Homework

I have been really impressed by the effort made with weekly homework by the children in Room 18. Most children consistently get all their spelling words right and we nearly always have a 100% of homework books at school on Mondays and Fridays (we can all be a little forgetful from time to time!) Reading homework is done regularly and the children are progressing well through the reading rewards. And the rate that some children are zooming up the times table ladder is fantastic. What great learning at home!

 Whose name will be first on the 3rd reading reward poster?

Look what the children have achieved on the times table ladder!

Descriptive Writing Assessment

This week's writing task was a writing assessment. The children watched this video of some very happy dogs, enjoying a day at the beach and then used this as inspiration to write a description. Before they started writing we looked at the success criteria, so they knew what they would need to include. The following day, they had to complete the self assessment. I have now given each child a target for their writing.

Brave

Here is the song to practise at home

Library Day

Tuesdays are Room 18's library day. Here are some photos of the class enjoying their special time in the library and these are some of their thoughts about our school library.

I like all the Roald Dahl books because that is my favourite author. - Chelsea

There are so many books to enjoy reading! Ella

It always looks so clean and wonderful - Korban

I like the pictures that are up on the walls -  Charlie

There are lots of cool books. Racing car books are my favourite. - Aaron

It's fun being the library monitor for the whole class because I love books - Georgie

I like the posters on the walls because they show people how they could help with the environment -Mckenzie

I like the collections of books in the baskets, like the Aussie Bites- Hugh

It is giving us lots of chances to improve our reading - Chris

I love the hunting and fishing books - Will

I like to help be the monitor, to scan the books- because it's fun - Alyssa

I like all the Jacqueline Wilson books - Rebekah

I like the joke books best - May

Diary of a Wimpy Kid are my favourite - Luke

Celebrity Day!

I don't know where the children in Room 18 were today, as I ended up with a class of celebrities to teach. Lucky me!

Surprise Violin Concert!

Today, Jasmine came dressed as her favourite violin player, Hilary Hahn. She also treated us to a surprise concert! We could not believe how good she was, especially as she has only been learning the violin for 2 years!


Jasmine violin from Naomi on Vimeo.

The Mystery Key

This weeks writing task was to describe a key that I found in my garden, then imagine what sort of door, gate or box it might open, and what might be inside the box or on the other side of the door! Our focus was using lots of interesting and descriptive vocabulary- which we call "Wow words."

A Special Key

By Mckenzie 

Once Mrs Anderson was digging in her garden when she hit something that sounded like metal. Mrs Anderson kept digging and she found a key. 

The mysterious key had two semi circles at the end and it also had two finger slots, so that it was easy to hold onto. 

It was a rusty metalic key with lots of scratches all over it. When you hold the key up to the rays of sunlight, it changes from rusty grey and brown to glittery purple and pink and when you hold it up to a rain cloud, it changes to a bluey-green colour.

The key unlocks a secret passage way into a magical forest. The door is made of plants and trees. The secret forest is called The Enchanted Forest. The lock on the plant door is shaped like a firefly and is a bluish colour with golden stars on it. 

Inside the Enchanted Forest there are elf singers, giant singers, fluttering fireflies and best of all a king unicorn.

The Old Key

By Carter

The rusty key was a very very dark brown and it felt bumpy like ash but a lot smaller. It had three circles at the top and a puzzled shaped bottom.

 I found a door and I tried the key in it. Creek! The door opened and I found a long passageway and it led to a massive island that was full of coconut trees and sand. It must of been at least 100 degrees there. I was melting but luckily I brought a drink of water.

Hockey Skills

We are lucky to have 4 hockey skills sessions this term with an expert hockey player. Here are some photos from today's session

Beautiful Wither Hills!

I've been waiting for the perfect day to do the landscape sketches thaat we weren't able to do at Pine Valley (due to the weather!) and today was definitely THE day! We walked to Harling Park and sketched a few different views, discussing how, in a landscape sketch, you need to do the background before the foreground. We also noticed that things in the background tend to look darker, and that the sky is deepest blue high up and becomes paler blue as it reaches the horizon. This afternoon we will attempt to publish our sketches with watercolour pencils.

More persausive letters to Mr Hewson.

Dear Mr Hewson

I’m writing to you because I think we should have a mini version of the big adventure playground.

My first reason is that I believe that the little kids enjoy using the tyres on the big adventure playground but they can only use it during morning tea because the big kids play on it at lunch and could hurt them.

My second reason is I think the kids get bored on the little kids playground and  sometimes want to play with the big kids.

Please keep this in mind and do this in your own time. I hope to hear from you soon.

Your Sincerely

Rebekah Anderson

Dear Mr Hewson,

I am writing to you because I believe that we should be allowed to wear any clothes we want to school.

My first reason is because we can’t find our school clothes in the morning and also it is boring wearing the same old clothes every day.

Some other reasons are that some people think that they don’t like red. Some people don’t think they suit red.

I hope this is helpful to you. I look forward to hearing back from you.

Your sincerely,

Will Flynn.

                          

                       

Letters to Mr Hewson!

Room 18 have been working on their letter writing skills last week and this week. The task was to write a polite but persausive letter to Mr Hewson about something they would like to happen in school, or a school rule they would like changed. While writing the letter, the children were asked to try to write longer, more detailed sentences, using connectives.

 Dear Mr Hewson, 

 I am writing to you because I want to have the rugby field lines to be painted and make them clear so we can see them. I think we should at least paint the lines every two weeks and it would be great if we could do it on the soccer field as well. When the lines are not painted we don’t know if the ball is in or out. 

 My second opinion is to have nets in the soccer goals as we keep losing balls over to the houses and can’t get them back. When we lose the ball we can’t play for the rest of the lunch time as we don’t have another ball in the class. 

 I would like to hear from you and can you please keep your mind on this. We all know you’re busy but we would like to have this done. 

 Yours Sincerely,

 Hugh Robinson

And here is Mr Hewson's reply....

Hi Hugh
Wow! You are quite a persuasive writer, and you know how to express your expectations!!!! 
You may find that the rugby lines are looking pretty clear at present - I think Mr Western has put some spray on them over the holidays. While it kills the grass, it does mean he is not having to repaint them every second week! - But, I have to admit it doesn't look quite a flash as AMI stadium!
Good point about the soccer nets - I guess there is still a bit of a problem if you miss the goal mouth altogether, and the other thing we unfortunately have to be really mindful of at school is the problem of vandalism which occurs out-of- school. Never-the-less, I will keep my mind on this, and maybe we could have a chat about your requests out in the playground some time!
Kind regards
Mr Hewson

Animal Adaptations

We began our new topic this week, by thinking about some of the different habitats that there are around the world, and finding out what kinds of animals live in these habitats. Next week we will begin to look at one of these habitats in more detail and start to think about how the animals that live there have special physical and behavioural adaptions to suit the environment.
Here is a video made by Chris, with Will, Paige and Georgia explaining one of this weeks tasks.

Habitat reflection from Naomi on Vimeo.

We love our Little Buddies!

We love spending time with our little buddies on Fridays. This week we took our new topic books to share with them, and then did some singing.

Reading Rewards

Look how well Room 18 are getting on with their reading homework!

Multiplication

Hexagons maths group have been learning about multiplying by ten,  a hundred and a thousand in preparation for some tricky problems they will be doing next week.