Learning about 2D shapes

In our Prep space as you know we have 4 prep grades - (Kinder in The USA).

 

This week we decided to share our children in Mathematics.

 

There are 4 groups and I have the "'Crabs" - we are working on 2D shapes and what makes a 2 D shape.

 

We have been using Rainforest Maths - which is a website program designed by an Aussie and is absolutely brilliant for all Primary Grades - a resource worth exploring. If you subscribe to Matheletics it is part of that. But you can buy it as a stand alone program.

 

This group are exploring the sides, corners and size of sides and using their knowledge to use shapes to make pictures.

 

We are looking at different triangles, rectangles, squares and circles and what makes them these shapes. We are using them to make pictures as well.

 

We are gathering evidence for reporting and this assessment is ongoing for our planning.

 

Next week I have the turtles......

 

Day in May

There was yellow everywhere today.

 

It is a Day in May and we wore yellow to show support for childhood cancer.

 

We helped to raise money for the Challenge Foundation, they are a non profit group that assist children with cancer. 

 

Our students danced at lunch time, read this morning as part of our normal routine .

 

I love that our 'Kid's Voice' organises this to raise awareness of the plight of others.

 

A little empathy and kindness goes such a long way and coupled with some fundraising we have a continued sense of caring in our learning community.

 

It is so nice to think of others.........

Measuring length

 

At the end of last week we did some measuring of length and comparing.

 

Part of our new curriculum suggests that this task will help teachers to assess what our students know.

 

We needed to roll out two snakes - this was our first hurdle and we had to learn how to do this. We assume too many things sometimes! So we had to learn how to make a rolled out snake.

 

They needed to make a short snake and a long snake.

 

Then they needed top sit them on this page and then go and find objects from around the room that were the same length as the snakes.

 

I needed to have conversations with them about the choice they were making about objects.

 

The students then needed to draw the objects they found.

 

My anecdotes now indicate which students are at the expected level, which ones are above and which ones need support to get to the expected level.

Walk to school and crazy shoe day

We try to promote a healthy lifestyle and choices at school and one way to do this is to have a walk to school day.

 

Our Assistant Principal promotes this in our school community and we have students who help promote it at assembly and make posters and encourage walkers.

 

So we teamed it up with crazy shoe and/or sock day.

 

There was a parade at assembly, recognition of student craziness and parent support.

 

As the children walked to school they were also given a big sticker and a cup of fruit salad.

 

Here are just a few photos of shoes and socks.

 

We were even mentioned on our local radio station. They asked that drivers be extra careful when driving as more students were walking to school today.

 

Plus - what was going on at our school as we seemed to have changed our school uniform overnight!

 

Love the combinations of craziness.

Calendar Freebie

My Daily Bulletin Board has been a freebie in TPT and has had heaps of downloads. With my USA buddies winding up for summer break, you may want to look at it for your new classroom. In Australia with our National Curriculum, I have found this to be really useful in addressing days of the week, measuring time and seasons. I have also used it to address some science outcomes when using the weather pictures.

 

Robyn came to visit

Robyn is a grandmother to one of my Prep boys and she came to visit and work with us to explore lines in art with pastels. 

The Preps had so much fun exploring words to describe the movement of the pastels. 

They came up with twisting, turning, smudging, angry.....

they then got to make their own marks and can't wait to try their new skills in Discovery Learning.

How exciting are their efforts.

Daily 5 - word work

A short post tonight.

We have been having so much fun while doing word work this week. 

These magnetic letters have been helping us to learn out sight words. 

We use our 'best fit' words from our M100W. 

We make our words and then show a buddy who checks them while we read them and make sure they are correct.

We are also loving play dough words for the same reason.

Who can tell the time?

Telling the time is a basic life skill and yet so many students struggle to do this correctly. 

I have put together a unit of work that builds up concepts about time to allow them to build confidence and skills while be engaged in great tasks that are best fit.

