BLOG archive: Term 2

DEH and DEI: Term 2, 2008...  

 

TERM 2:WEEK 12

Phew! What a long term that was!
 
We finished off the term with some fun, watching a couple of episodes of Lazytown and using the show as a bit of a theme throughout the week, with a focus on sports-candy (fruit and vegetables) being great for giving us energy.
 
For poetry, students were delighted to study the lyrics of Lazytown's theme song.
If you want to sing along,
 
Just in case you desperately want to hear another popular song from Lazytown, here is the Bing Bang song.
 
*Special bonus for DEH and DEI...
If you want your own personalised Superhero Certificate, use the "Contact us" button to contact Mrs Hunt and she'll whip one up for you... yep... even in the holidays.
Remember to include your name and ask your parents if they mind providing an email address so it can be sent back to you.
 
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Here we are enjoying some fun time in the Soundhouse. DEI and DEH usually have separate times, but we piled in together this week...
 

 
 
 
 

TERM 2:WEEK 11

 
 HUNTEDWEB had its 1000th visit!  
Mrs Hunt can barely say "thousandth"!
Can you?
 
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We went on an excursion to the art gallery - the National Gallery of Victoria.

Have a look at our word cloud. DEH and DEI brainstormed a list of words that sprang to mind from the excursion, then voted on the ones we felt were most significant. The more popular the vote, the bigger the word appears...

 
We saw the stained glass ceiling in the great hall, then made our own stained glass windows at school.
A huge thanks to Jack B.'s mum, Norma, for the NGV photos...
 

 


We talked about Picasso's Weeping Woman...

 

 

 



The bus is half the fun! 
 

 
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We made some "Groovy Glasses" in our fine-motor groups. Here are the grade 1 students from DEI and DEH modelling them for you...
 
 
 
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We talked a bit about the Mona Lisa and looked at these sites on the IWB...
 
 
 
 
 
 
Then we tried drawing our own portrait illusions or warped portraits.
 
With an adult's help, you can upload your own photo and warp it here (must be less than 500 KB):
 
  
 

TERM 2:WEEK 10

Following on from recent themes of Day/Night and Light/Shadows, we focused on SEASONS this week.
Tip: The names of days and months begin with capital letters, but the names of seasons do not!
(Unless being used as a heading/title or at the beginning of a sentence.)
 
With many resources on the internet coming from the UK or US, we are constantly talking about the differences between the countries, especially some words used. Recent examples include spellings of colour/color and mum/mom. Also that autumn is known as "fall" in America. In fact, we went to use a website to look at the months of each season, but it wouldn't let us put the months in the correct spots, instead insisting that winter begins in December!
 
Some children sorted out summer and winter clothing here.
 
Some children wrote some describing words here. 
 
 
We worked on a huge tree, which was split into four parts to represent a season each. We used collage to clothe some characters to display with the tree.
 
We sang a SEASONS SONG, with many parents gathering to listen on Friday after assembly.
 
 
Children in blue reading groups (DEH and DEI) used Kidpix to make some winter drawings...
 

 

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DEH and DEI have been joining the rest of the junior school (prep-2) for the last couple of Thursdays to do some Italian-style dancing in the courtyard. Our simplified version of the Tarantella:
 
- bend at the knees (x4)
- kick (x4)
- clap (2 claps on each side - right, left, right, left)
- side-step (x4)
 
Then do it all again! Oh... and we don't forget to bow at the beginning. Click the pink play button to hear the music and practise our dance!
 
 
If that doesn't work, click here.
 
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There's been more of subtraction and time in maths. We tried the Tikkabilla Clock (Look in the "Maths websites" section).
 
We used a theme of tenpin bowling for subtraction. Each time someone had a bowl, we all wrote down the subtraction number sentence to represent the original number of pins (10), number of pins knocked down, and pins remaining. Why?
1) Making a number sentence
          e.g. 10 - 7 = 3 
from a real world situation is an important step in using mathematics in everyday life.
2) Practising to add/subtract numbers that make 10 will help with mental calculations.
 
Having a turn...
 
