Mrs Bryan’s Bright Bunch

Over the last few weeks groups opf students have been working with our librarian on topics related to My Body, My Job. They have been identifying key words in text, then using these to compose brief oral reports to the class. On Thursday the last of the students presented theirs to the class. All students did a really good job, and it is great to see their growth in this area over the year. We’ve come a long way from morning talks that involve bringing a toy from home!

We are now starting our new Unit of Inquiry into Energy. See the outline and the links on the new page in this blog called ‘Energy’.

As you know I was absent last week as I was looking after my daughter after her oral surgery. She is now much, much better and I thank all of you for your good wishes.
On my return to school on Thursday I received an email from the Education Department’s Curriculum Manager in Science, inviting me to be part of the Primary Mathematics and Science Strategy. This entails training from Monday to Wednesday during week 7 and will be based on Primary Connections Facilitator Training. This Strategy is very new and will roll out next year, extending to 2013. This is a great opportunity for someone from our school to be involved and after much discussion with Chris, (mainly over the lousy timing of the course,) I have accepted.
I have put a little information below, but if you would like to find out more then head to this link:
http://www.scimas.sa.edu.au/scimas/pages/PSMS/Intro/?reFlag=1

“The Primary Mathematics and Science Strategy aims to achieve sustainable, system-wide improvement, in student learning of mathematics and science, from Reception to Year 7 in South Australian public schools.”

What a busy time we’ve had!!
In the last couple of weeks we have been lucky enough to have 3 guest speakers. The first was L’s Mum, a doctor, who talked to us all about the digestive system. We all had a turn at listening to our heart, lungs and stomachs with the stethoscopes that she brought. The second was Bev’s daughter, a physiotherapist, who spoke to us about the skeletal and muscular system. Last week we had R’s Dad, a dentist, who talked to us about what dentists do, food that is good for teeth and what to avoid, and cleaning our teeth.
Thank you so much to those people who gave up their time to come and share their knowledge with us. We’ve certainly learnt a lot!
Small groups of children have been working with Mrs Robertson in the library, learning all about key words and research. They then do a mini oral presentation to the class about what they have found out over the 3 lessons. So far they are proving to be of a high standard. Well done!

Last Thursday the ladies from Grab 5 visited again. This time we made apple pancakes (which tied in really well with German Day the next day). They were delicious and those of us who were open minded and risk takers tried them with natural Greek yoghurt and honey. YUMMMM
On Friday we had German Day. The children did a fabulous job with their performance based on the Very Hungry Caterpillar. After recess we made paper mache ‘luftballoon’ lanterns to celebrate St Martin’s Day, a German celebration in early November on which our Coro traditional Christmas lantern march is based. Hopefully at least some of them will work out
Hope you enjoy the pictures.

Welcome back.

Our vegetable patch is beginning to take shape. Hopefully we will be ready to begin planting early next week.

In maths we have been looking at symmetry and division. The children have made a variety of symmetrical patterns as well as trying some tricky symmetry problems and in writing we are currently experimenting with writing a puppet play.

On Thursday we were visited by the people from the Grab 5 program. They talked to us about the 4 things that we need for a healthy body – healthy food, exercise, sleep and water. The children then sorted foods into the 5 food groups and made a healthy eating poster. This program will run for 5 weeks, culminating in a cooking activity. The cost for this program is $5 which will be deducted from the excursion fund. Look for the slideshow of their work in this blog. Also, don’t forget to check out the online activites for My body, My job. I have put a heap of links on the relevant page in this blog.

Coming up in a couple of weeks is the visit from Music is Fun Band. They have been visiting our school for several years and the children always really enjoy their performances. I’m not sure of the cost yet, or whether there is enough left in the excursion fund to cover it, but will let you know when I know.

Don’t forget that we are having an ICT sharing evening on Tuesdayat 6pm, where your children will be sharing their e-portfolios with you. This is a collection of their work throughout the year, mainly PYP, that they have put into a webpage format. Many thanks to Jonathan for his help in computing throughout this year   Please bring along a USB if you would like to keep a copy of their work.

I hope you are able to enjoy at least some time off with your children these holidays We are certainly having some lovely weather at the moment, which gives us lots more options for things to do!

Bev and I went down to Victor Harbour on Monday to check out our camp site and meet with the manager. The camp itself looks very well organised and exceptionally clean. Their facilities will be great for kite making, with a big indoor area to make as well as a huge open space outside to fly them!!

On the first day of next term we are hoping that the equipment for our class Veggie Patch will arrive. Hopefully it will be ready for planting on the first Wednesday back. If you would like to help out by donating a punnet of fast growing veggies or herbs (lettuce varieties, carrots, parsley, tomatoes etc) we would love to hear from you We hope to use some of the vegetables in our next unit of inquiry ‘My body, my job’.

If your children are bored why not encourage them to visit some of the links on our blog? There are many links for our units of inquiry, as well as lots of games. I have recently added a page on our next Unit of Inquiry – My body, my job. Of course, I recommend that you visit these with your child, at least initially so that you know exactly what the sites that they are visiting have on them.

Don’t forget that the first Monday back is a student free day as all teachers are participating in a training day on ‘Inquiry’.

Enjoy the rest of your holidays…see you on Tuesday week

Well, we’ve had a busy start to the week with cooking on both days so far!

Yesterday we made fruit skewers and pancakes. The children particularly enjoyed the fruit skewers, with one child who rarely eats fruit telling me that he really liked it!!!…a breakthrough perhaps?

Today we had a true science experiment moment when we tried to bake bread. The dough hook came apart from the mixer, consequently the first loaf did not bake at all well!! However we persisted and problem solved what went wrong and the second loaf worked out very well We also made butter to spread on the bread…the photos show the amount of effort the children put into the shaking of the jar!

Yesterday we experimented with shadows and light. You migh still be able to see our recording on the netball court! We also investigated how to make a shadow disappear. We did this inside using torches.

Today we began planning the Vegetable Garden that we are going to make outside our classroom. This links with our next 2 units of inquiry ‘ Field to table’ and ‘My body, My job’. On that, we are looking for a milking cow close to the school that we could visit to see it being milked. If you know of anyone who could help us with this please let me know.

We will be practicing presenting our country information at our Country Expo tomorrow ready for tomorrow (Wednesday) night. I look forward to seeing you there.