The Seasons Continued

Today we continued on with our inquiry about the seasons. Last week the students had asked some amazing questions that they wanted to know about the seasons and how they worked. Before we answered any questions we had to have a brainstorm about ways in which we were going to find out the answers to our questions. Below are some of the ways we thought about...

• Nataya – We can ask other people if they know the answer.
• Isobel – We could go outside and check the weather or we could do some tests to find the answer.
• Keira – Look at thermometer.
• Sofia – Ask someone to check your phone to get the weather app. To check the internet.
• Taylor – Go outside and observe what is happening.

These were some awesome ideas which we used straight away. We decided to ask somebody else first and thought that the Mr. Donaldson might be able to answer some of these questions.

Mr. Donaldson explained that he had been thinking about which questions he could answer since last week and said he would answer the question that Taylor asked "What puzzles me is how do the seasons change?"

Using some masking tape on the floor to represent the orbit of the earth, a Rubik's cube lamp to represent the sun, and a blow up earth to represent the earth. Mr. Donaldson explained to us that the earth spins around the sun, once every year. We learnt how when the earth spins around the sun sometimes it gets closer to the earth and sometimes it is further away. Although this isn't the complete story (as we still need to talk about the earths axis as that is what causes the seasons) it was a great starting place to see how the earths position in relation to the earth can affect the weather. 

Bob el Tren - El Abecedario en Español 🚂🚂🚂

Students in Kindergarten this week were practising their recognition of letters and sounds in Spanish with Bob el Tren. Please practise at home and try to figure out some of the things Bob is saying in Spanish!

Escribiendo el alfabeto - 📝📝📝✏️✏️✏️Writing the alphabet

Students in Kindergarten were happy to share their writing skills in Spanish last week, by comparing notes and discussing the shapes of the letters on their mini-whiteboards. Students were able to identify the letters particular to Spanish, such as Ñ and LL.

Shape Art

This week we have been learning about shapes and decided to use some shapes to create a piece of artwork. Using various shapes from around the classroom we set about tracing them onto a spare page in our Math books. Our only guidelines were that we were only able to use the following shapes...
- Square
- Circle
- Triangle
- Rectangel
- Hexagon
....and that the object we chose to trace needs to fit on the page. Apart from that we were given free reign.

Thrass Chart Raps

The school's new students attending the Thrass Catch Up lessons with me have been practising the Thrass Phoneme Raps at a slower pace to get accustomed to the various phonemes and their places on the chart.

Here are links to the Alphabet, Consonant and Vowel Phoneme Raps at a slower pace to rehearse at home.  Enjoy!

http://www.showme.com/sh/?h=SFdsWm0

http://www.showme.com/sh/?h=x1XqYQS

Darine Groch

Thinking About The Seasons

Today we continued on with our discussion about the weather and how it can affect things in the world. Our discussion today began with being introduced to the term 'Seasons', for some this word had been heard before and other having not heard it. However it was a complicated term that none of us were quite what it meant, why we have different seasons, or how the different seasons come about. For this reason we started with a thinking exercise where we talked about what we already knew, posed a question about seasons that we didn't know and then think of ways in which we can find out the answers.  Here are the results of our discussion about the Seasons.

What I Think...

• Sofia - "I think in spring if it is hot you can go to the beach."
• Florence - "I think in the snow you can ski."
• Will - "I think there are different seasons."
• Keira - "I think that leaves fall off the trees."
• Mia - I think that snow falls on the trees."
• George - "I think when it is a hot day you can go in a swimming pool."
• Hugo - "I think you can have a snowball fight when you are in the snow."
• Nataya - "I think when it is hot you can have fruit, flower, and leaves."
• Taylor - "I think when it is winter you can go skiing with some of your family."
• Kate - "I think when it is summer we can go and have a walk."
• Ming Ming - "I think when it is a hot day we can eat ice cream."
• Alena - "I think when it is summer you can go in the pool and have a cold lemonade."
• Charlie - "I think you can go and play golf on a warm day."
• Sophie - "I think you can swim in the pool and have some cold fizzy drink."
• Paris - "I think that your not allowed to eat ice cream in the snow."
• Isobel - "I think when it is autumn we jump in our blow up pool. My brother and I play together then come and have a drink of soda water."
• Lachlan - "I think I don't know about the seasons."
• Beau - "I think that at snowy days you can have ice cream."
• Annabelle - "I think about the seasons when it is sunny you can go for ice ream."
• Hope - "I think when it is snowy you can go to ski school."
• Zya - "I think when it is raining you can go in a pool."
• Scout - "I think I already know about the weather."

What puzzles me?

• George - "What puzzles me is what is winter?"
• Mia - "What puzzles me is when it is Autumn the leaves fall off, I want to know why?"
• Charlie - "What puzzles me is what does summer mean?"
• Hugo - "What puzzles me is can you make a fire during winter?"
• Nataya - "What puzzles me is why do flowers grow in spring?"
• Taylor - "What puzzles me is how do the seasons change?"
• Isobel - "What puzzles me is how do the leaves get loose and fall off during Autumn?"
• Sofia - "What puzzles me is what happens when it is cloudy?
• Kate - "What puzzles me is why do flowers grow on trees during Spring?
• Hope - "What puzzles me is what season do rainbows come out?"
• Alena - "What puzzles me is how do leaves fall off the trees?"
• Lachlan - "What puzzles me is when do flowers come out of the ground?"
• Ming Ming - "What puzzles me is why does snow come during winter?"
• Keira - "What puzzles me is how does Autumn work?"
• Will - "What puzzles me is why does hail fall from the sky during spring?"
• Annabelle - "What puzzles me is how does summer work?"
• Florence - "What puzzles me is how do plants come up out of the ground in summer?"
• Paris - "What puzzles me is how do the seasons change?"
• Sophie - "What puzzles me is how does snow make blankets on top of trees?"
• Zya - "What puzzles me is what is winter?"
• Beau - "What puzzles me is why does it snow only in winter?"
• Scout - "What puzzles me is how does Summer work?

These are some excellent thoughts and we will explore some of these whilst at School. Next week we will think about how we are going to find the answers to some of these questions.

El Alfabeto-The Alphabet 🔠🔠🔠🔤🔤🔤

Students in Kindergarten have been learning about the Spanish alphabet and its sounds this Term.
This is a song students have been learning and singing in class.
Practise at home!

Big Breakfast

Weighing and Hefting

 Last week we experimented with some scales and some weights, to investigate how they work. In groups we were each given a small scale and had to take turns experimenting with it. It was encouraging to see that each person was given a turn to test how the weights being placed onto different places of the scale affected the side of the scale that fell.

 

After our time of testing we placed the scale away and say in a circle to talk about any ideas or thoughts we had whilst doing our experimentation.

 Today during Maths we continued on with this to talk about how two objects can be measured to find out which is heavier or lighter. To do this we played a hefting game where some students would go and find two objects which could fit in their hands and guess which of the two items is heavier just by holding the two of them.

After this game the whole class moved onto doing their own experimentation through hefting by finding two objects of similar size and deciding which one they thought was heavier or not. They would then test if it was using the two sets of scales in the classroom.

 

It was interesting to see that some objects were heavier than we expected. We found that a marble and a pencil were the same weight even if they were different sizes. We look forward to continuing to investigate weight throughout the week.