Room 4 @ CPDS

Yesterday we got talking about how there are only 5 weeks left of school before the Christmas holidays, which naturally got us talking about the holidays, end of year and celebrations. The children began offering many great ideas for what we our end of year celebration might look like. So we decided we should do some party planning. In groups of four, the children addressed the questions: - Where might we have our party? - When might we have our party? - What might we want at our party? - What might we want to do  at our party? - What might we need to do to plan our party? It was great to roll with an idea that was relevant and exciting for the children. As a result, everyone was engaged in the process and working together to come up with, share and record their ideas. Stay tuned to see how the party shapes up!

We've been learning about fractions! Watch the slideshow below to see how we put our knowledge of halves and quarters into practice to cut, spread jam or butter, and eat our pikelets. * Pause on Slide 3 to watch video

In Term 3 we had our first learning about narrative writing. Narrative stories are made up stories, and we used Fairy Tales as an example.  We began by looking at Goldilocks and the Three Bears . We broke down the story into parts to understand all the elements of a narrative: title, orientation, characters, setting, problem and solution.  Then we worked together to create our own narrative as a class. We practiced coming up with ideas and drawing or writing them into our planning template, and then using our plan to write the story in sentences. Next everyone had a chance to come up with their own narrative story. After making a plan for their writing, some children wrote their stories and some are transcribed from oral storytelling.  Enjoy!

Word Rumble can be a fun way to practice spelling and build fluency in writing. In class, children use a whiteboard and whiteboard pen but they can use any writing materials (and I mean any - get creative!).  If you're working together, you can facilitate by showing each slide for 5-10 seconds while the children write. At first you might allow longer, eventually you can see how quickly they can write the words. At each slide, the child should  say the word, then write the word, saying the word as they write it. Alternatively, it could be an independent activity. The children move to the next slide when they have finished writing the word. Below are sets A-E. "Let's get ready to rumble!"

This group has been learning how to count on to solve addition problems. We have been trying to move from using materials (physically counting our fingers, the numbers, etc) to using imaging, where we count and keep track inside our head.  While we were practicing today, two other great strategies were used: "tidy numbers" and using basic facts. "Tidy numbers" is where the smaller number is split to take the biggest number to the nearest 10. For example, 9+5 could be worked out as 9+1+4. A child might use basic facts in a problem like 12+5 because they know 2+5=7, so 12+5=17.  When children know the answer to a question, we will always ask "how did you know?", "why do you think that?" or "how did you figure it out?" This builds metacognition (thinking about our own thinking) and benefits others in the group because they can learn from each other.   .    .    .