The excitement is really building as our Arts Festival performances begins to take shape. It is very much still a work in progress but it is fantastic to see the children collaborating so naturally as they try to incorporate each other’s ideas into their creations. This week, we visited the auditorium for the first time to see where we will be sitting and to think about how we will move about the space, including how we enter and exit the stage! We finally found a mutually convenient 30 minutes to spend time with the Grade 11s and start working on what promises to be a very special collaboration...although finding the time to get together is proving incredibly difficult as they are super busy with exams! Maybe we'll have to throw some improvisation in there...
This week, the children have been creating their own individual squares for what will become our two friendship blankets. Initially, the children decorated the squares with a colourful “helping” handprint before adding symbols and patterns in black. At the end of next week, the squares will be sewn together (to make two blankets) and the finished pieces will be on display outside the auditorium on the morning of our Arts Festival...before being dispatched to their new homes at Happy Lodge and in the Kuma School in Cambodia. Next (short) week, we will continue focusing on our performances and will also start to work on our “costumes.” Thank you to everyone for sending in the t-shirts and denim bottoms.
The children are completely absorbed in our “Persuasive Writing” unit. This week, we explored the elements to include in our pieces to make them as convincing as possible. We have been thinking about good sentence starters you can use to get your opinion across, such as “I think…” “I believe…” or “In my opinion…” We have explored lots of ways to share our opinions-signs, adverts, notes, posters, reviews and, of course, letters.We then tried hard to include lots of reasons and even tried to incorporate a story to illustrate the point. With every piece of persuasive writing, the children are encouraged to include a “fix-it idea” and, of course, to remain polite throughout! We found that thinking about Oreos really helps!! Opinion, Reasons, Example, Opinion again! You might be interested to hear that more often than not the people they are trying to persuade in their writing is mum and dad!
In Reading Workshop, the children have continued to explore how “Readers Get to Know Characters.” We have looked closely at some familiar characters and tried to think of words that best describe them and the clues in the text and/or illustrations that tell us about characters. We are putting together a class eBook using Book Creator. It is called "K2BeM Character Studies" and it will, hopefully, be ready to share in the not too distant future. From here, we will start to think about how characters can change over the course of a story and how we feel towards them can change too.
This week, the children have explored surveys as a way of generating data. Everyone invented their own “yes or no” survey questions and conducted them across the classes. Whilst conducting their surveys, they were faced with a number of problems, such as what to do if someone is unsure and how to keep track of who you have asked. At the same time, the children have started to explore the concept of probability, thinking about whether it is “likely, “unlikely,” “certain” or impossible that something will happen and ways to represent and record this.
Reminders
*Please sign and return the Friendship Forms to school by Monday
*Public Holiday-Thursday 1st May-SCHOOL CLOSED
*Staff Professional Development Day-Friday 2nd May-SCHOOL CLOSED
*K2 Arts Festival-Friday 9th May 9.00am in the auditorium
Have a great weekend
This week, the children have been creating their own individual squares for what will become our two friendship blankets. Initially, the children decorated the squares with a colourful “helping” handprint before adding symbols and patterns in black. At the end of next week, the squares will be sewn together (to make two blankets) and the finished pieces will be on display outside the auditorium on the morning of our Arts Festival...before being dispatched to their new homes at Happy Lodge and in the Kuma School in Cambodia. Next (short) week, we will continue focusing on our performances and will also start to work on our “costumes.” Thank you to everyone for sending in the t-shirts and denim bottoms.
The children are completely absorbed in our “Persuasive Writing” unit. This week, we explored the elements to include in our pieces to make them as convincing as possible. We have been thinking about good sentence starters you can use to get your opinion across, such as “I think…” “I believe…” or “In my opinion…” We have explored lots of ways to share our opinions-signs, adverts, notes, posters, reviews and, of course, letters.We then tried hard to include lots of reasons and even tried to incorporate a story to illustrate the point. With every piece of persuasive writing, the children are encouraged to include a “fix-it idea” and, of course, to remain polite throughout! We found that thinking about Oreos really helps!! Opinion, Reasons, Example, Opinion again! You might be interested to hear that more often than not the people they are trying to persuade in their writing is mum and dad!
In Reading Workshop, the children have continued to explore how “Readers Get to Know Characters.” We have looked closely at some familiar characters and tried to think of words that best describe them and the clues in the text and/or illustrations that tell us about characters. We are putting together a class eBook using Book Creator. It is called "K2BeM Character Studies" and it will, hopefully, be ready to share in the not too distant future. From here, we will start to think about how characters can change over the course of a story and how we feel towards them can change too.
This week, the children have explored surveys as a way of generating data. Everyone invented their own “yes or no” survey questions and conducted them across the classes. Whilst conducting their surveys, they were faced with a number of problems, such as what to do if someone is unsure and how to keep track of who you have asked. At the same time, the children have started to explore the concept of probability, thinking about whether it is “likely, “unlikely,” “certain” or impossible that something will happen and ways to represent and record this.
Reminders
*Please sign and return the Friendship Forms to school by Monday
*Public Holiday-Thursday 1st May-SCHOOL CLOSED
*Staff Professional Development Day-Friday 2nd May-SCHOOL CLOSED
*K2 Arts Festival-Friday 9th May 9.00am in the auditorium
Have a great weekend
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