 
 
7 were knocked down. How many are left?
We wrote: 10 - 7 = 3 

 


Here are some grade 1 students having a turn of Pinky's Bowling.

Can anyone beat Patrick's score of 285?

UPDATE! On 16/6, Patrick raised his score to 330!


THE WAR IS ON! On 21/6, Ben E scored 366!


Hmm... time to show these boys who's boss! Mrs Hunt is going to start practising...

Oh dear! An email just came through from Patrick... he scored 373 an hour or so after Ben's high score!


Yee-hah! Mrs Hunt has beaten them both with a score of 396!


Oh no! Patrick sent a most unwelcome email saying that he has now managed a score of 448! Mrs Hunt gives up!






And Bowling Alley Subtraction was great for the IWB then our own turns. Here are some girls working on these subtractions together...

 

 
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We're looking forward to our next 2 weeks! 
Week 11 theme - The Art Gallery; Art; Using colour/design in art to show feelings.
 
Week 12 - LazyTown! Healthy choices/Life Education. See "Teacher Messages" for more information about Lazytown.  
Some video clips have been added recently.

 

 

TERM 2:WEEK 9

We learnt about the letter "y" making different sounds, and watched the "Y can be a vowel" movie. 
Think about the letter "y" used in these words: my, baby and yes.
 
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DEH enjoyed reading "Franklin in the Dark" together.
Children might enjoy reading the following script at home (or having it read to them), even thought we used the large picture book in class. Script for "Franklin in the Dark". 
 
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The main focuses for maths were subtraction and telling the time.
 
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We learnt more about light and colour this week. For poetry, we used the poem "My Shadow".
 
We tried to think of words to rhyme with "light" and "dark".
 
Light is important for safety. We discussed the use of lights in traffic lights. Some students played "Traffic Control 2".
 
 
We looked at the coolest photo album - an Infrared Photo Album!
 
A great little animation showed us "What makes a rainbow?" Watch it at home!
 
In small groups, we went into the teachers' storeroom and turned off the lights, then used torches to bend the light on a CD and make rainbow colours on the wall...
 

 
Please remember to write to us! We'd love to know that people are reading our blog! There's no rule that says you can only write once. Tell us what you think. Make suggestions, if you have some.
 
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TERM 2:WEEK 8

[Added later: We checked out www.timeanddate.com to see what time it was in other parts of the world, using "Search for city". For more fun with that site, go to Useless dates related to your birthday and see when your next birthday is in terms of thousands of days or billions of seconds!]

Wow... Week 8 already! The term is flying!
 
What a fantastic week we had - learning about light and shadows, day and night.
 
We watched a video about day and night. Here it is in small form, but keep in mind that our segment only lasted up until the 3-minute mark. DAY AND NIGHT VIDEO
 
We loved our time investigating shadows in the courtyard. DEH stuck some "shadow sticks" to some paper and kept checking on the shadows throughout the day. The shadows moved and grew longer!
 
And these are things we looked at on our IWB:
 
 
 
Part 1 of this: SHADOWS.
If you want a challenge, go to the SHADOWS website above and try Parts 2 and 3.
 
DEH and DEI students paired up and drew an outline around each other's shadows using chalk. After assembly, we stood in the same spot... WOW! The shadows had shifted and grown longer! Ask us why! (Keep in mind that some of us are yet to investigate the questions asked by Chris:
"How does Earth just stay there floating in space?"
"Yes, but where does the gravity come from?"
 
(This is when Mrs Hunt let the children in on a special teacher trick. When we don't know the answers, we say: "Fantastic! What a great question! Can you see if you can find out the answer then come back and tell us what you've found?")
 
Here's another website to show a bit about shadows: SHADOWS OF TIME
 

 
 

TERM 2:WEEK 7

COLOUR DAY was wonderful! All preps, grade 1s and grade 2s dressed up in colours and made a human rainbow...
 
 
 
DAD'S DAY was a great success, with many fathers being able to visit classrooms or enjoy a picnic lunch with their children. Those children who were unable to have a "significant male" come and visit still enjoyed having male figures around!
 

 
 
 
 
Some dads managed to take a day off work to spend the day at school...

