Welcome to our busy world.

Welcome to our busy world.

Saturday, 28 March 2015

Sequencing and Graphs

SEQUENCING


During our last week of this first term in Prep we have been working on our skills in sequencing numbers 1-15.  


Playing this game with a partner Tane, Archer Kayden and Hayden all had to quickly recall numbers before and after the first and last number in the sequence.



Once Jasmine, Katie, Max and Shayla had sequenced all 15 numbers, they mixed up the cards and played again.



Ethan, Kaitlyn, Ryan and Jaxon showed us all how quickly and easily they completed this new game.



Great work Gracie, Aniston, Maddie and Cooper.


GRAPHS


The children are doing a great job with their work on gathering data, (information), and representing it in different graphs.


Kayden and Kaitlyn roll the dice to discover which number comes up most often as they roll their dice.




Ryan and Archer recorded each roll in a graph, and then discussed their findings.





Sunday, 22 March 2015

Week 8, Another Busy Week.

Another busy week comes to an end.  Only one more to go before the start of the school holidays.  Don't forget that we have Parent / Teacher meetings after school this week.  Check your child's reader cover for the reminder notice of your appointment time, which came home on Friday.


MATHS


In Maths this week we have continued with a very busy time.  We continued our work with data collection about our grade, which we made into class graphs.  We discovered that most children come to school by car, and nobody came by bus. 



We discovered that more children in our grade have blue eyes than any other colour.


We continued our work with measuring.  Using the Gingerbread Man's family we discussed:
·        Who is the tallest?

Who is the shortest?

We ordered tallest to shortest

   We discovered who would be first?

Who would be second? Third?


We measured our arms, legs and whole bodies with streamers.



We matched dotted cards and fingers to the correct number.  Some of us are starting to become very quick to see that 9 can be made of 3 lots of 3 dots, or 6 dots and 3 dots, or even 5 dots and 4 dots.


Some very focused work here by Maddie and Aniston.


 We have been looking for patterns in numbers and learning to fill in a grid using numbers and pictures.  


 Here Zara and Jai are working with Mr Krake on counting, matching and writing their numbers.

LITERACY


More of the high frequency words have come home this week.  These are words that we have been working on in class for a while.  Create 2 piles of words, ones that are known by your child, and others that they are working on.  Just add a couple of the trickier words at a time for your child to focus on if they are finding these words hard.  Don't give them too many or this time will be hard and totally unrewarding for either you or your child.

 This week we used play dough to make our words.  Gracie, Jasmine, Ryan and Tane did a fantastic job here with the word 'can'.

We put shaving foam on the tables and the children had to write their words, with their finger, in the foam.  This was great fun for us all, and certainly got our hands and the tables very clean!


The "Fly Swat Game" is another which the children enjoy playing.  In this game we are practicing our high frequency words.


We have been writing our 'Pattern Books' this week.  We are already on our second book. The children are doing a wonderful job with these books.  They are really enjoying the feeling of success as a writer as they churn out the pages in their books.



Here we are sharing our best pages with the grade during reading circle time.  This gives the children a real audience for their writing.  It also offers them an opportunity to share some of the clever things that they do as writers.

CRAFT


Here are our Crazy, Colourful Crocodiles, which echo this week's focus letter 'C'.  Note the improvements in scissor skills and colouring!


FRUIT

I had the joy of having a birthday this week  Those of us who have yet to discover that one never asks the age of someone well over 21, were thwarted with the answer to such a question with, "I'm as old as my tongue, and a little bit older than my teeth!"  Points to Tane who guessed that I must have reached the advanced age of 21!  I see a future as a diplomat here for Tane!  

Anyway back to the point of this.  Mr Krake, the kitchen gadget king, got me an apple cutting and coring gadget.  This has proved to be a great hit in the room, and we have seen a steady increase in apples and pears coming to school each day, which certainly is a good thing!




Tane was so impressed he brought an apple and a pear!


The children love the flower effect of the pear.


It certaily makes munching through those apples a quicker job as Mia and Max found out.



Ryan enjoying his apple too.







Saturday, 14 March 2015

Library

Some of you were as lucky as me, having the privilege of listening to the talk by Mem Fox, on the enormous value of reading to children.  



She certainly stressed the value of reading to children from birth, and we as teachers, do see how much it boosts their reading success as they become more aware of how books work.


Prep C is so lucky to be directly attached to our wonderful library.


Therefore it is easier for us to change the children's library books every day, before school.  


So if your child brings along their library bag, they will be able to choose a new book each day before the morning bell.


This will then give you an opportunity to read to your child every day too. 


Eating Time

Eating time is the most important part of the day to most of the children.  




It is a very social time when they relax and chat while eating those wonderful healthy snacks that you pack for them.



Our first eating session is after our Literacy Block and starts at about 10:45.



This is when we eat our healthy sandwiches.


Lunch orders do not arrive until after play, at 11:30.  We continue our eating after play.  


Our next eating session is before big play at about 1:20 pm.


The children get to eat whatever they choose during this session.