Week 6 Class News

Purple class news
Purple Class students and staff are certainly a healthy and happy bunch of people. We continue to look in our lunch boxes every day to determine which are healthy foods and which foods are treats. The students have all loved receiving a sticker on their chart when they have healthy foods each day.
We were very lucky to have a mum come in last week to make us some delicious sweet rice dessert for cooking.
In a couple of weeks we will be going shopping to buy the ingredients for cooking that week. I will send home a permission note next week regarding this.
Parents would have received IEP meeting notes this week. We look forward to these meetings to discuss your goals and priorities for your child for 2013. If the times I have given you are not suitable, please let me know and we will organise another time.


KG class news
In KG we often use the books we have read to inspire our own writing. This week it was a particularly mundane topic that got us writing really well! We read the book "I've got nits!" by Mike Brownlow and started to learn the song "Nasty little Lice".
The following stories have been written by some of the children in KG – names have been removed for privacy.

• I had nits one day. The nits felt itchy. I didn't like it. I wish they didn't happen.
• Head lice are very itchy and you can get rid of them if you use special shampoo.
• We need to wash our hair. You have to put special shampoo on. We get nits from all around the world.
• Head lice are as small as an ant. They like clean hair. They like sucking blood. They have nippers.

In our writing this week the children have been trying to be 5 star writers. A 5 star writer writes two or more sentences that the teacher can read, starts with a capital letter, uses finger spaces and punctuation (capital letters in the right places and full stops or question marks). A number of children in the class are 5 star writers already and there are more who are determined to be one soon.

As this is the final Class news for 2012 I would like to take this opportunity to thank our parent helpers for their help in the classroom this year. Having willing ears to listen to emerging readers has really helped the children progress. Thank you also to all the parents who have supported their children by listening to them read at home. It is almost time for a stocktake of our Home Readers so please return them by the end of next week.

5/6B class news
It has been a lively week for 5/6B with lots of things happening.  On Monday we had a lady come and talk to us about the school's Positive Behaviour for Learning Program.  One thing the students had to do was choose 10 items from a list that they would take if they were stranded in the ocean on a life raft.  This created some very interesting discussion in the groups.  All the students were shocked to discover that pet food was a valid contribution to staying alive.  
On Thursday the Year 6 students who are going to Duval High School and Armidale High School next year were able to spend the day at their respective future schools.  Everyone reported having had a great time and feeling more comfortable with high school.   Students were able to sample some future lessons and some enjoyed a treasure hunt.  
Last Friday, 20 year 6 students attended Science in the Bush at the UNE.   This was designed to expose students to the possibilities within the scientific field.  The students thoroughly enjoyed the day with explosions, bangs, smells and many other creative and interesting chemical reactions happening.  Their favourite events at the UNE would have been the lecture on chemistry and their time in the lab experimenting with chemical reactions.  
In class we are continuing to work on our novel unit, DragonKeeper.  5/6B is highly motivated in this subject and is creating many wonderful projects in response to the themes in the novel.   I have been extremely impressed by the meanings the students have drawn out of the unit.   
Just a reminder to the parents of year 5 to return the note indicating whether you are or are not interested in your child going on a potential excursion to Lake Ainsworth next year.  


1TE class news
In 1TE we've been enthusiastically learning about our Term 4 topic – Growing and Changing.  We've drawn a timeline of our lives so far, looked at some people's baby photos – even Miss Rees' and drawn a self-portrait.
We've visited 1/2C's classroom to view the development of Mr Commens' eggs.  The eggs had to stay in the incubator, which kept them warm, for twenty one days.  On our first visit we saw the eye of a chick and some of its veins.  Mr Commens shone a torch through a tube in a darkened room for us to be able to see through the shell.
We had lots of questions to ask like, "How does the chick breath inside the egg?" The answer is that there is an air sack inside the egg and lots of little holes on the shell for oxygen to enter it.  We also learnt that the yolk becomes part of the chick's stomach, so that the chick has food for the first couple of days of its life.  Thank you very much Mr Commens and 1/2C for inviting us into your classroom. You taught us so much and we think your eight baby chicks are just gorgeous!

