Edith's and Charmaine's class

2006 Term 4
22 November 2006
Charmaine's Group has begun their Christmas theme listing questions such as:

Why do people get presents at Christmas?
I want to find out about Santa and Jesus.
Why is it called Christmas and why is it on 25th December?
How do they do Christmas in India?
What makes red and green Christmas colours?
What did people, about a hundred years ago, do at Christmas?

Each child will be responsible for organizing, monitoring and tidying up a Christmas related activity over the next fortnight. This group is proficient in knowing how to present and teach an activity to others, hence the different focus from last year. Working on evaluation assessment for report writing I am amazed at how much each child has developed and matured!

Quick response math and problem solving tasks have progressed to become quite challenging, however we need to revise writing equations for these. Finding out more about measurement (cm m km ; ml L ; g kg) has been productive and, at times, messy! Reading packaging and getting to understand similarities and differences will be continued at home and at school. Much real life learning is lost in our current pre-packaged, rushed, credit card payment society.

Our Book Club has continued - with much enjoyment and great enthusiasm. This term each child was to make notes about a character, the story plot, type of language used and to share an extract from their book. Stuart was our guest at Camp and he was very impressed with the questions asked, opinions shared and the chocolate biscuit treat we had! Cathy continues to give us great updated book reviews from our library shelves and to encourage all with her passion for literature and literacy.

Dictionary use is now common and is being perceived, and used, as a valuable and interesting resource. Chat to us about how and why we use it. Jokes, rhymes and riddles are an ongoing fun way to learn about language idiosyncrasies, our new interest is in literal and figurative speech, especially in common sayings. I have a frog in my throat. She took his arm.

2 August 2006
There is an array of oddly coloured carnations, daffodils and jonquils in our room.
Why? Ask someone from our group for information and/or to see their science diary. Some interesting questions/comments have arisen:
- (this was challenged by L and C who chose deep purple).

We discussed topics themes for projects relating to sustainability. How we can make a difference, individually and as a group, to help our environment will be part of this topic. The group was left to negotiate with their peers as to who would like to explore a particular topic. Amazingly there was only one clash and they worked out how to resolve this - true Village kids!

Someone brought in the AIDA principle of advertising (Attention, Interest, Desire, Action) which helped to direct some children's thinking, particularly those who chose poster or magazine adverting. Others have been challenged by the 3 minute maximum for their TV or radio presentation. Most have had a wonderful time working on their product, props, refining their use of language and are coping with ‘constructive advice-critique' ( a refining process! )

Our Monday Milo Morning (opening our new reading area) was great fun and 'let's do it again' received a unanimous vote! So, we will be having a fortnightly Book Chat Meeting, when children book (!) in to share a blurb about a book they have read - naturally we will be having a delicious warm drink too! (It is never too early to start a Book Club.)

The art work task this term is to make use of at least one medium you have not used before, or felt comfortable experimenting with. The topic can relate to a book read, project theme, creative writing, Village School or one negotiated with the group.

Charmaine
19 July 2006
As a follow on to The Sustainable's visit, our group chose to look at packaging and quickly identified that it was 'advertising'. However, 80% felt that we did not have that much advertising in our lives, so we decided to investigate this. Edith's number line work was put to practical use when someone asked how long ago our serial read, 'Rowan of Rin', was written (1993). An interest in crosswords was sparked when I used this form to have someone revise their spelling of geometric shapes. What a fun, and unexpected, way this has been to encourage dictionary use! Innovative miming of a noun or verb (charade type game) is helping to clarifying these terms, increasing vocabulary and stretching our imagination! Everyone was quite proficient identifying different environments. Trees were identified as being needed for animal homes and food; no one knew how they might be important to humans – other than for paper. When drawing a leaf only one child added veins without knowing what they might be for. So we have begun to find out more - looking at the variety of leaves and trees in our school environment, making leaf rubbings, sorting and classifying leaf shapes and patterns, dissecting some and soon we should have some leaf skeletons to examine. Come and visit our room and our reading corner with its vibrant new mat, comfy seats, interesting books and, thanks to the painting done at the last working bee, bright new colours!

