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.

What a week we’ve had!

The children really did themselves proud last night when they shared their knowledge about their country with you. It was great to hear all the positive comments! As parents you all did a wonderful job of helping your child through the process of an oral presentation, prompting them with questions – some of them quite tricky!! I believe this is an important part of PYP, and a skill that your children will certainly develop and become comfortable with over time.

Our next Unit of Inquiry is ‘ Field to Table’. I have added a page down the left sidebar under the PYP page. It has lots of web resources as well as all the information you need about the unit. We will be starting this unit next week and hope to begin our Veggie Patch next Thursday. I’m ordering the stuff that we need tonight Thanks Mr Bayly for helping to fund this…and for helping to organise the preparation of the site!

The children really enjoyed all of the science activities they were involved in this afternoon, and most had some interesting things to take home. Thanks to H’s Mum who came and helped me run the 4 activities in my room. I would have loved to share photos with you – but I was a bit busy to take photos

Next Tuesday is Bee Safe on Bikes. Children will need to bring their bikes to school in the morning. We will park them under the verandah outside our room.

Next Friday is Grandparents Day for Book Week -  the theme is Book Safari and we are encouraging all children to dress up to celebrate. They can dress up as any book character (or movie if you get stuck!) but we discourage Superheroes as the children can get a bit too excited and silly.

Currently I have 3 helpers for the trip to the market – the yellow note that went home on Wednesday night. I would love to have at least 1 more so that we can form groups of 5. Ideally I would like to have 2 or 3 more volunteers to form groups of 4.

Thankyou all for returning your notes so promptly – I know that it has been a really busy time lately and it certainly helps me a lot if I don’t have to chase notes!!

I will be out on Monday morning (Janita will be taking the class) but I will be in at 12.

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.

To celebrate Science week all of the year 1-2 students are participating in a special science afternoon this Thursday. The children will be able to choose 3 different activities across the 4 classes. We have also got some special activities planned in the technology/ science room for the whole school to expereince in class groups. It should be a fun and exciting week!

SOS – I am still seeking helpers for Thursday afternoon!!! Please see me if you are available to help.