Dress up Day - St Mary's 2014

 Dress up Day

Last Thursday St Mary's staff and students came dressed up as their favourite book character. We had all sorts of characters in room 6 as you can see from our photos. Children had to bring a gold coin donation, which will go towards relief efforts for the typhoon ravaged Philippines.

Some of the children put a lot of effort into their costume selection.

A group photo shows the wide range of characters we had in room 6.

Poppy vainly attempts to scare Mr. Bach with her costume.

  Charis

 Veronica

 Koby

 Jasmin

 Naina

 Ria

 Lucille

 Tyler

 Willem

Misty

 Interhouse Cross Country 2013 

Room 6 students trained up hard over 6 days at the beginning of term 2. We ran for ten minutes every day around the school filed and recorded the number of laps we completed. Our training goals and record of laps run will be put into each child's portfolio

Some children made more progress with their fitness than others

 Poppy trained hard. Here she is putting her hand out to get a lap marker from Mr. Bach.

Naina runs past Mr Bach who kept track of the children's progress. Mr. Bach used to run with the children in past year to improve his fitness, but unfortunately a severe ankle sprain has lead him to retrie from running and focus on biking and kayaking.







Willem and a group of mixed room 6 and 7 girls make their way past the recording point.

 Room 6 children performed well at the school cross country held in the Redwood Forest last Wednesday. Josh (above) and Alex and Misty (below) all got high placings in their year group.

 

Koby (above) and Poppy (below) also ran well for excellent placings in the cross country event.

Some of our year 4 children will be attending the interschool cross country event for certain.














All of the St Mary's staff helped out during the event. Here Mr Volschenk is guiding children to the recording table. Mr Bach was the unofficial photographer and First Aid Coordinator!!!

   



Mrs Park and some girls at the recording station.

The children cheered on the other children from their houses in the races.

 Some children really got into the cheering business.

Sustainability -Term 2 Concept

 Our concept this term at St Mary's is ‘Sustainability’. Children will learn what difference they can make to their immediate environment. We will focus on sustainable gardens and recycling will also be part of the programme. Middle School children will be using the school gardens, looking after the chickens, recycling scraps, running a worm farm and trying very hard to persuade others to do the same.

 The middle school has exclusive access to the school garden's this term and room 6's day in the garden is Wednesday. In class we will be talking about sustainable practices and why sustainability is important but on Wednesday's we are allowed to get our hands dirty weeding the gardens, getting the scraps from the chickens and keeping an eye on the worm farm.

 The children enjoyed their first afternoon in the garden and found lots of fascinating things to talk about. Tae'o and Misty in particular seem really keen to share something with Mr. Bach.







The children were not scared to get stuck in weeding the gardens and looking for insect pests on the leaves.

 Some caterpillars were found on some of the cabbage leaves but with autumn upon us there should be no more butterflies laying eggs.

 This week Poppy also shared something very interesting for news. She brought a large abandoned nest from last summer, probably made by a larger bird like a blackbird or starling. Interestingly among the twigs and leaves used to build the nest was a piece of plastic rubbish.

Koby was also lucky enough this week to receive a special prize at assembly for his holiday reading. He won one of the main prizes - a book voucher. Well done Koby.

Maths in Room 6

Maths in Room 6

Maths in Room 6 is done for usually one hour every day, bright and early in the morning during the first block, before morning tea.

In Room 6 have a rotation system in place where children are grouped according to their current needs and abilities and then go through a range of activities and exercises during the one hour of maths. These exercises and activities are to support the teaching and learning of maths knowledge and number strategies by Mr Bach.

The first stage of the rotation is learning on the mat with Mr. Bach where we practice our basic facts a little and then learn a new number strategy, or talk about one we are still learning. 

At present we are learning strategies to help us with addition and subtraction.

We use materials and the interactive whiteboard to help us learn.

 Children will then work independently in the next stage of the rotation to practise the strategy that they are learning by doing book work. Worksheets will often have the strategy explained on them, and when we are lucky Miss James is often around to assist. 

 Children in the same group will often help each other with their learning, especially when the strategy seems hard to understand the first time.

 Another stage in the rotations is practising basic facts on the computers through particular websites, especially Tutpup and Studyladder. Studyladder can also help children with their strategies.
i-Pads are also used to practice basic facts.

 Veronica concentrates hard on her book work.

 Lucille tries to practise the new strategy that she has just learned.

 Malia and her classmate use play money to help them with their maths learning.

 Naina and Veronica are practising adding strategies that use tidy tens or splitting numbers by using place value (the chainsaw strategy).

Ria shows clearly how she has used one strategy to work out the addition problems.












This term we have also been learning about statistics and how the basic statistical investigation works. Find a problem - Do a survey - Record your answers in a tally chart - Put your data into a graph - Talk about what information the graph is telling us.
Children are at various stages in being able to follow this process.

