Welcome back to Term 3!

The week has been pretty good. We have done shotput and discus. We have done some writing of what we did in the holidays too. We did some sizzling starts and one person from each table had to read their work out loud to the class. Everybody on my table was too embarrassed to read their stories out loud so we did '21 is in' and luckily I didn't have to read out to the class.  

Millie

As you can see from Millie we had a very busy first week back for Term 3. We began the term by changing the seating arrangement as we do at the beginning of every term. We also changed the layout of our tables as well. Our class jobs were given a cull so that there are less jobs and more responsibilities per job. We had the chance to verbally share what we did during our holidays in small groups and also listen to our friends share what they did. We then wrote a personal recount about our holidays and some of us shared these with the class. 

We began our HSIE unit, 'People and Their Beliefs' and found out what everybody knew about beliefs and cultures. We all had a chance to share and have our comment typed up onto the Smart Board with our names. The next thing we are going to do is think about what we want to find out about beliefs and cultures around the world. As part of our homework this term we will be doing a project on a country and its major religion. All the information for this will come home on Monday. We also had maths groups and worked hard on our strategies with the four operations. 

Our assembly has been changed to Thursdays after lunch. This will take a little getting used to! I know I needed reminding on Thursday morning that we had an assembly that afternoon! 3/4T were very good about remembering that we had an assembly and were all lined up on Thursday straight after lunch. Well done 3/4T!

During computer lessons we all learned how to use our collaborative OneNote file for our class where we all get to use the same document at the same time. It means that we can research during library time in small groups and add information to our groups page within OneNote and all be typing at our own computer BUT all get to see each other's work at the same time. Wow! Technology really helps us collaborate with our classmates so easily!

We wrote stories this week remembering all of the strategies that we had learnt last term. We had to ban the boring bits by making sure that we started from an exciting part to help draw the reader in. That is why we begin our stories with 'sizzling starters'. We also had to have some complications in our stories and we think of these as pebbles, bricks and boulders. The smallest problem in our story is a pebble problem. We then have a slightly larger complication which is our brick problem and then we go onto the huge complication in our story which is the boulder problem. It helps to make sure that we have an interesting story. We also have to include a conversation in our stories between two characters  and then make sure that we have used some descriptive vocabulary and figurative language in our work. Wow! So much is expected of us. We have come a long way with our writing this year. We can't wait to share some of our fabulous stories with you all.

We made minions with Mrs Stephens and all got to joke about Bob and his 'b-a-n-a-n-a'. The minions are displayed on the bulletin board in the office. It says, 'A minion reasons to love 3/4T'. Go and check it out!

It was such a short week! We did manage to do our discus just before it began to rain thanks to Sam. We all had some practice before we did our proper throws with the discus. We have some talented sportspeople in our class. We will have to wait until next Monday to do our shotput! A pity that PSSA got rained out again. Hopefully this coming week will be better weather wise. 

ANZAC Assembly

It was difficult to explain to some of the eager sport fanatics that even though the sun was out sport was cancelled today. We had our ANZAC assembly which was wonderfully run by the year six leaders. Our two SRC representatives took the wreath that our class parent had decorated (thank you!) and laid it at the front of the assembly remembering to bow their head showing their respect to fallen soldiers. It was a solemn occassion and we al were on our best behaviour. We got to see Mr Rod Mason in his army uniform. He is a captain and army musician and he told us about his experiences of being a peace keeper in different countries. 

We got to listen to the band play, conducted by Mr Mason and also the senior choir sing, led by Mrs Nylund. They were both brilliant and you could really tell that they had put a lot of time and effort into their peformances!

After the assembly we had a writing lesson, recess, assembly and then a grammar lesson on 'adverbial phrases'. It sounds so tricky but isn't really! We practiced adding adverbial phrases to sentences in our grammar book.

After lunch we got to do some art! We painted amazing landscapes of poppy fields which is very fitting with ANZAC day being on Saturday and our ANZAC assembly being today. 

So although we missed out on sport because of wet, soggy fields we did get to do some painting which we always love!

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.