Saturday 24 June 2017

Week 9

Kia pai tou tatou Matariki!  Happy Matariki (Maori New Year) everyone!

This week we will be learning more about how to use inference skills in reading. In week 8, the children watched some of the Pixar short films I shared in last week's blog and offered some incredibly insightful ideas about the plot and theme of these movies based on what they inferred from the clues given by the film makers. This week, we will concentrate on applying this same thinking to our readers. What does the author infer, but not directly say? 
How do I support my child in making inferences?
While reading with a child, think carefully (perhaps more than you are used to) about what you or your child are reading.
  1. Pay attention to the places where you know what is happening, how a character is feeling, or why an action happened but the author did not explicitly state it
  2. Pause and consider what evidence you used in the text and what you already knew to make the inference
  3. Ask questions to help lead your child to use text evidence and his/her own knowledge and life experiences to make the inference.

“What did the book just say?”
“What does the picture show?”
“What just happened?”
“When you feel [character emotion], what do you do?”
“What did it mean when [event] happened at school?”


The children are busy publishing some of their work from the term this week, so there will be a lot of revising and editing going on during writing time. 

In Maths, we continue developing our foundation skills for multiplication and division. We will also be weighing items and comparing objects by their weight. 

This Week:
Monday - Library
Thursday - Hannah in for Jo
Friday: No full school assembly 

Sunday 18 June 2017

Week 8

Your little writers have been so busy in M1 that many of them are coming to the end of their first writing book and graduating to a big writing book! To graduate, they are proving that they can be neat and organised with their writing. the children are really rising to the challenge! Their book are heading off to be bound this week- a process they are very excited for. They can't wait to share their professional looking nonfiction books with you soon. 

In Maths, the children have been working hard to understand and apply their knowledge of skip counting by 2's, 5's and 10's. They are learning about making groups and then skip counting their groups like: 
5 groups of 2 
  can be counted: 2,4,6,8 10  or 2+2+2+2+2=10

In Reading, we are going to learning to infer information from clues given in the story. 

We will be watching some short films by Pixar to help us learn about inferring before we being applying these skills to our reading. We will  be watching these clips as a class and talking about what we understand is happening in the story from the clues given. 




This week: 
Monday- Library
Tuesday-Hannah in for Jo instead of Thursday 
Thursday- M1 Social MBG 7:30pm 
Friday- VLC Sports rotation, Passion Friday & Assembly 

Tuesday 13 June 2017

The Queen's Bed

Lately there has been a lot of interest in measurement. Since lining up for our class photo in height order, the children have been enjoying  comparing themselves to each other. Today we explored the idea of standard versus nonstandard measurement. Level 1 Maths involves the children using a lot nonstandard measurement units like: How many plastic bears weigh the same a a book? How many hands long is the table? Today we engaged in a provocation that helped children to see that it is important to have a standard way of measuring.
We read the story of How Big is a Foot? 
Here is the story version and an animation of the story if the children want to read or watch it at again home: 



The story is about a King who wishes to invent a bed for his Queen (before beds were invented) He has the Queen lie down and then measures around her using his feet. He discovers the bed should be 3 feet wide and 6 feet long. He passes this information on to is young and extremely small apprentice to make. The apprentice, using his own feet, measures a bed that is 3 feet wide and 6 feet long. We stopped reading at this point and tried it out Here are my apprentices making their own feet to help them measure a bed for these queens :










The apprentices lined their feet up and we taped the size of the bed onto the floor: 


The Queens got in to bed ...


Oh dear. Too small!
We discussed why the bed might be too small. At this point nobody twigged to the real reason . They had suspicions that the Queen's crown might be this thing causing the problem. 
We read the rest of the story. I told them that I just so happened to have a copy of the King's foot at school. The apprentices then attempted to make the Queen's bed using the King's foot. 

The bed came out just the right size for a Queen (crown included) .
The children were able to explain that the apprentices feet were much smaller than the King's just like their feet were all smaller than the King's too. We linked this to the need to have a standard way of measuring things which is why we use rulers and tape measures today! 





Sunday 11 June 2017

Week 7

It's hard to believe it is Week 7 already! M1 has been so hard at work that that time has flown by.

This week we are gearing up for our personal inquiries. The children have begun posing their own questions relating to change. This week they will circle back to the Finding Out stage of our inquiry model and do some further research to help them build knowledge and gather information relating to their own question.

In writing, we are concluding our first nonfiction books by adding in a few fun pages like; How-to pages, fun facts pages, Different Kinds of... pages, Maps etc. The children are learning about a special page all about them- an About the Author page  and are completing a simple contents page and glossary when applicable. We hope to share our amazing books with you in Week 10.

In Reading, we are updating our reading levels this week. The testing takes time (about 15-20 mins per child!), so there may be one day this week where you child brings home a book from their pick box instead of one they have read in a guided reading group. We will get back to business as usual as soon as possible .

In Maths, our inquiry into early multiplicative thinking skills will continue. Our skip counting by 2's, 5's and 10's will be getting a real workout- with backwards skip counting being exercised too!

In PE- we continue with our striking skills this week. On Friday last week, we started our VLC Friday sports rotation. The children spent the morning in mixed teams participating in hockey, netball, basketball, dodgeball and soccer skills groups. They had a wonderful time and learned some great new skills. We will be out again this Friday, weather permitting for more VLC fun.

What an amazing assembly we had on Friday with so much talent being showcased. They played a beautiful song called Paradise  that was new to most of the Year 1's as it has been learned in previous years. We will make it a goal to learn it by the end of the year.

Soon we will be celebrating Matariki at school. Matariki the Maori New Year, is rich with tradition. Discover the importance of Matariki here, and explore ways that you can celebrate the Maori New Year with your family.  Matariki is officially celebrated on 25 June 2017.

This Week: 
Jo at Team Leaders Meeting before school Monday- I will be in class as close to 8:30am as possible
Library Monday 
Hannah Thursday 

Parents Social 22 June at MBG- Hope to see you there! 

Have a great week.
Jo 









Monday 5 June 2017

Week 6

I trust everyone had a wonderful long weekend. My family took in the sights of Tauranga and the Mount.

Week 6 is a short week, but we will be sure to squeeze a lot in! Hannah's day is changing to Tuesday this week, so I will be in the room on Thursday instead.

This week, we are starting to think about, and pose our personal inquiry questions around change. We will be reflecting on all the reactions we have caused and wondering about how altering the methods, ingredients or quantities might change the reaction.

In Writing, we are wrapping up our Nonfiction books and getting them ready to share with an audience. We think you will be amazed by the way the children can write to inform.

In Maths, we will be learning about the concept of multiplication by making 'sets of' materials. The children will be grouping materials into equal sets and telling about their sets using the sentence- "I have _ sets of _. There are _ in total. " e.g I have 3 sets of 2. There are 6 in total. At the emergent level, children will count all the materials in their set to find the total. As they progress through the stages, they begin skip counting to find their total, use repeated addition or arrays to hep them solve multiplication problems.

In Reading, we continue to focus on asking questions, before, during and after reading to strengthen our connection to the story or remember information in the books we read. 

In PE we will be working on our striking skills, together with the underarm throw. We will join together with out VLC team on Fridays (weather permitting) for rotations of skills and drills to benefit our range of winter sports. There will be netball, basketball, soccer, hockey and dodgeball skills to begin with. 


Have a great week everyone!