include request action to be taken by the reader (optional)
– do NOT give any new information


We then view a short film clip from Behind the News on sniffer dogs used to detect bombs.   We revisited the idea of using keywords to take notes.

http://www.abc.net.au/btn/story/s2214523.htm

After lunch we read some factual accounts of animals being used  in warfare in terms of transport haulage, communications, morale boosters, and as live weapons. We also spent a fair bit of time looking at how to do a good search on a topic and to question sources without adequate citation or from trustworthy websites. Tonight students have been requested to do some further reading on animals in warfare and to explore their arguments ready to write their persuasive text in a 50 minute time frame first up tomorrow morning..

The Lorax was also back on the agenda and a generous amount of time and guidance given to look at the similarities and differences between the original version of The Lorax and the Hollywood adaption. Students will be expected to continue working on this tomorrow night as part of their literacy homework. 

We watched the trailer again to refresh their memories and looked at IMDb the Internet Movie Database.

Maths will be a major focus tomorrow.

Big day out and an extension of the room!

Today was a fabulous day and I was so proud of the way the grade 5/6 students looked after their buddies and sat with them on the bus and in the cinema. I might add it was also one of the quietest bus trips to and from a venue that I have ever had.  The Lorax was not disappointing and it will provide for some interesting discussions following the Easter break. A big thank you to Rachel who came on the excursion with us. 

The biggest surprise of the day which awaited us when we returned was the mysterious sign that Easter Bunnies Hayley and Arnold left for us on the Science storeroom door. The darlings had spent all their free time whilst we were away on a secret mission (not even the boss knew about) cleaning and moving gear from the Science and general storeroom which adjoins our little classroom so we could have a bigger classroom. I might have to rename the blog The Now  Not So Little Classroom up the Back. There are a few shelves and spare ceiling panels to move, and after Easter the students can help me set it up as a withdrawal area, recover a display board and set up an area for shooting our animations and doing lots of fun creative activities. I am so excited about the new space! There are new desks coming soon too.

Students also did very well on the words with silent letters. We also had time to run through the assessment rubric before we left for the cinema. Students had their usual music lesson as we were able to swap it into the early morning block. 

After lunch I handed out the reports and we practised our assembly item. Then it was off to assembly. I hope everyone has an enjoyable Easter break. Congratulations to those students who received certificates in assembly today.

Literacy Day and music options

Today was a full on literacy day with students coming and going to music options from 12 o'clock onwards. Mr Stafford's extras who came in for the afternoon were very well-behaved.

First up was Spelling Bingo, followed by 40 minutes where students finished off their responses to the newspaper editorials. The focus was on the use of rhetorical questions in the letters to the editor.

We then focused on personification. Personification involves giving human qualities to objects or animals. The work is in their Writer's Notebooks. We will be sharing the purpose and some of the aspects of this literacy book tomorrow in assembly.

Distant waves hushing...

The tower clock coughed, whirred and struck three.

The tail light blinked three times and died.

After recess and daily phys.ed students all read their pages of  the fable,The Lorax, to recreate the story a second time. The students were asked to concentrate on their posture and their delivery, paying attention to expression and clarity. There were some sterling performances and a few average ones as well. After this students completed their what, who, why where, and when notes in their Writer's Notebook. This will help them do their book reports. (synopsis, character study, and messages) Much more depth will be required when we do the Storm Boy film report after Easter.

We then looked at an example of a  synopsis (summary of the story) and discussed characterisation (physical description, personality, motives) and the central messages of the original Dr Seuss version of The Lorax. Student only had to choose only one of the two main characters to concentrate on. Some are doing The Lorax and others are looking the Once-ler.  Those students who fully applied themselves and didn't have a lot of music options should have finished the first drafts. They have literacy homework tonight to neatly write up or publish these into their presentation A3 card folded into booklet form. The second half of the card is for after we have viewed the adaption we are going to see at the cinema tomorrow.  Students will be examining  the similarities and differences between this Hollywood production and the original book by Dr. Seuss after the Easter break. We were going to do our last half an hour of t-ball but many students were out for music options, and I also decided that some of them hadn't really pulled their weight in the afternoon.

We also read the review of the latest adaption of The Lorax  by David and Margaret on the At the Movies website and then watched the trailer.

Assessment rubric each student will be given tomorrow. Assignment due one week following Easter.

By the way, here is a rebuttal of The Lorax called  The Truax sponsored by the logging industry and published by the National Wood Flooring Manufacturers' Association, which is worth looking at:
http://www.stuartflooring.com/downloads/truax.pdf

The Lorax, Writer's Notebook and more subtraction

Today was a full on day with no students going in and out of class. Crack the whip!  First up students were given  a copy of the cover of The Lorax by Dr Seuss and asked to do either a See, Think, Wonder Y chart or a Talk to the Picture on it. These visual organizers are pasted in the back of their Writer's Notebook.  We then shared our ideas and watched the animation adapted from the book. On Thursday we will be viewing the latest adaption at Village Cinema with our book buddies. Students have been given a couple of pages of the book each which they will read out in turn to recreate the book (a second visit if you like after watching the above animation). I noticed some of the texts were still in tote trays at the end of the day so those students must be confident with an off the cuff delivery  tomorrow. We  also discussed the use of personification and alliteration and assonance in relation to the text. After lunch students used the What, Who, Why, Where formula to further explore the animation. This will be continued tomorrow and used to assist them write a synopsis (summary) of the film, a character study and a discussion of the main messages the film delivers. The homework night for finishing this literacy activity will be the usual Wednesday slot. 

After recess, it was a maths focus, beginning with three Guess the number games, and then a lesson on mixed numbers as many students weren't sure about this concept. It was then time for Monster Grid 9. The subtraction lesson from Friday was then continued. Students were paired up and used the MAB to assist them in their understanding of regrouping.  Students only had  homework if they did not quite finish this activity, I will be collecting them tomorrow morning.

The afternoon started with Quiet Reading whilst I helped students scan their Marvellous Microorganism jigsaws. Some of these are outstanding. We still need to make some more boxes to house them in.  And then, as stated before students continued with The Lorax study.

Respect,Twister, Spelling and other things

This morning we had the usual 35-40 minute whole-school assembly where students listened to a story about respect, applauded birthdays and shared ideas on respect. This next month the whole school focus will be on respect. Following the assembly students and I went to the scheduled Japanese lesson where students learn the name of everyday school objects and how to play Twister in Japanese reinforcing their knowledge of colours and body parts.  Then it was Daily Phys Education,  P.E., Library which took us up to the lunch break. In the afternoon, as usual. we tackled spelling, this week looking at words with silent letters. These will be tested on Thursday.  Some students were publishing drafts into top copies and two were doing the subtraction lesson they missed on Friday. Students are learning to scan and print out a copy of their Marvellous Microorganism jigsaw puzzles. Tick off another part on the ICT checklist. One student presented his persuasive text which he didn't have prepared from last week, and received two peer assessments and a teacher assessment.  All these assessments are housed in the portfolios under the Smart Board. Students received back their Science books complete with assessments on the last four Science lessons. WB = Working Beyond, AA= Age Appropriate, WT = Working Towards. All spelling corrections were added to their ISL cards. A few students who finished early went on with their Softies. Monday done! The timetable will be adjusted after Easter so I have the students more in the morning blocks.