Our topic of "visual art" this term

Over the past term, we have had the topic "visual art". In Room 5, we have been looking at famous artists. So far we have studied Picasso and Kandinsky - ask your child what they know about these two artists, you may be surprised at how much they have picked up. The children are fascinated with these artists and the types of art they have created. As a class, we did a self portrait inspired by Picasso's interpretation of faces and we have recently used paint and pastels to create beautiful trees, inspired by Kandinkys famous circles. Come in to class and have a look at the children's amazing art, inspired by these famous artists! Below is a snapshot of Room 5's version of Kandinksys circles turned into amazing trees.

Soccer with Shane

Every fortnight, the children have a soccer lesson with Shane.

They have come so far in a term and half - most of them can confidently dribble and pass a ball and participate in a real soccer game.

Here is a short video of a fun warmup Shane uses to enhance their dribbling skills.

Maths - Rounding to the nearest 10

This term we have started off Maths with a new strategy - rounding to the nearest 10. If you have been to one of our parent math evenings, you will know that a strategy is the way the students work out a problem and knowledge is something they will know automatically (such as skip counting and basic facts) which can assist their use of strategy. As it is only Week 2 of the term, we have only spent 2 weeks learning and discussing this strategy. Below are some photos of the children beginning their use of the strategy.

Below is what I think to be a super cute video of Xaviar explaining rounding to the nearest 10 strategy to Isabella. It is often helpful for all involved, including the teacher, to get the students into pairs and watch as they guide one another through a problem. It is proven that students learn best off one another and they often put things into a different perspective than a teacher has done. I provide the questioning behind the strategy to ensure that both parties understand what they are doing.

This video was taken right after Xaviar had discovered he did potentially understand the new strategy and was more than happy to help his friend through it too. As shown at the end of the video, they needed prompting with the final task but definitely almost there!

Autumn Poems

As part of our writing topic this week, we looked at Autumn and the five senses. To begin our writing, we went outside and experienced Autumn. We looked carefully at the changes that had been made around our school compared to Summer and used our five senses to notice different changes. We brainstormed some adjectives that could describe these changes and used similes to compare them. Our Autumn poems turned out to be very well written and well thought out and the children were very engaged and excited about this writing topic. You are welcome to view their published work on our writing wall in Room 5.