Talk Time

We had so many great presentations last term during 'Talk Time' on Thursday.

Miles demonstrated and explained the procedure of making ice-cream in a bag what seemed like 'magic' to all of us. A great talk time topic.

The class couldn't get close enough for this presentation by Huw showing us some tadpoles and explained his experience and knowledge of their life cycle.

Building Bridges

3P is also busy building bridges as part of Technology and Design. Check this site out!

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/tech/build-bridge-p1.html

 We actually got 100% in this bridge challenge.

'Jump Strategy' for mental calculation

Maths: In maths we have been building up our skills in number so that we add numbers in the tens and hundreds.  Today I had many light bulbs in the class who could add big numbers in their heads using the 'Jump Strategy'. To get to this stage, students have practised breaking numbers up (3460 = 3000 + 400 + 60), knowing place value and counting forwards and backwards in 2's, 5's, 10's. These skills have helped us grasp the mental strategy of jumping by parts of a number to solve a calculation.

Henry showing his mental calculation on the whiteboard. 

(photo by Siena Bunton) 

'ROCKIN BEHAVIOUR'

'ROCKIN BEHAVIOUR'

Students in 3P are all 'Rockstars'. They start on the green 'Ready to Rock' each day. Depending on their behaviour and effort through the day they are likely to move up or down. Many children have demonstrated they are capable of 'Stella Performance' and have been able to move to the yellow. A few students this week have also moved up to the orange level which is well and truly on the way to being famous and get to sign the autographs board. Nobody yet has made it to 'Hollywood' but this status is pretty difficult to reach. The Hollywood board is still being produced :) 

When children make the wrong choices they move to 'Singing the Blues', if they continue to perform badly, they have to 'Speak with Management', this usually involves time made up at recess or lunch or the loss of a rockstar privilege. If the behaviour continues, students are basically asked to 'Leave the stage'. This means that the child must sit by themselves and complete their work and their parents will be contacted. Luckily nobody has had to leave the stage yet. 

Maths: This week we have been looking at place value and practising to write, read, represent and order 4 digit numbers. Here students are racing against each represent the number I put on the board.

3P in full swing

We have had a great first two weeks at school. Today we had our first two students stand up in front of everyone and do their 'show and share'. Rachael shared photos and video of a fishing trip with her family and her dog. She showed us the pilot whales and manta rays that she saw.  Tia decided to be a photo journalist and record some of her cats sneaky moves on the scratching tower her uncle made.

We started homework this week and almost everyone improved their spelling scores from Monday, with a few people getting 10/10. Well done. Our spelling rotation has been quite fun. Students have been making their words out of plasicine. This helps with fine motor skills and strengthening our fingers for good handwriting. Students also got to SAY, SPELL, HOP and WRITE their words outside on the hopscotch pad. We also wrote sentences and are practising alphabetical order.

Above top: Jake showing his never ending enthusiasm, doing a great job. Photo taken by Miles. 
Above bottom: The Baboon group also enjoying this task.

We have also been identifying strong verbs and descriptive adjectives and putting these into alliteration sentences. Eg: Dreadful Dylan danced until he died of dizziness.

In Maths, 'buzz off hairy legs' has been a bit of a highlight and otherwise students are learning how to order, represent, write and describe four digit numbers.

We have also been talking about Australia Day and what people think about changing the Australian Flag. Students have designed a new Australian flag and they will hopefully be on the window soon.

Classroom Rules. We have spent lots of time coming up with our rules, ranking them, agreeing to them and practising. Being PROMPT is our focus for this week. Ask your little ones what being 'prompt' means and I'm sure they will give you some good examples. We also have inspectors and noise monitors that keep everyone on their toes.