A Big Thank You to Blackmans Bay Plumbing

Next week on Wednesday we will need at least 24 small bottles for the yeast experiment. I would like to give a big thank you to Fred and Tina Smith for their donation; it is greatly appreciated. The bottles will be used many times. Like I have said before everyone needs good neighbours...and mine are real gems. Now, better drink the water. 

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

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

"ei" and Microorganisms Jigsaw Puzzles

Today after assembly, House Meetings, Physical Education and Library students focused on their spelling. This week the letter group is "ei." Their homework tonight is to finish the spelling activities based on "ei". Eighty minutes was given in class and the unit explained.

 I also showed the students the microorganism jigsaw puzzle I made on the weekend. They will be making their own this week. Each jigsaw puzzle will have its own box, with a photo of the puzzle on the front and  an information panel about their chosen Marvellous Microorganism on the inside of the lid. We will be able to share this with our book buddies in a couple of weeks time.

Bacterium Proteus jigsaw puzzle

The puzzle in its box

The information panel

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 Buddy Assembly and more...

Today was a resonably productive day. We are now up the chapter 21 of The Pinballs. If students have missed any chapters they can borrow the book to take home.

Shuffling large cards is not easy!

Playing the place value game

Place Value Game

We had our second lesson on place value and looked at numbers up to a million. At the end of the written activity students played the game called Make the Number.

Following their weekly 45 minute music lesson, students read about Antonie van Leeuwenhoek and watched a clip about his life. Their homework tonight is to write up a recount. See the blog under this one for further details and the short film. Students have been taught how to use keywords when note-taking, rather than trying to write down cumbersome sentences when watching a visual text. Students can later create sentences from these keywords.

In the afternoon we had our first buddy assembly and the two grade six students who ran it did a superb job. Congratulations also to those five students in the class who received certificates. If students would like a copy of the Count on Me PhotoStory, which tracks the activities for the past two weeks, they need to bring a memory stick and it can be loaded on, along with the first PhotoStory made a week ago entitled Super Happy Fun Times.

At lunch time I worked with three boys to show them how to construct simple boxes. We will be making these in class to house our microorganism jigsaw puzzles we will be making next week.

Some boys learning the art of box making

Boxes which will house microorganism puzzles