Amelia's Rainy Report

Today PSSA was washed out and the only sport on was swimming which meant everyone got split up for the last hour and a half of the day. Before recess we had buddies in the library. We read books to each other and had a great time. There was a change of plans for where we were split while Mrs Taylor went to swimming. We are going to Mrs Smith's room. Today it's Alex's last day. 

Abby's Amazingly Adorable Exposition

Summer is better than winter because in summer you can swim in your pool or go to the beach with your friends or family. When I go to the beach I build sandcastles and play tips on the beach. When it is really hot i go to the beach but the only time I go to the beach is when I am at Noosa. At the beach I play in the waves and sometimes go for a surf with my cousin. Sometimes all the cousins which are Joel, Patrick, Harry and I play in the shallow waters together. We also catch sand crabs on the beach. We also get ice-cream if our mum lets us.

I also think summer is better than winter because if you have a pool you get to go for a swim if it's really hot. In the pool you can play with your pool toys or you invite your friends over and you can also do hand stands. At summer time you are in the pool which can be refreshing. In the pool YOU CAN MAKE A BIG SPLASH. If you have a dog and it's summer time when you are going for a swim your dog might jump in with you and that will make it more fun if you have your friend to. If you had a pool and it was the start of winter it wouldn't be as fun because you can't go in the pool with your dog because it would be cold.

The third reason that I like summer better than winter is because summer goes for much longer than winter. That is better because you can do way more fun stuff in summer because there are more places to go in summer because of the hoildays. You can get chocolate for longer and Mrs Taylor would really like that. You also can go in your friend's pool and you also can go to the beach and get dragged along the sand and in to the water on your boogy board. I like being pushed in the pool with my friends and if you have a dog you get to wash them which also means getting your dog wet.

Summer is the best season because I think you can do the most things like swimming, going to the beach and doing slip and slide. Summer is when it is really hot but you can still do alot of stuff and that's what makes it fun. All the other seasons are fun but summer is the best because you can still do sports that are winter, spring or winter sports. If you have a pool and its heated you could turn it off in summer time because it is really hot and you would want it to be a bit cold because you want it to be refreshing because it's really hot. Then you would turn the heat in your pool back on at winter because if you wanted to go in the pool at winter you would want the heat on because it would be cold.

Swimming Carnival by Millie

At the swimming carnival I had lots of fun and I am sure the rest of the class had  fun too. I'm in Fraser and it is the green house. I wore a green t-shirt, shorts and a crazy green wig! I went in three races yesterday, 50 metre backstroke, 50 metre freestyle and the junior relay. My team did really well but I'm not sure where we came in the race. 

The bad part of the day was my mum was playing the music and she put 'Sexy and You Know It' on. It was so embarrassing. I liked that my mum was watching all my races and how she took me home early to get McDonalds. At home my mum got me a dart board. It is a magnetic dart board so it is super safe even though it is called a dart board and it has the word dart in it.

Beginning the week on Tuesday

After a big day at the swimming carnival yesterday we are only really starting our week today - Tuesday. The first part of the day was 'reading groups' in Mr Smyth's class beginning with another 'super six' comprehension strategy. We learnt about summarising. We learnt that good readers are able to determine the main ideas and put them into their own words. Learners identify and accumulate the most important ideas and restate them in their own words. To practice this we first listened to a story, 'Monsier Albert Rides to Glory' by Peter Smith. We first made predictions about what it was about and then listened to Mr Smyth read it. We stopped along the way to make connections with the story. Quite a few of us had been to Paris, many of us had ridden on bicycles like Monsier Albert and as part of our HSIE unit about ANZAC Day we had all talked about war memorials. So connections were made all around. We then brainstormed the parts of the story we remembered and I wrote them on the board. After that we numbered the information in order that it had happened. Then we wrote the story in six parts, paying attention to the plan we had on the board. We all managed to write down some of our own summary and some of us shared what they had written with the class.

Number groups after recess and then we managed to fit in some work on 'verbs'. Some of us got to stand up and act out a verb which we then had to guess. After that we had to do some work in our grammar book looking at verbs and identifying them in a sentence, choosing the best verb for a sentence and even coming up with our own verbs to describe what you would do with an object.

