Jess and Susan’s Class Week 5 Term 3

Dear Families,

Despite the rain, the children have had a wonderful Book Week. By Friday, everyone had adjusted their outside ways and got quite used to sharing the inside space and we ended with some fantastic cubby buildings, board games, dancing and imaginative play.

In English, the children imagined they were journalists from a town on the edge of the enchanted forest, tasked with finding out the real story that happened on that now infamous day. They decided who they should  interrogate and then wrote transcripts of the imaginative interviews they undertook with characters from Red Riding Hood. It was another creative way to learn about perspective and experiment with different genres and text-types. The children also completed their final versions of their letters from Wolf on paper that we aged with instant coffee and tea bags.

For Tuesday’s sports session, we continued with ball games. Since the rain kept us indoors, we turned the desks into table tennis tables (special thanks to Alana for her clever idea of using Magnatiles as the net!).  When the sun came out briefly, students also had the option to play basketball and pickleball outside.

On Wednesday, some children had the privilege of attending a thought-provoking visit from author Mayam Masters, who talked about her books and her childhood in Iran. She spoke openly about her family’s need to escape, offering a powerful and moving perspective. Meanwhile, other children were inspired by a comic workshop with Sioban. She guided them through how to create mini-comics/zines which the children continued to develop throughout the week. Always a crowd favourite!

On Thursday, we wrapped up our capacity topic by reading Mr Archimedes’ Bath and conducting displacement experiments as a group. We compared the volume of different irregularly shaped objects and discovered that the koala figurine had a greater volume than the frill-necked lizard.

In the afternoons, I’ve started reading the children traditional Grimms’ fairytales, beginning with Rumpelstiltskin. As expected, the children were surprised by the darker ending which led to some interesting discussions about how modern editions often alter the endings to suit contemporary tastes, demonstrating how stories evolve over time.

Happy weekend everyone!

Jess and Susan