Shapes

We are continuing to explore and sort different shapes in room 5a. At level 1 geometry the students
have to work on sorting shapes based on one feature - size, colour, shape, etc. The activity shown above came from an idea I saw on Pinterest and the students had to find classroom objects and sort them into specific shapes.

They really enjoyed this activity and allowed us to have a discussion about the difference between a square and a rectangle. As you can see from the pictures above, they didn't manage to find anything in the classroom which was triangular.

We also worked on a shape identifying activity called 'Roll a Robot'. Again this activity came from something I saw on Pinterest. Students have to roll a dice and each number relates to a shape on the robot which they colour in. Here is the worksheet I created for my class. 

iPad Shape Hunt

On Friday the juniors were learning about shapes and I decided to incorporate some iPad work into this lesson with a shape hunt.
The students had a range of experience with iPads, but still needed a lot of guidance in completing the activity. We worked around this by buddying the children together with a more experienced student taking the lead.
We used the app Pic Collage to collect photographs of things around the room that were circular. The students and I felt that the activity was a great success and they all easily identified things in the class which were the right shape.
 

Multiplication Activities

I was recently reading a blog that shared ideas for teaching multiplication to older students. It can easily become boring and repetitive for both the students and teachers to continually rehash the same activities and resources, so I was pleased to see this blog had a lot of original ideas.
I also thought that they seemed like good activities to send instructions home for parents to play with their children to help them practice.

Cooperative working in maths

Today in school room 5A were learning about the words fast and slow. After reading the hare and the tortoise, we discussed the difference between fast and slow and what things are fast and slow.

The students then went to work in two collaborative groups where they worked together to fill in a table of things which were fast or slow.

I was really impressed by the students' work in the groups. The most senior children have only been in school for four weeks but they all worked well, took turns, shared and encouraged each other.

Writing

Today I started a writing project following the approach I saw at St Anthony's last week.

This included using a visual plan for the text and exclusive use of WALTs.

I felt the clear structure will be very helpful for the students to understand what their work will look like when it's finished.

ANZAC Biscuits

Yesterday we read ANZAC Biscuits in a school journal from 2007.

It provided some very interesting background around the history of ANZAC biscuits.

The origins are unclear, maybe some variation on Scottish oatcakes or maybe something made by the soldiers in the trenches. But we know they were baked in New Zealand and sent to the soldiers in care packages.

Christopher then spent some time making the biscuits, independently.

This was an interesting activity and he learned the importance of accurately measuring all ingredients and ensuring you have the correct measuring cup!

The biscuits turned out very well.

ANZAC Art

We have started our ANZAC unit with a piece of poppy art. We were learning about perspective and how to use this in our artwork.

Christopher was able to provide both the learning intention and the success criteria for this wall display.

The art was created by doing a tempera wash for the sky, painting the red poppies on (using our knowledge of perspective), using oil pastels for the grass and flowers in between then adding black dots for the middle of the poppies.

I like how the process was very prescriptive yet all of the pieces are different.