There are 156 pages of tasks - the tasks will help connect days of the week to familiar events, help describe duration of months, weeks, days and hours, use calendars to identify dates, days and important dates, tell time to the hour, half hour, five minutes time, write time to nearest minute and measure time in minutes.

At last - images are done

I have been working on this concept for a few weeks and now have it ready. So now our blogging friends from around the world can see where we are from.

I have mucked around with buttons, grabbing code and it all looked rather cumbersome on the side of my blog.

So I have decided to go with photos resized with the help of photobucket and linked back using the 'add image' on blogger dashboard.

This has now contained the images on my AUSSIE BLOGGER page and makes it all neat and tidy.

So calling all Aussie bloggers to link up and thanks for those that already have.

Copy these buttons for your blog and add them as an 'image' in 'gadgets' to link back to this page.

Don't forget to add your own link below so that visitors to this page can see where you are from.

Now to get back to the reports I should have been writing this weekend. I still have a few weeks, but I like to get on them as I prefer to come back and read them at least twice before they get uploaded.

Discovery Learning and counting

I absolute love Discovery Learning for so many reasons.

We started this task to show the setting for Goldilocks and the Three Bears and somehow ended up counting blocks and bears.

I was more than happy to have this task take a twist as I heard two boys counting beyond 36  and 59 for the first time.

It is also a great time to assess Interpersonal Skills for students.

As well as speaking and listening skills.

Volume and pitch of voice and word pronunciation often leads to incidental conversations about how to say certain words.

This is so important as then we write about what we do, and if our pronunciation is incorrect our words will be recorded incorrectly when we sound them out.

I get to listen, watch and participate in a play situation and often see a different side of some students.

In our shared Prep space we do this for half an hour a day, tasks are specific and directly related to our Inquiry/theme.

Budding Blog

Jess at http://iheartrecess.blogspot.com.au/ is hosting a lovely linky for people who have less than 200 followers. The questions she asks are

1. Why did you start blogging?

I wanted to keep track of my learning and the learning of my students in a digital format. I started to do this for me and now have learnt so much from other bloggers.

2. What is your favorite subject to teach and why? I teach Prep in Australia (Kindergarten in USA) and love maths, English and everything else. I also coach teachers and coaches in my school.

3. Describe your teaching style. I love Daily 5, Inquiry Learning and with a colleague we are setting up a new maths program that will incorporate all of the above.

4. Give three interesting facts about you.

- I love to travel with my daughter - she is 15. We have been to Malaysia x2 and Bali x2 and love it! My husband and son don't want to go so we leave them behind. They do guy stuff.

- I have a shoe and bag fetish and have taught many groups of kids that you can have enough shoes and handbags!

-  I am fascinated by great coffee and great wine.

5. Do you have a TpT store? If yes, post the link :) I do have a TPT store - http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Paula-Shaw-1910

Skip counting



                    What a week

- we have counted

- we have added 1

- we have added 2

- we have skip counted

- we have doubled

- we have recorded strategies

- we have subitised

- we have trusted the count

- we have counted on from the largest collection!  

We have used my Counting on 2's unit

and

also Shanyn - Coffee. Kids and Compulsive Lists - Gingerbread Counting to consolidate our maths work.

What a week, but boy what amazing strategies we now have in our tool box.

New links for Aussie Bloggers

I have been working on these buttons for Aussie Bloggers.

I have a page on my blog where Aussies can link up and other bloggers can see who is blogging in Australia, state by state, territory by territory!

For the bloggers who are not Australian this is a great way to see what we up to and to grab ideas for seasons 6 months ahead - how organised can you be?

Most Aussie bloggers also have TPT stores and we value the work done by our blogger friends all around the world.

A few of us get a little envious about the great blogger meet ups you have in the USA and this may lead to some happening here for us.

I often think a little big - but how amazing would it be if a blogger from overseas was visiting Australia and hooked up with some of us and vice versa.