Jess and Susan’s Class: Term 2 Week 4
Dear Parents,
Thank you to Carolina for running a fantastic clothes swap event. The school was certainly buzzing on Wednesday!
This week in maths, we moved onto learning about fractions. Fractions can sometimes cause a little anxiety for children as we work with numbers that are less than one. We looked at equivalent fractions in fifths and tenth, and thirds and sixths. To strengthen fractions understanding requires repeated exposure to concrete ways of representing them. Folding/cutting paper, cutting cakes and sharing groups of objects into equal groups are all important, even at this age.
We also revisited position, cardinal directions and grid maps in maths, continued powering on with our PIPs, and revisited some learning from our Forces Shape the Earth’s Surface topic.
As part of this learning, we discussed First Nations stories connected to land formations, including the Rainbow Serpent and Gurangatty, the Great Eel Ancestor Spirit of the Burramattagal People of the Dyarubbin (Hawkesbury River). According to the story, Gurangatty carved out the river as he travelled across Country. The eel was an important totem animal for the Burramattagal People, and large gatherings and corroborees were held to trade eel with other clans. Now we know how the Parramatta Eels NRL team got their name!
Within our integrated unit we learnt about the Dutch East Indian Trading Company (VOC) and the first European contacts with Australia. On the iPads, the children had the opportunity to virtually explore the replica of ‘The Duyfken’ ship which was the first European vessel to reach Australia in 1606. It is moored permanently in Darling Harbour. We also read the story of Captain Bligh and the mutiny on the Bounty. There was lots of imagining and writing about how different and difficult life was on the sea in the 1600’s and 1700’s.
We were lucky that the weather cleared on Tuesday afternoon allowing us to play basketball with Michael. It was super fun! We’ve also had some class games, dancing, cubby building, chess playing and lots of craft!
Next Wednesday, the children can bring money to purchase treats from Joanna’s class bake sale. They are raising money to purchase an axolotl (and associated equipment) for their classroom.
On Thursday we will be attending the Sydney Writers Festival at Sydney Town Hall with Sarah’s and Meg’s classes. The buses are leaving school at 9am so it’s really important to have children at school between 8:30am and 8:45am. Please ensure children bring morning tea and lunch, a water bottle and hat, and appropriate clothing including enclosed shoes and a jumper if it gets cold. Children can bring money to purchase books of their choice if they wish ($25 should be enough).
Happy weekend
Jess and Susan