F is for Fractions and Fruit Salad!

What an awesome discovery time we had today.  We have been learning about fractions, how they are part of a whole and becoming familiar with the language.  So we did one of my favourite things, we made maths part of our everyday world by using food!

We made a fruit salad using wholes, halves and quarters -

Of course we enjoyed eating it when were had made it too!!

You can expose your children to the language of fractions at home by making them aware if you are cutting their sandwiches in half or quarters, when you cut different food items into parts of the whole.

O is for One Hundred!

Today we are all One Hundred Days smarter!  

We celebrated in style with lots of fun activities....thanks everyone for your great collections of 100 things..great counting, there were sea shells and pretzels, stars and jelly beans, stickers and rainbow looms.... to name a few.

We enjoyed cake with our buddy class at morning tea - in the shape of 100...can you guess how many lollies were on it?

We did a lot of counting today!  The children made cool 100 day hats - 10 sticks, with 10 things on each stick - they looked pretty cute!  It was fun counting all the cans that were donated...and building with them!  We will donate them to a local food bank.

The afternoon was busy too - we made pictures of what we think we will look like when we are 100!!  And of course there was the fun of letting the balloons go!  

What fun it has been counting and learning for the past 100 days.  Thanks Mrs Morpeth, parents and  children for a great day...see you tomorrow it will our 101st day of school for the year!!

B is for Book Swap

We had a great time at the book swap at the end of Term 2.  I hope everyone has enjoyed their new story over the holidays.

Our school library initiates the book swap.  It encourages the children to donate a pre-loved book and in exchange the children receive a book swap token.  The token is like currency on book swap day.  The children have a great time selecting some holiday reading.

P is for PMP

Room 6 will be stopping our PMP program at the end of this term.  It is a fantastic program that we run in our junior school for our youngest students.  It has so many benefits for the children.

PMP is a Perceptual Movement Program.  It helps children develop perception of themselves and their world through movement.  It is also loads of fun!!

We start the week with a Floor Session where new equipment and language are introduced and the skills for the rotations are explored and practiced.  All of the Year One children and teachers do this together.

This week our new equipment was the scooter board.  The scooter board is great for gross motor skills, hand eye coordination and fitness.

We have two rotation sessions during the week.  These last for 20 minutes and consist of  4 different stations, each run by a parent help.  The rotations all have a variety of activities and they always cover Balance, Fitness, Hand-Eye Coordination  and Locomotion.  They also involve things like spacial awareness, language, problem solving, confidence, rhythm, , body imagine and body control, directionality.

Here is sample of some of the things we do

The body rocker is great for balance, as well as spacial and body awareness.

The dizzy giddy is one of the most popular pieces of equipment, it is good for balance,  body control, rhythm, timing and muscle strength.

Developing and growing your short term memory.  If you can remember three things like cup, fish, star, you will also be able to remember instructions such as "get a glue stick, pen and your scrapbook".

PMP has been so much fun, thanks to all the parents who have been involved.  Our younger students will continue to enjoy their PMP sessions.

W is for winning!

Yah for winning the best class in assembly!  Well done Room 6.  The children did a great job of showing their RED values at assembly - sitting up nicely, listening to the items and enjoying singing.  AND the very lucky thing was it was noticed by the mystery teacher and spies.

B is for busy.

We were busy in Room 6 today!  It is the start of Book Week at Redwood School and our theme this year is Let Books Open Doors For You.

We have started the week with a visit from a local author and illustrator Ruth Paul.  We love her books and she gave a great presentation.  It was very inspiring.

We also had our class and individual photos taken in the school hall.  The photographers do a great job, and it is quite fascinating how they put the class photo together.

We also worked on decorating our door, we did reading groups, and had a special visit from Mrs Hughes who came in and read to us.

Wow and this is only Monday!!

A is for Assembly

This week Room 6, along with our buddy class hosted the whole school assembly.  It was a big responsibility and all the children did a great job.  I was very proud of their behaviour.  Hannah and Nelsson were very brave speaking and announcing each item.  

Room 6 shared their poem of the week and some art we did that went with it.

C is for counting

We are counting each day we come to school until we get to 100 DAYS.

Each day we practice our place value and counting skills as well as solving a problem.

Last Friday was Day 49 and we had the following problem to solve -

The children had to work in groups - one clever group came up with the answer by making up groups of 7.  Well done!

We plan on having a big party when we get to 100 days - almost half way there!

B is for Bannocks

Thanks so much to Kerri and Will, Tia's parents who came in today and shared with us about their home The Shetland Islands.  We learnt lots of cool things about Shetland and it was a real treat to taste the bannocks.  Yummy, Thanks!

If you would like to learn more about these interesting islands check out this cool webpage that Tia's family prepared for us.

Shetland Islands

M is Mihi

A Mihi is a Maori greeting. I am so proud of the children in Room 6, who have worked hard to learn their Mihi. We will be continuing to work on them, check out our progress so far...

Room 6 Mihi