Week 9

Exciting times are afoot in M1! We have started delving into our personal inquiries and here are the main lines of inquiry the children have chosen to follow:

Places in our community:
1. Places for kids in the community
2.Outdoor places in the community
3. Places to relax in the community
4.Places to eat in the community

Help in our community:
1. How can we be of help to our families at home
2.How do people work together to make our school run
3. How are blind people helped in our community

So far, we have brainstormed our prior knowledge and had several groups interviewing and collecting data from their classmates, groups looking on Google Earth to locate outdoor places on the Coast and even google searching using key words like "places kids Hibiscus Coast". We will continue our great finding out for the whole of Week 9 so stay tuned!

In Reading, you might notice that your child may bring home a script for a simple play to practise instead of a reader one night this week. Putting on little plays in our class during reading time will become a regular part of our reading tumble this year. It's a great activity for 5 year olds as it requires them to follow along even when it is not their turn to talk, learn how to read a basic script, and add expression to their reading. Have fun taking on different roles at home. It's a great chance to get the whole family involved!

In Writing this week we are learning about writing about a small moment in our lives. This is an idea we will keep coming back to throughout the year. Often when you read a young child's story they try to tell you everything they did in a day, sometimes even carrying on to the next day, all strung together will a million "and then..." sentences. To help children produce better, more focused stories, even from the very early stages of writing, we teach children to think of their life in terms of a watermelon. That's right! A watermelon.
This week the children will learn that their lives are like BIG watermelons. To tell everything they did would make our story too big! Instead we need to slice the watermelon and find a tiny seed idea and then talk about just that part. For example- A day at the beach might be our watermelon topic, but having a wave wash away your sandcastle might be the seed idea. We zoom in on the seed idea and tell just about that part by adding lots of details.

In Maths, we continue learning about Symmetry through some fun maths stations, exploring what is and is not symmetrical. We are continuing to work on our addition and subtraction strategies, working towards being able to image simple addition and subtraction in our heads by counting on and back. 

Reminders: 

• This will be our last week for swimming as the pool is getting pretty chilly! 
• Kids-bring your bike again this Thursday for some more riding fun
• Remember library books for Wednesday
• Jo is at a course on Monday- Lexia will be your teacher
• Keep up the amazing spelling practise at home. It is really helping at writing time 
• If you are free on Tuesday or Wednesday afternoon and would like to help a little group with their personal inquiry, please let me know via email on jkember@wgp.school.nz . Looking for up to 4 helpers