Happy Mothers' Day

Here's wishing all you Mums out there a very happy Mothers' Day this Sunday.  Your child has certainly been very busy this week in preparation for this event, and I do hope that you have enjoyed the books and craft creations that they brought home for you on Friday. 

Student of the week. 

Congratulations to Kaitlyn for being our student of the week this week.  She has started to become a real fearless little writer, confidently having a go at sounding out words for herself, or finding them from around the room.

The Maths Block

Your child may have told you about having Prep B with us for Maths one day last week.

Each member of our grade teamed up with a visitor and worked with them and showing them our games and routines.

They all did a wonderful job and everybody had a busy and successful time.

This week in Maths we have been focusing on the number that comes 'in-between' two given numbers.

Ask your child about how they completed this activity.

As you see the children were all busy little beavers working on this activity.

A big favorite among the children is 'Guess My Number'.

We have played this game for learning numbers that come before, after and in-between.  

Ask your child how we play this game.

We use these cards which focus on the number in-between to play our games.

The Literacy Block

This week we have introduced a new activity called 'making and breaking'.

The children stretch out a word 'on chewing gum' to hear the sounds in the word.

Using magnetic letters they make the word.

Next they break off the first letter, replacing it with a new letter to make a whole new word.

Then they start to see the relationship between words such as rat to cat to mat etc.  They start to understand that if they can read and write the word 'and' they can read and write sand and land etc.

Max and Tane, along with the rest of the grade, continue to do a wonderful job during our Guided Reading sessions.  The books that they read during this lesson are slightly more difficult than those they take home.  These books give them opportunities to learn more word solving and comprehending strategies.

I do hope that you enjoyed your child's Mothers' Day book.  The children were expected to be a lot more independent when writing these.  Putting words on chewing gum to hear their sounds, and then writing down the sounds that they heard.  We also introduced the word wall, where all the words that we have been learning to read are displayed.  If the children use any of these words they are expected to find them on the wall and copy them correctly.

Zara's Amazing Apple

Zara brought along this amazing apple this week.  It had one stem, that split into two, and then two joined apples, just like conjoined twins!

This is what it looked like inside.

Thanks for bringing that along to school Zara, it was amazing!

The Week We Went To Traffic School.

Welcome to our record of week 3, which has been yet another very busy week.

Congratulations to Archer whose great focus and work during our Maths sessions was recognized through his getting student of the week this week.

THE LITERACY BLOCK

This week the children have been making their own choices as to what they wished to write about.  We have been thrilled with their beautifully detailed planning, their ability to have a go at words before asking for help, and their skills in seeking out words from around the room.  If you call in to see their work, look first at their first entry in their book, then look at what they are doing now.  It's just amazing!

Max wrote, "I played footy.  I got a goal."

Aniston wrote, "I went to my next door neighbour's house."

Hayden wrote, "I am at ANZAC Day and I saw marching soldiers."

3 Card Puzzle Game

The children have been playing this game during the small groups section of the Reading Workshop.

It helps the children to stretch out a word as they say its sounds so as to be able to read or write the word.

The children are becoming more skilled with the process of hearing sounds in words, so ask them to demonstrate their growing skills to you.

TRAFFIC SCHOOL

Our trip to the Traffic school on Wednesday was decidedly the highlight for the week.

The excitement of travelling in a bus is always an excellent start and end to a great day out.

Prue Noble, who some of you may remember as one of Wangaratta West's wonderful teachers, is now the teacher at Traffic School. 

We learnt how important it is to have your helmet on correctly.  The strap needs to be just right, not too loose or too tight.

Then we were all ready to take off!

We thank John Coxhell for coming as a parent helper on the day.

Our theme this week is "Being Healthy and Keeping Safe", so this outing ties in very well.

We certainly got lots of wonderful fresh air and sunlight on this perfect, autumn day.

We learnt to stop and look before we zipped off to keep everyony safe.

 We learnt to give everyone their own space.

Nobody was caught speeding.

We certainly got lots of wonderful exercise.

We patiently waited for the crossing lady.

Sometimes those traffic lights seemed to take an age to turn.

We loved getting to the railway crossing when Thomas the Tank Engine was coming.

We negotiated the roundabout quite well.

There was no overtaking at Traffic School.

So patience and care was needed from all.

The traffic lights were great fun and everyone had to have a few goes at going through them.

We stopped half way through for our picnic lunch.

You may notice a green band on the children's left wrists.  These were designed to keep them on the left hand side of the road.  They had to keep the 'green' band closest to the 'green' grass on the left.

We need to say a huge "Thank you" to Prue Noble and her team of volunteers who ensured that we had a wonderful time at Traffic School, got lots of healthy exercise, and learnt lots of things to keep us all safe on the roads.

Beautiful, Big, Black Bats

We made these beautiful, big, black bats this week in craft to tie in with our sound of the week, "Bb".  The children certainly enjoy the 'spooky' look that they bring to our room.

Off To Northern NSW

While the grade was getting on with their busy week with Mrs Kate Hutchinson on Thursday and Friday, we went zipping off to northern NSW to my niece's wedding. 

Last week they had those terrible floods and damaging winds, and as you see when we got there the next lot of rain was building up, just waiting for the start of the wedding.

However as you see Tiffany still made a beautiful bride.

James and Tiffany made a lovely couple.

And despite the bucketing down of the rain we all had a wonderful time together.