I was a little disappointed that last minute we missed out on computers as the wall between the computer room and library was taken down today and they hadn't quite finished rewiring computers before it was our computer time. I sent everyone an email with a link to a great site where you can write descriptive phrases on an image by dragging and dropping words. Unfortunatley we didn't get to do that lesson. I wonder who will go on the computer at home and try it out. Remember to google 'nsw student portal' to find our portal and emails! You use the same login as you use at school. Then when you look at the email I sent you will find the link to the site. You could also just click below:

http://www.piclits.com/compose_dragdrop.aspx?PoemTemplateId=541

This afternoon we looked at persuasive writing. We had to use our bodies to agree or disagree on a few different statements by moving to either side of the room. We then had to give our reasons in whole sentences. Here are some of the statements we talked about:

Boys are better than girls.

Animals should not be kept in zoos.

Homework is a waste of time.

Reading books is better than watching the TV.

We should use less energy at school.

Chocolate should be banned.

Students should be able to eat in class

A great day was had by all, but wow, we were very busy!

Jade's Recount of Friday

Today we started with a test to find out how well we can understand what we read. Then we did creative writing which was fun for some people. After recess we went to assembly and instead of a sport report we had a library report. Then some people went to sport and everyone else stayed at school and did catch up work eg. Grammar, maths, pen pal letters and drawing. Then we finally had lunch. Then we played sport or did swimming Milo cricket or PSSA. Then everyone went home.

TODAY WAS FUN!!!

Cloudy with a chance of ...

The garden loves the rain, our grass really appreciates it and the air is left fresh and clear, however as Friday PSSA approaches we cross our fingers that the clouds are swept away to rain elsewhere for a day or two. 

Our letters to our penpals are ready to send. We've thought about how to write a greeting, introduce ourselves, ask questions and finally finish with a departing note. They're a really colourful bunch of letters and I know they'll be really appreciated by the recipients. 

On Wednesday Mrs Stephens had students create wonderful masterpieces that were inspired by Van Gogh.

Our first class blog writer had a chance to write a little about our day below. He didn't get a chance to write about the end of the day where we learnt about writing in paragraphs. We used the hamburger to help us layer our thoughts into a topic sentence, followed by supporting sentences and finishing with a concluding sentence. Everyone managed to write one fabulous paragraph and some of us wrote two or three paragraphs about what we love. Topics included: chocolate (my favourite!), soccer, milkshakes and puppies.

After finishing our writing we had a chance to share it with a partner. We had to listen to them read their writing and then offer two stars and a wish. This meant that we had to tell them two positive comments about their writing and one area where they could improve. We talked about what would make a good comment and there were many great ones shared!

Remi wrote: 

Today we had an awesome day at school. We started off with some independent writing. In the independent writing we had to write a letter to the cancer councel and the letter had to be illustrated.

I wrote some questions I wanted to know abot the cancer councel. Next we did some grammer and we learnt about Proper nouns. Then we learnt about HSIE.

Fabulous Week Four

Our fabulous week has involved learning about how 'visualising' or making movies or pictures in our heads can help us with our comprehension. We continued to look at persuasive writing and had to think today about how we can use more interesting vocabulary when trying to persuade someone to do something. We said goodbye to 'nice' and 'good' and found some more interesting words to help us persuade!

Number groups were next and then we thought about what a community means to us.

The day finished with computers where we learnt to send emails. Everyone managed to send a beautiful email to me and I made sure that I've replied to them all! A big job!

Here is a little of one:

What a busy, productive and interesting day we've had!

Friday Flies By

A few Friday firsts this week! We had our first buddy time with 1L and 2S, our first 3-6 assembly and our first PSSA games of the season and year! 

What a great end to a wonderful week!

Busy little bees!

What a busy day today. We continued looking at connections this morning and got into groups where we took turns reading to each other and discussing connections that we could make with the text. We then had to write down what the connection was and what type it was. I got to listen to half the class read to me and they learnt how much I like to take notes while they read. They did a fabulous job remembering to make their voices sound interesting and smooth and go back and re-read something if it didn't make sense. I was impressed! We got back together to share our connections and talk about the difference between a small connection and a deeper connection. Everyone managed to make a connection with one of the books their group looked at.

After reading groups we looked at common nouns. What are they? We worked out that most of what you can see with your eyes are common nouns. Eg. book, board, carpet, pencil, tote tray, windown. We also talked about Proper nouns and why they use a capital letter. We know that we're important and that is why we have a capital letter at the beginning of our names. After sharing the common nouns we knew, we worked in our grammar text books and before we knew it was time to pack up for recess.

