Sarah’s Class Week 3 Term 1

Hello everyone,

I hope you’ve all had a nice week. We’ve had a good time together, but there have been a lot of children away unwell. I am truly hoping the lurgy passes soon, and no more children fall ill for a while at least.

We continued with our Soundwaves spelling program this week and looked at the sound ‘b and bb’. Another unit complete! I was away on Monday, so Sarah D re-read a beautiful book “Tree” to the children while focusing on its descriptive language and words. The group then colored, cut out, and used their own words to describe a leaf, which we attached to our cardboard ‘tree’. We moved on from trees and have started addressing ‘Recycling’ and the 4 R’s: Rethink, Reuse, Reduce, Recycle. We watched a video on Kimbriki—the place we will visit for our excursion in a few weeks. On that note, thank you to those parents who have offered to drive us there; we now have enough! Tuesday, 11th March, we will leave school at 9:30 am, drive to Ingleside where the site is located, and be taken on a tour of the garden. The guide will explain what happens at Kimbriki and show us the worm farm and recycling area. We will have time for a bite to eat, then leave at 1:00 pm to return to school. I might try and move our swimming to the Wednesday morning of that week, so we don’t miss out.

Instead of Personal Interest Projects this term, I am taking a more structured and scaffolded approach and have given the children a topic to start their research. The umbrella topic will be Recycling, and in small groups, the children will look at paper, metal, clothes, glass, plastic, and electronics to find out how these materials are recycled and what comes from them. I am hoping there will also be an art component to the project, which will be presented with their information at the end of term.

For our math, we’ve been getting through a lot this week. The children have been completing worksheets on Numbers. This has been giving me a clearer idea of where they are all at in their knowledge and ability to problem-solve. Also this week, we read a story about a runaway Iceberg and then sequenced the story for comprehension. We talked about why the Iceberg might have broken away and how this relates to climate change and the importance of understanding more about how we impact the earth.

And I think that’s it for us this week!

Love, Sarah