Sharing the love of reading!

EDIT - After some parent feedback we realised we had not included the day of BOOK DAY!!

It's this Wednesday the 21st of May!

Students will be sharing their books among themselves which will help spread the love of reading and different books to read.

Hello everyone!

This coming week we will be asking the students to bring a book from home - this can be a book which is currently being read or an old favourite! 

We will be sharing our books and ideas and talking about why we love certain books.

In addition to Book Talk, this is a lovely way for the students to engage with reading.

Please support your child in remember to select a book and bring it in.

Numeracy weeks 3 & 4

Recently, we have been exploring the concept of place value through representing and renaming  large numbers during our numeracy sessions.

Using MAB blocks, the students built large structures and and towers. MAB blocks, sometimes referred to as base-ten blocks, are a classroom manipulative that help children visualize and better understand concepts of mathematics such as the base-ten number system, renaming of numbers and operations. As each block has a value of 1, 10, 100 or a 1000, the students were able to work out the 'value' of their tower or structure.

Some of the assessments derived from this activity include the students' ability to rename numbers (10 of these is one of this), trusting the count, naming and recording large numbers, and calculations through use of different operations.

Here are some photos of the activity.

Students begin to create their structures.

This is clearly an enjoyable and engaging activity.

Some challenge themselves to build extremely high towers.

Others are more intricate.

The students are then asked to demolish their tower and work out it's 'value'.
Here you  can see students grouping different units into groups to accurately record the value.

Students are able to demonstrate how many by arranging the blocks in groups of ones, tens, hundreds and thousands.
Here, you can clearly see that these students have 6864.

HOME LEARNING
Students may want to go to this website to explore large numbers some more. Here, they are able to create their own large numbers, and see if they can name it correctly before checking it. 

I also quite like this game where students must either identify which numeral is in which place value, or write a number according to the words (there is a bit of shooting involved, but it's for the sake of mathematics).

Basketball Club

There is a Basketball Club available for the 3/4 Neighbourhood during lunchtime.

All are welcome. 

Come and join in the fun! 

We will be developing ball handling skills, shooting and learning team strategies for half the session then playing some matches.

When: Thursday lunchtimes

Where: GYM

Time: 11.15 – 12.00

What to bring: Water bottle, appropriate footwear

Kind regards,

Maddy

Some of the action at Basketball Club

Premiers Reading Challenge MASCOT: Lachlan the Reading Dog!

Hey everyone,

We have just posted about the Premiers Reading Challenge and thought we would follow that post up with the PRC's Mascot 'Lachlan the Reading Dog'!

Lachlan the Reading Dog is our 2014 Victorian Premiers’ Reading Challenge mascot. He is a loveable smooth collie, a bit like the movie star Lassie, but without the fluffy coat. Lachlan has a very important job; he listens to children read at Diamond Valley Library with his owner Marlies, a children’s librarian. Luckily for us, Lachlan is taking time out of his busy schedule to join the Premiers’ Reading Challenge. He is very excited about this because he loves nothing better than cuddling up to hear a good story!

You can find out more about Lachlan HERE

Premiers Reading Challenge

Dear Parents,

 

Premier's Reading Challenge is starting up again for 2014. Children in years Prep-Two must read 30 books in total with at least 20 from the Challenge book list and students in Years 3-6 must read 15 books with 10 or more from the Challenge Book List.

 

Students will be registered online by their neighbourhood teachers once the consent form has been returned. Parents can then assist their child to submit completed book titles to the online system. All reading and information must be completed online before 12 September 2014.

 

If your child is interested in participating this year, please read, sign and return the attached consent form to your child's Roll Group teacher who will then register your child and give them their login. 

 

Please visit the VPRC website for more information  http://www.education.vic.gov.au/about/events/prc/Pages/students.aspx

 

Happy Reading!

 

Warm Regards,

Simone Kentley (year 1) and Robert Vandahl (year 5/6)

Speech Writing

Last week we started writing speeches as a way of exploring persuasive text. All the speeches were fantastic. We will continue to develop new and exciting ways to explore writing conventions.

 

Year 3's showing great confidence

 The students were a respectful audience and povided positive and constructive feedback.

Book Talk

As most of the community around the 34 neighbouhood are aware Book Talk happens in the first hour of Wednesday and has continued from Term 1.

Book Talk has been such a delightful experience for all involved as it grows and devekops into not just reading to the kids, but readin with them, allowing time for them to respond and reflect and generally spark interest. Recently we attempted to summarise what had been read into a Headline which would give an idea of the book but without in depth description or details.

The response was amazing!

Again, Book Talk is a wonderful time during the week and if anyone would like to get involved please come and see one of the 34 teachers.

We would also like to remind everyone that as parent helpers we do not expect you to take on al the responsibilities of a classroom teacher so don't hesitate to seek help from any of the 34 teaching team at any stage before, during or after the session.

See you Wednesday!

The 34 Team.