Children's Writing

Children's Writing - Room 6

The children have been learning to improve their story writing by planning their writing first and then adding interesting character and setting descriptions.

Angelina has done a great x-chart plan for her character description that includes what the character looks like, sounds like, smells like and feels like (or makes us feel). She has then written a few clear sentences from her plan about her pirate character.

Willem described his character Edward using his plan on the previous page.

Children plan and write over two days, usually, and then re-read their work checking it against the rubric or success criteria to see if they have everything they need.

Children's Concept/ Topic Writing

This term the concept at St Mary's School is communities. Room six have been discussing and thinking about the roles and responsibilities people have in the different communities that they belong to. They have also been looking at the word interdependence - where everybody in a community depends on everybody else to perform their role so that the community runs smoothly. We then started looking at how ant communities work through interdependence. The children did some explanation writing to explain how one particular kind of ants works with another insect, the aphid, in a community. The relationship of the ant and aphid is said to be one of 'symbiosis'. In the ant and aphid community the ants and aphids show interdependence.
Some of the children's writing is shown published below:

Ants and Aphids by Alex

IN THE FOREST ARE ANTS AND APHIDS . ANTS CRAWL AROUND LOOKING FOR  FOOD.  DO YOU THINK ANTS EAT APHIDS NO, APHIDS HELP ANTS AND ANTS HELP APHIDS . BEACAUSE APHIDS MAKE HONEY DUE FOR THE ANTS TO KEEP GOING. APHIDS EAT  FLOWERS. NEXT WHEN ALL THE APHIDS EAT THE FLOWERS  THE ANTS TAKE THE APHIDS TO ANOTHER FLOWER . When the aphids are eating the flower the ant goes and finds some food when they suddenly find  lady bug  eggs. Next a giant ladybug  comes but the ant scares it off with its jaws.

Ants and Aphids by Kim

Ants protect aphids so aphids  will give them honeydew. I also learnt that aphids got the honeydew from the leaf. If the plant is dead the ants will move them to another Plant. One of the words I learnt is symbiosis.  Ants give aphids these kind of medicine so they won’t get some kinds of diseases. They lick the aphids and that’s how they make aphids stay alive. When a ladybird comes it will try to harm the aphids. If it does the ant will hurt it back and eat its egg for a treat . If the aphid all die ants will all die because ants cannot  get any honeydew. Ants let aphids go to there colony for winter.

Ants and Aphids by Ria

Ants and aphids are partners, they work together. Ladybugs like to eat aphids so ants look after aphids and protect them, this is called symbiosis. Aphids suck juice from plants, and ants take honeydew from the aphids. When aphids get diseases ants put saliva on their bodied to protect them. 

Ants and Aphids by Naina

Ants are very small, they look after aphids, they are like there sheep. Aphids suck roses crisanthanems and when the ants scrape the aphids backs the ants get sweet juice called honeydew. The ants also help the aphids from a disease called fungus. When a large predator like a ladybug comes an ant would bite with it’s manibles and the ladybug flies away. Ants form a big community in India, there are red ants, they walk in a line they bite and it is really scratches and stings. I am really interested in ants. I don’t really like bugs but ants are ok. The biggest ant is the queen ant. Ants can’t live without aphids and aphids can’t live without ants. To ants we are giants ant’s think we are there enemies and we are wanting to kill them. Ants have antennas and on the end of the antennas they have noses. 

Ants and Aphids by Misty

Ants and Aphids work together as a team. Ants protect aphids by keeping predators away by nipping  them with their jaws. Their jaws are really big .Aphids make honeydew for ants. Ants make sure that aphids are clean. Ants lick them and always protect them from anything. Do you think that ants will kill them? Not at all.

 Life Education

On Friday last week room 6 were lucky enough to have a second learning session with Bernie and Harold the Giraffe in the Life Education truck.

Children learned about the functions and locations of some of the organs in the human body and got to play doctors for the day. Bernie also talked to us about how to treat others around us and how to avoid and protect ourselves against bullying behaviour.

 The children had great fun identifying the organs in the human body and placing them on 'Suzie' in the right place and position. Everyone was keen to be chosen to play doctor. Only those on their absolute best behaviour got chosen, although as usual some children did miss out.

 Doctor Naina and Doctor Tyler try to work out what an organ is and where it goes on Suzie. If the doctors couldn't work it out then they asked the audience to put their hands up to answer.








Angelina is keen to be chosen as a doctor.

 Harold came out to talk to us at the end and to remind us of all the learning we had been doing. Harold tried to convince Bernie he had been behaving and not watching too much 'Sponge Bob Squarepants. Bernie wasn't too sure if she could believe him.









The children creep forward to get a better look at Harold.

 Bernie and Harold are amazed by all the stars on the ceiling of the truck.

Willem is lucky enough to get up close to Harold and meet him. He pats Harold and gives him a hug. Because they have been so well behaved during learning at Life Education, Harold agrees that everyone can come and greet him personally and give him a pat or a hug.