English

Read, Write Inc has continued this term and some good progress was made by students in their groups. Recently we spent some time on brief “teacher reading” to class, involving a variety of extracts from published books or articles. The aim of this is to introduce students to well written sentences and paragraphs as a model for them to adapt to their own writing. We followed that up with “sizzling starters”, opening sentences that students used to write the beginnings of stories. The idea, here, is to encourage students to take their existing writing level one step further. There have been some great openings.

Maths

The class has continued with its Maths work in groups based on their previous progress. In addition to the work they are set in their Maths work books, the group has been set little challenges. One example is based on the SBS television show “Letters and Numbers” and the challenge is to take 6 numbers they are given and process them to reach a given result. Eg 75, 100, 2, 9, 7, 5 to come up with 557. The challenge is open to all year levels within the class and no time limit is set. Members have taken to this with a relish.

Science

We’ve continued with our exploration of the physical world, conducting simple experiments along the way. These included testing friction on various surfaces and testing the qualities of light and shadows. We even tested different shapes of paper planes and their ability to stay airborne or to fly distances.

HASS

Our journey to different parts of the world, and cultures there, is well under way. As well as set work booklets and work sheets, we used the classroom’s smart board to visit places through Google Earth and video clips. Students were fascinated by the way that the Inuit of Alaska adapted to their environment as reflected by their igloos, use fur and their throat singing. (I know, it’s North America.)

Health/PE

We finished with lacrosse and ventured to basketball, helped by a visiting basketball coach early during term 3. I was pleased by the level of teamwork that developed within the group. The Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics were well timed for us to look at elite level sports and to discuss these during lessons. In Health we examined aspects of relationships, including gender stereotyping and its effects.

Reflections

One of the highlights of this term was our participation in the school’s Open Night, providing class members with the opportunity to demonstrate what they can do. Members impressed with a variety of displays including Rubik’s Cube mastery, a challenge in logic and problem solving; a volcano display; reading and explaining stories they wrote after viewing Pobble images; mastery of the room’s smart board; and poster creation. Thank you to those who participated, I was very proud of you.