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No, these DEI girls are doing maths, not dancing! They are seeing how many jumps they can do in one minute. How many do you think you can do? See how close your guess is!...


 

Check out what some prep boys are doing on the computers...

 
 
DEI and DEH love getting together for songs, games and learning in front of the IWB...

 


Grade 1 girls enjoyed painting cards for Mothers Day...



Good fun with the puzzles! These children look like they'll have them finished in no time...



Grade 1 boys enjoying the dress-up! These dress-ups have replaced our kitchen play equipment. The junior school grades rotate play equipment, and these boys are having a great time...



Working hard on handwriting...



 

TERM 2:WEEK 6

Here are some photos taken recently...
Here are some online activities that were used in the classroom:
 
 
 
 
We looked at the digraph "ch" and worked in pairs to do this puzzle.
 
 
PAINT BRUSH MATH (colour by adding)
 
 
 
 
 
 
A couple of students tried their hand at:
DARTS (advanced addition/subtraction).
 
 
A few children are doing work with a
This is better than a 1-100 square as it:
- keeps all of the 20s, 30s, 40s, etc. on one row each
- helps with the concept of zero
- assists children (a bit later on) with rounding to the nearest 10.
 
Quite often, a number ending in "5" (such as "45") creates confusion. Should it be rounded down to 40 or up to 50? The 0-99 chart shows that we need to round it UP to 50 so we keep things fair. That way, numbers 40-44 round DOWN to 40, and numbers 45-49 round UP to 50. If we split a 0-99 chart straight down the middle, this is illustrated more clearly.
 
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Grade 1s focused on capital letters and full stops in their writing. For more practice at home, print this worksheet. 
 
Go to the following link and try each Starter Activity, the Main session and the Plenary:
Capital letters and full stops.
 
 

 

TERM 2:WEEK 5

Grade 1s played an adding game called "Up the Mountain". Our bear counters had to race up one side (numbered 1 - 10) and back down the other side to win!
Players took turns rolling two dice. If you are on a number 5 and going up, then you need 6 to be able to move up a step to the number 6. Your roll would have to either include one "6" or equal a total of 6... so  a "4" and a "2" would work! 
If you want to try it at home, print out this gameboard and fill in the numbers! Start at 1. Number 10 goes at the top, then count down to 1 again.


 

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We haven't forgotten Mother's Day! Here's a sneak preview of our craft... mess, that is!

 

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We've been learning about colours and we made gorgeous colour wheels.


Chris: "There are all different colours on one wheel."
Ben: "We made colour wheels using primary and secondary colours."


For something about colours you can try at home, click here.

 

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DEH and DEI love going to the Soundhouse on Thursday afternoons. Each child has a computer each for the 45-minute session.
For the last couple of sessions, they've had some great fun exploring the activities on offer at HUNTEDWEB. Some favourites seemed to be "Train Trax", "Tux Paint" and "Create a Ride".

Students were very keen to try out the new maths games during our maths lesson.


Adnan: "We played new maths games and we learned about maths, like pluses and minuses and numbers."
Ben: "We put some new games into our website. There are three new maths one and they are very cool and wicked!"
Jack B: "We learned about the game where you have to add the numbers."
Chelsea: "I like numbers because they're fun to count with."
Emily P: "Miss Yates beat Mrs Hunt at AddemUp."
Dale: "Mrs Hunt won."
Mrs Hunt: "That's right, Dale!"

 

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This month's VALUE is self-awareness. We talk about our individual strengths as well as our areas for improvement. An important thing to realise is the positive part we each play in others' self-perception.
Darrien: "When we were doing maths, Ayden said to me, 'You're doing nice work.' I said back to him, 'You're doing nice work too.' "

 

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Britney could barely concentrate on her work on Thursday! She was so excited about her new cat, Tigger...

 

 

 

 

 

                

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We've been learning about digraphs. "About what?" we hear you say. A digraph is simply two letters representing one sound. Some examples are sh, ch, th, ar, and ow. We looked at this on the IWB: http://www.starfall.com/n/skills/sh/load.htm?f
and the children sang along to a digraph song with the message that:
"A digraph only makes one sound
although two letters are hanging around."