Number groups followed shortly after recess. There were only a few reminders about what rooms to go to and then followed a good hour of maths. Too soon maths was over and it was time for some HSIE. We talked about what we knew about ANZAC day and made a great list that included the what the poppy represents, where ANZAC biscuits come from, the story of Simpson's donkey and a couple more. Some of us knew about family members that had fought in wars and were keen to share what they knew with the class.

The afternoon included writing the rest of our stories, marking our grammar work, reading some of our class novel, skip counting and tables practice and our end of the day jar question.

I'm looking forward to reading lots of interesting stories!

Connections everywhere

We started Monday of week 3 with the important task of allocating class jobs. We have messengers, lunch monitors and door monitors all the way to line leaders and library monitors. And everyone did a fabulous day of fullfilling their duties. On to spelling and working out what sort of rules we were looking at this week. We worked out that there were words that had the 'ee' sound in them, ones beginning with 'uni' which we found out means 'one' and also that plurals are usually formed by just adding 's' and they mean 'more than on'. 

 This term in reading we are looking at the super six comprehension strategies. These six strategies are: making connections, making predictions, summarising, inferring, visualising and questioning. Today we started looking at 'making connections' with 4S and Mr Smyth. We talked about the different sort of connections we can make when we are reading. They are 'text-text', 'text-world' and 'text-self' connections. When we listen to a story or read a book and we notice something in the book that reminds us of something we have been through or seen or done, we are making a 'text-self' connection. We got to write our connections on post-it notes and put them up in Mr Smyth's room. Here is why making connections is important: Students who make connections while reading are better able to understand the text they are reading. It is important for students to draw on their prior knowledge and experiences to connect with the text. Students are thinking when they are connecting, which makes them more engaged in the reading experience. 

 After recess we got put into our Number Groups. These will be fluid for the first few weeks as we make sure that everyone is in the right place. We will be having number groups on Monday, Tuesday and Friday after recess for one hour. I'm already looking forward to number groups tomorrow! Maths was one of my favourite subjects when I was in primary school. Well to be honest I really loved most of the subjects in primary school! Back to class and we got given our HSIE books and got to get our title page ready for this term's work. We will be looking into ANZAC Day a little more deeply this year as it is the centenary of the Gallipoli landings. We will also be exploring communities around us and hopefully connect with another primary school in NSW to write some letters as penpals. I'm just finalising this connection! I have my fingers crossed that we get to go ahead with this. Lunch was over before we knew it and we came in to talk about what a 'narrative' is and what makes it a story. We talked about 'characters', the 'setting' and of course the 'problem' that is overcome in the story. We came up with some interestingly named characters and settings and some violent problems. I particularly liked the story about a group of talking fruit who lived in a fruit bowl. Unfortunately for them they had to deal with the problem of being eaten! We spoke about our homework today. Homework will be handed out on Mondays and usually go home. Today we did some of our homework 'mentals' since we only have one week until homework is due. We will also set out our homework books tomorrow just the way that I like them. We need to wait until tomorrow as there are many homework books that haven't made their way to school yet. Finally we packed our bags with numerous notes and it was home time. Wow! What a busy day!

Welcome to 3/4T in 2015!

I always love this time of the year! The anticipation of 'what class?' and 'what teacher?' and 'which friends?' and then getting to know each other. New shoes, lunchboxes, pencil cases filled with new pencils, sharpeners and textas. Finally on Friday we got our new text books! So much excitement in the first few weeks of school. My own children have started, year 12, year 10, year 3 and the baby of the family has begun his last year of pre-school. I know that excitement so well and never tire of it! I've done the back to school shopping myself and labelled, labelled and labelled everything moving in our house. Even the older two are not immune to the excitement of back to school shopping, especially since they're not using their own money yet. Along with a new year at school, there is also the excitement of a new 'blog'! I can't believe this is my seventh year of 'blogging' for my class. I love sharing what we do in the classroom with parents, grandparents, extended family and friends and of course other students and teachers from around the world. It gives us a chance to see how similar we are to students in other countries and gives us a real audience for all the fabulous things we accomplish during the year. I hope you enjoy coming along on our blogging adventures, watching us learn and participating in our online community by asking us questions and leaving us comments. Comments from parents, grandparents and students or teachers from other schools is something we LOVE! We look forward to hearing from you all!