The Great St Albans Egg Hunt

On Thursday our whole school participated in one of the greatest days I've ever seen as a teacher.

We had the Great St Albans Egg Hunt.

The reason I was so excited by this event and so proud of everyone that was involved in it was simply because it was Fantastic on so many levels.

I love that our class worked hard with our buddies from Room 23 to prepare for this day by making Easter Baskets and Rabbit Ears.... we even had our faces painted to look just like rabbits!

The cooperation the children showed was outstanding.  With over 50 children working together I am so very proud of all of the children who showed outstanding self managing skills, they worked cooperatively and did a lot of problem solving.  It was a privilege to watch such a large group of children work together without a single cross word!

After lunch our whole school met our on the courts.  Some of the teachers showed us a role play of how the Great St Albans Egg Hunt worked.  It was so much fun to watch and we learned how the egg hunt worked.

Before we went outside we learned how to read a map of the school - this was a tricky skill but we managed it! 

We worked with our buddies to find clues all around the school and then we had to colour our Easter picture in.

When we had all found the clues we went on an adventure to Room 23 where we discovered our Easter eggs!!

The things that I loved the most and was so impressed by was the amazing feeling of community and cooperation across the whole school.  The children were independent, amazingly cooperative and very happy.  I watched children walking hand in hand, I saw older children piggy back little ones with tired legs, I saw friends helping each other read the maps, I saw children take care of others when they tripped over.  I loved standing back and seeing EVERY single child in the WHOLE school inovolved, excited and happy.  All of our school values were captured and expressed in this event, it was a fantastic time.  I am sure this is an event the children will remember for the rest of their St Albans days and I know for me it will remain a teaching highlight.

Huge thanks to Mrs Sutherland and her team for organising such a cool event for our beautiful children.  I am very thankful to not only teach in such a fantastic place but also to know my own children are blessed with an amazing education.


Sadly, I dropped my phone in the sea today so I have only managed to rescue a few photos! I have put together the photos I have rescued into this slideshow.

Great work Tiaan and Cooper

Today the children wrote AMAZING reports about an animal of their choice.

I was so impressed with the WOW words they used and the great ideas they shared.  I especially liked the way they could use the report writing format we have been learning about in a very independent way.

After the children wrote their report they drew a diagram and labelled it.  We have been learning about diagrams at reading time.

I was very proud of the end result.  I will publish this writing over the Easter holiday.

Tiaan's report was so fantastic that he took it to Mrs Warren and got a special Principal's award.  It was very exciting for Tiaan.  I will add a photo tomorrow.

Cooper read like a Super Star today.  I was so excited when I was listening to him.  Cooper read like he was talking, it was fantastic!

He took his reading book to Mrs Warren and read it to her too.

Easter Bunnies....Part two

Today we finished our Easter Bunnies by adding whiskers and a face!

They look fantastic displayed on our classroom windows....have a look next time  you are in our classroom.

Amazing Ava's Awesome Book

Today Ava brought along a book she has written.

It is the second Magic Treehouse book she has written....what a talented writer Ava, I'm so proud of you.

Our Room 23 buddies also listened to Ava read her story!

Easter Bunnies

We had a great time today as we worked hard to make our very own Easter Bunnies.

We had to do a lot of cutting - this is quite a tricky skill when you are five or six years old!

We started sticking our bunnies together too.  We will finish them tomorrow.

Miss Holmes...our Printing Teacher

Today we tried a new system at handwriting time.

We are learning to take more responsibility for our own learning and for ensuring we are producing our best work.

Today we did our handwriting at reading time.

Bina became our teacher.  Miss Holmes marked the children's books.  She looked to see if the letters were the right size and shape and if they were on the line.  If we managed to do all of this we got a sticker, if we did two things we got a star, the rest of us got a tick.

Bina took her responsibility very seriously and gave excellent feedback to the children.  I also loved the way the class responded to Bina.  They respected her opinion, worked hard to produce their best work and waited patiently for her to see them.

Buddy Fun

Today we worked with our Buddy Class again to make some Easter Baskets.

It was great fun.

After we finished our Easter Basket we went outside and read with our buddies.  It was great fun working with our buddy and we had some fantastic conversations.

Movie Making Update

Our movies are coming along rather nicely!

Today it was very exciting as several groups wrote the script for their movies.  I was very impressed with the language the children used and also with the way they were able to write in a way that suited a movie.  I scribed the scripts while the children dictated their ideas.

We discovered we needed some props.  Today some children started to make props.

We also discovered we needed some extra costume pieces.  The children had a great idea to email the parents from our class to see if anyone could help.

We are looking for a mouse, hippo and shadow master costume.  We also wondered if anyone has any plants we could use for a jungle.

We also practiced how we need to move and how we need to speak slowly and clearly when we are doing our movies.

We had a lot of fun.

This clip is a sneak peek at one of the movies we are making.
This movie starts Briannah, Ava, Miles and Israa and it is directed by Bryn

Siberian Huskies

In our latest Magic Treehouse book we learned about Siberian Huskies.

We discovered these dogs sound a lot like wolves.
We discovered they live in the arctic and they like very cold temperatures.
We discovered they help people by pulling sledges.

We watched this you tube clip to help our learning.

Bina's Magic Treehouse Story

Over the weekend Bina wrote a fantastic Magic Treehouse book all by herself.

Today she read it to our class.  We were very impressed.  Bina took her story to Mrs Warren too.

Well done Bina, we love your motivation.