Each prep paired up with a grade 1 to work on a "sh" puzzle. Here's a finished one by Laura and Gemma...



 


TERM 2:WEEK 4

Ella: "We had an incursion this week. It was called "Streetwise" and we learnt about littering."
Ben: "We learnt not to throw rubbish around."

"There was a frog in the show. He swallowed some rubbish and he had to be revived to make him better."

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DEH and DEI finished our "Sound" unit off with a "sound scavenger hunt". We went around the school to find 10 sounds and mark if they were loud or soft. We heard things like: a plane; other children; a trolley with squeaky wheels; and the office phone...

 


Here is an example of our recording sheet - by Rijja...
  

 

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Prep children branched off with Miss Yates and made their own "Turkey Counters" by pasting numbers 1 to 15 in the correct order to decorate the tail.
These ones were made by (clockwise from top-left): Daniel E, Britney, Laura and Luke...

 

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Grade 1 children talked with Mrs Hunt about odd and even numbers and our observations about our house numbers and our next-door neighbours. Do you live in a court or a street? It makes a difference! We made our own streets showing odd- and even-numbered houses on opposite sides.
These are by Lili (top) and Jack D...

 

 

 

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We all looked at what "alphabetical order" means - talking about dictionaries and what to do when the first letters are the same, as in "dog" and "duck". Some children practised tracing letters and pasting them into alphabetical order; others wrote 'colour' words in alphabetical order.
We looked at these websites on our IWB and children later had a try on the computers (click on the pictures)...

 

Letters:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Words:

 

 

 


 

 

 

  

              

               

 

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Students discussed what "maths" is. Is it just numbers? We began a reflective journal. Students completed a self-assessment to determine what they like about maths; what they dislike; what they would like to learn; and how they believe they can improve.  

 



TERM 2:WEEK 3

DEH and DEI just love singing and moving to the Tweenies "Copy Me!" karaoke song in front of the interactive whiteboard (IWB)...

Student comments:
Daniel - "It rules!"
Darrien - "I like the part when you do Hot-2-3-4."
Emily - "We like the part when the girls says Ay-yay-yay."

 

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DEH and DEI are enjoying a little competitive spirit in our "Race Around Victoria" challenge. Laps of the oval's fitness track are being totalled into a collective distance for each grade. This distance is mapped onto Victoria to see how far we would have run! Miss Yates' grade has been doing very well!

Student comments:
Gemma: "It was fun!"
Adnan: "I like to run."
Arianna: "I like to run around Victoria and it gives us exercise."

 

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While we were in the eLearning corner of the IRC, the students used KidPix to create a picture that includes their name and various objects that make noise. Ayden and Patrick created some interesting ones...

Student comments:
George: "They look nice."
Ella: "We did animals that make noise."

 

          

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We've been learning about colours in Italian. Can you guess which colour each of these is?

"verde" was worked on by Britney, Shayan, Darrien and Jayson...

  



"rosso" was worked on by Adnan, Chris, Luke, Zac, Emily P and Emily M...

 

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Dale and Elise made some great pictures to show ways of making 10 in addition. Dale shows 5 and 5, while Elise's picture shows 8 and 2...
How many ladybugs are there altogether?

 

 

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Daniel used his reading skills to reconstruct a story he'd read in reading groups...

 

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Jack B and his reading group showed that they understood talking (quotation) marks and speech bubbles when they converted a book from text/picture into a cartoon-like series of pictures with speech bubbles...

 

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In maths, some of the things we've been learning about are numbers and addition. Some children have been developing their understanding of numbers 1-10 or 1-100. Some have been practising their maths using some computer challenges:

 

LAUGHS AND GIRAFFES counting (easy)

http://www.kented.org.uk/ngfl/games/giraffe_v5.html

 

SUM SENSE addition cards (medium/hard)

http://www.oswego.org/ocsd-web/games/SumSense/sumadd.html

 

BROKEN CALCULATOR (hard)

http://www.mathsnet.net/puzzles/broken/broken-calculator.swf