Jess and Susan’s Class: Term 2 Week 3

Dear parents,

The highlight for this week was the fantastic excursion with Sophie from The Field of Mars Education Centre. The children started by learning what makes a documentary ‘good’ and then with a partner, they researched and wrote a 5 scene script about habitats. With these scripts in hand, we all set off into the bush to find the footage we needed. Having the iPads and scripts really helped the children to focus on the details around them and despite having been in the same bush-lands many times before, they were noticing so much more!

Sophie shared many insights about the bush habitats including information on the importance of insects like termites. Post production, including editing and voice over followed back at school and there was just enough time to play the final edits for each other. All the children were keen to share what they had made with their parents, so we’re developing some fun plans for this.

In maths we’ve continued working on strategies for solving addition and subtraction that utilise the concept of compensating or levelling on one side, or across, the equals sign. We asked ‘are there ways we can make numbers friendlier in order to solve the equation faster and pay back our adjustment later?’

Most children have either finished, or are very close to finishing, their sea myth now and these are being displayed on the classroom wall. There are some beautiful examples of imaginative writing from the children. And a few lovely examples of developing cursive fonts.

Our tadpoles are thriving and now have a new home in a tank that has been lent to the class by Susan. We’ll be keeping a close eye and adding rocks as needed when the tadpoles begin to grow legs.

And lastly, for a bit of fun, we have also started to sing sea shanties to finish our day!

Stay warm,
Jess and Susan