A Challenge for you!

Today we have been reading the Magic Tree house book called Polar Bears Past Bedtime.

We discovered there are polar bears at the artic (the North Pole).

My challenge to you is to find out if there are polar bears at the south pole (Antarctica).

See what you can discover and write a comment on this blog post!

Easter Fun

Are you excited about Easter?

Do you have special plans with your family?  I'd love you to blog about what you get up to!

What a lot of Blogging!

I just noticed this!...and it's only Week Seven of Term One, I wonder what the total will be by the end of the year!

Thanks to everyone for following our class blog and for sharing in the learning in our class!  We have a  lot of fun together and we all love blogging about it too!

Persesverance

This is another great clip showing perseverance!

O.W.L

My lovely Outstanding Wise Learners....

I thought you might enjoy this!

Dinosaur Collage Completed

Today these children finished their dinosaur murals.

They look fantastic.

Buddy Class Fun....and a Surprise

Today we met up with Miss Archbold Room 23 - our buddy class.

We started to make Easter Baskets with our new buddies.

It was great fun....then we went outside with the whole school to surprise Miss Archbold with a wedding Guard of Honour because she is getting married next week.

We sang Going to the Chapel and tied balloons to her and sprayed her with water and silly string.

It was so much fun and a special way to celebrate a special day.

Movie Making Progress

Today we did lots of work on our movies.

We got together with the other people in our groups and we began talking about things like voices, costumes, plot and character descriptions.  We made some pictures of what we imagine our characters will look like and identified some key characteristics.

Bryn was busy directing his group of actors- Israa, Briannah, Miles and Ava as they were having a rehearsal of their movie.

I loved the feedback that Bryn provided to his team.

Riley's group had a great idea.  Part of their movie is set in the Cashmere hills so Riley was keen to take his group to Victoria Park to film so of their movie.  When Riley suggested this we were all very excited but we also realised it posed some problems too.

Riley shared the problems with Mrs Simmons and with our class.

Then we did some problem solving together.

The children suggested lots of ideas

• Mrs Pelham could take the children in the car -  but what would happen to the rest of the class? - they could have a babysitter was one suggestion
• how would we get to Cashmere hills?  the children thought we could use google maps to find the way
• we could use green screen filming and add a background of the Cashmere Hills
• we could use English Park hills to look like the Cashmere Hills
• we could ask Riley's Mum or Dad to take us - but we would have to ask Mrs Warren first and the parents of the other children too

The children then went on an adventure to English Park.  The discovered the hills there were pretty good and they think they could probably use those hills to do the filming.

Our next step is to start writing scripts for the movies that are not yet written and then to work on our costumes.  We are feeling very excited!

I am particularly pleased with the way the children are embracing this inquiry learning.  They are driving the direction of this learning and it is so exciting!

Dinosaur Mural

Cillian, Tiaan, Ashley and Finn read a great book called Dinosaur Mural.

The book has instructions for how to make a dinosaur mural.

Today they made their own mural by following the instructions.

Maths Stars

Have a look at Cooper, Riley and Bernie doing some amazing adding up today at maths time.

Honey Guide Bird

While we were reading our latest Magic Treehouse book Jack and Annie discovered the Honey Guide Bird.

We found a you tube clip about this amazing bird.

The Honey Guide bird lives in Africa.  It works together with people.  The bird lead people to the bee hives.  The people get the honey from the hive and then they leave the honey comb for the birds.

We thought this was pretty amazing.

Maths in Action

Today Riley and Cooper did some great maths sequencing.

I tried to trick them but they could always put the numbers back in order!

The Common Skink

Today Hayden was very excited as he arrived at school with a special visitor!....a common skink!

Hayden's Nana found it at her farm.

Hayden shared some interesting information with our class - it was great that he did such awesome research on his own.

We had fun spotting the skink in the tank!

Movie Making

Today we spent some time looking at movies that have been made by children who are the same age as us.

We discovered there are lots of different kinds of movies.  Some are animations which means they have been made using clay characters.  Some are made with children acting, some are made with slideshows of  photos and some are made with drawings made by children.

We enjoyed listening to the sound, music and talking on the movies.

We got some great new ideas for the movies we are going to make in our class.

Have a look at the last movie blog post to see some of the movies that have been made by other children.

St Patrick's Day

What a lot of fun today was!

We started our day by watching Lucy from Room 15 perform two amazing Irish dances.  She did the Irish Reel and then a special dance called St Patrick's Day dance.

Lucy was an outstanding dancer and we enjoyed her performance.  She had a fantastic costume too.

This is a movie of her dancing.  Later in the day we had a go at Irish dancing too!

When we came back to our class Cillian shared some incredible information with our class about St Patrick's Day.  He told us all about who St Patrick was and he told us that he scared all the snakes out of Ireland....and now there are no snakes there!  Cillian spoke very well and we loved how proud he is of his Irish heritage.

Have a listen to him here.'




After this we made some green jelly....we made some to share with our Room 15 friends too!

During reading time today we worked on a poem about Leprechauns and did some other fun Irish activities.  We were going to go on a Leprechaun hunt too but the weather was too wet.
We also played with some very cool green slime!

When it was lunch time Room 15 children came into our class singing "Happy St Patrick's Day to you" to us....and the children each had a special green drink for us!

We enjoyed eating jelly and drinking green lemonade!

At writing time we wrote stories about St Patrick's Day.

Before we went home we each did some Irish dancing.



What a cool day we had!