Charmaine

2006 Term 2
23 May 2006

Pictorial report: Hot Air Balloons Project

3 May 2006
We are looking at shapes, 2D vs 3D (flat vs solid) and the children are having an interesting time drawing, ruling, visualising (a skill that can be quite tricky) and making models of shapes using paper, sticks and modelling clay. We are also investigating "Air" and the children are involved in all sorts of experiments to further extend our knowledge about "What is air?" The Performance Camp is a topic of excitement and we are all looking forward to it and to the performance night. It is wonderful to see so much creativity!!!
12 April 2006

We have a wonderful time exploring a 'round robin' of maths based learning centres with the regular assistance of a few special parents (thanks Fiona, Susie, Vikki and Libby ...please, if anyone else can help on a Friday morning once a fortnight, let me know. Thanks) These activities include dice games for number facts and doubling, tangrams for shape, colour, patterns and position, counting patterns, board games, timers and the list continually grows. The aims are to have fun while developing automatic knowledge of number facts and a greater depth of understanding of mathematical concepts. Computer education is one of the activity groups that children participate in. So far we have investigated Kahootz and can now animate objects in their world and create a scene that includes them moving around within a scene using keypoint animation. Last week we commenced our touch-typing program. It is self-paced and encourages children to watch the screen as they type. This process helps them learn the position of the keys, improving their speed too. The kids look so professional as they wear the headphones and type while only looking at the screen. Break to lunchtime varies between active games outside, continuing with activities or program work and rehearsals. After lunch it's time for a story and something to follow up. After reading about all of the things a cute teddy called Corduroy " always wanted" we brainstormed things that they had 'always wanted'. Come and see the wonderful and often thoughtful pictures created.

5 April 2006

Handwriting tasks in our room vary over a week and per a child's current challenge. A sentence is on the whiteboard to be correctly copied. A second related sentence is then written unaided. Current spelling words may be written as handwriting list. An interesting sentence can be copied from a book or magazine, but… using the correct script. A good copy of any writing task can also be used as 'handwriting'. A recipe or shopping list can be done in their handwriting book -and photocopied to survive use! A joke, riddle or interesting piece of news can be requested for those who would like to copy this from typed text or the whiteboard.
Charmaine

2006 Term 1
8 March 2006

Come and see the range of Commonwealth Games hats, painted with 'Australian colours' (defined as colours seen here!) A pattern design was first sketched, colours tested and then the painting process began. The use of paint tape was introduced to achieve clear pattern lines and this is now being used on colour wheel projects. Their wonderful hats are the result of great effort, patience and persistence! Colour density and colour blending was investigated on paper, material and in liquid. The weather has helped one group successfully explore how the sun's heat affects the colour of paper, cardboard, fabrics, plants, photos and more. How are we learning about nouns? By becoming Marslings, who only speak in nouns, for 10 minutes each day, by playing games in Learning Centres, by having a go in 'quick thinking' challenges and through sharing at home. Great fun, great learning and no display chart needed! We are also discovering terminology for 'the young of' -what are the young of echidna, swans and rabbits called? Reading instructions for meaning has been an interesting and challenging exercise. As an adult we may be proficient when this is related to a personal interest, yet how many of us struggle when this is applied to new technology? Think about what skills are required to cope with instructional text and what are your problem solving strategies? Reflecting on learning (metacognition) makes up one third of what has been defined as 'intelligence'. We have laughed our way through two Paul Jennings books, Paw Thing and The Cabbage Patch Fib. The group decided to have a Colour Party this week. Each child wrote an invitation and listing a "food to share" colour, should be invitations were then swapped mmmmm… and yesterday we enjoyed a bus trip to Gooligulch!

15 February 2006

Our key question is, "What is Colour?" Many thought provoking comments and theories will be shared at a later date. A sub-question emerged: "In what way can we find out and learn about colour?' Some suggestions from the group were:
}} Making colours : We looked at a range of 'how to' books (recipe, science, magic tricks, building etc) and found concise instructions were the commonality. Each child wrote a brief colour 'recipe', then made and recorded a swatch. This should then be ably duplicated by another child. Next we will experiment with ways to alter this colour by changing or adding one 'ingredient' at a time.
}} Favourite colours : Each child recorded their 3 favourite colours and numbered these for identification. Results were displayed. As expected there were a variety of formats - geometric, target, linear. They were only now made aware that this information was to be graphed. Why? - because information will not always be presented in the same format (as it usually is in math exercises). After shared modelling of this concept, children worked in pairs recording either first, second or third favourite colours. Checking and answering questions about the information recorded was a challenging, yet worthwhile, experience!
}} Colours make patterns Children chose to explore this concept in a variety of ways - weaving rainbow strips, collage, drawing, painting, fabrics, in nature, looking at books. A set task was to colour in a photocopied tessellation pattern. A selected pattern segment was then cut out and placed under a parchment (see through) copy. This enabled them to see how a pattern can be replicated and to experience one way of simplifying a more complicated activity.
}} Learning colour words : it was almost unanimously decided that writing and/or spelling these is the best way to achieve this. Over a week each child would be resourceful and find 12 colour words (a range of math discussion ensued - ( 4 words x 3 days, 6 x2 days) and this could also be their handwriting task. They were responsible for practising Look, Cover, Write, Check on their own, or with a partner, and next week we will find out how effective this method has been. The overall, ongoing, goal is to encourage each child to become an increasingly independent and resourceful learner, one who feels encouraged to grow and to enjoy sharing in a non competitive environment.