3/4SG class news
Here we are, halfway through the term already and we have started Child Protection Lessons.  Yesterday we learnt all about "No, Go, Tell".  Poetry writing has been happening the past few weeks and an example of our work is being displayed in the classroom.  
Mr Griffith has been teaching a unit on "Machines" and we had lots of fun making / designing machines from clay.  Our class book for this term is Charlotte's Web and in HSIE we are studying "Australian Communities".  We will soon find out how the Red Cross and the Country Women's Association contribute to our community.
Until next time, stay safe and be happy.

4/5G class news
We've become quite the expert multipliers and dividers lately. We're even multiplying and dividing decimals. The students really are going to be quite the expert Christmas shoppers. Speaking of which, we've begun looking at procedural texts, which has given us the exciting opportunity to enjoy some art and craft. There are some very colourful and very beautiful creations coming home at the end of year.
Sadly, we've finished reading "Danny, Champion of the World", although we're still working on literacy activities associated with the novel. Our child protection lessons have given us a chance to discuss feelings and what they mean to us.

2H class news
2H have been very busy this term learning about descriptive writing. We have been practising writing similes to go in our descriptions, for example, "My dad is as funny as a clown", "The leaves on the tree were as red as flames" and "His eyes are as blue as the sky".
In art with Margarete, we have been making a frieze (a long horizontal poster) that shows how our sunflower seeds have changed over time. Soon we will be planting sweet pea seeds. In a few weeks, we will be travelling to Saumarez Homestead to look at things from the past. We are very excited!

3/4 F class news
This week and last week we have been doing projects on simple machines and complex machines.  We  have also been learning music and playing cricket.  Mrs Frizell has built us a handwriting castle to improve our handwriting so that we can get our pen licenses.
We have been learning music and we have been pairing up and acting as machines with instruments.  We have been learning a song with instruments.  Every instrument has a different colour that we have to follow in a book.
The class has been experimenting with screws, wheels, axles, inclined planes, pullies and other machines.

K/1R class news
K/1R has been learning about numbers and patterns. The children are getting very clever at writing numbers. In mathematics we have completed a lot of graphing work. We used graphs to record the results of our teddy bear lucky dip and our dice rolling games. It was fun!
In spelling K/1R has been learning about th, wh, ou, ow words. The children now have a large bank of words that they can spell.
It is great to be finished our assessment tasks and K/1R is looking forward to learning more before the end of the school year.

1/2C class news
1/2C's science unit for the term was called ‘Growing and Changing". As part of our unit we hatched some chicken eggs. Firstly I purchased one dozen fertilised chicken eggs. 1TE joined in along with 2H as we had to turn the eggs three times a day, even on weekends. We all had a turn at turning the eggs.
On Thursday of last week, we were astonished to discover that six of the eggs had hatched overnight. Just before recess, I noticed one was about to hatch, so I dashed next door and invited 4/5G in to watch. Just before lunch another one started to hatch while purple class were visiting.
We decided to name the chicks. They were named Fluffy, Gerdy, Nugget, Whiz, Brownie, Patrick, Lucky and Spider. One was named after Patrick as it was his birthday. We have been weighing the chickens to observe their weight gains. Whiz, who was the smallest of them all, doubled his weight in only five days.
1/2C feel proud about their accomplishment of having eight out of a dozen eggs hatch.
We have enjoyed our experience and sharing it with other classes.

5/6M Class News
5/6M has been busy working on a range of different things.  We have been doing papier mache bowls for art and we have also been learning about the history of Vincent Van Gogh and his art works.  We really enjoyed drawing sunflowers in art.
In class 5/6M has been researching facts about the Murray Darling Basin and we have learnt a lot of interesting facts about Morris Gleitzman that we didn't know before.
In class 5/6M has also been learning about farming and how we get our clothing and food.  We have started an agricultural project; some people have chosen to do things like wool, cotton, fruit, meat, dairy, wheat, bread and pasta.
In Library with Miss Chorley we have been creating great iMovie's on the iPads; we have had so much fun making them.  We have also been doing a project called ‘Earths Place in Space' we are having a lot of fun.
On Thursday 8th November, Year 6 students went to Duval High and Armidale High orientation days.  We met a lot of teachers and students who we will be working with next year.
On Friday the 9th November some Year 6 students went to Science in the Bush excursion.  We had the opportunity to do lots of exciting things like:
•    we watched things explode
•    we did fingerprints
•    we saw a show about science
•    we saw how our heart works and saw how we can change its rhythm
These are a few of the different exciting things we did at Science in the Bush.