I then did a quick modeled lesson on letter writing and children wrote back to giant explaining how they would/could help him. I love how kind and caring some children are.
Several days later the class received a letter back from the giant along with some beans.
We talked about how we grow a plant - I made out that I had no idea so it was all student led. Together we figured out how to plant a plant using what we had in the class (cups and cotton). Once we had decided on how to plant them the students all were able to plant their own bean.
We made some flower art for the giant to decorate his walls. We used cardboard peices for the grass, finger prints for the flowers and sticks for the stem.
Next we began writing our stories back to giant. Explaining what he needed to be able to plant with and then the instructions for how to plant them. We revisited the language we used when writing instructions at the beginning of the year so it made the lesson a bit easier. I actually got really good writing out of all the children.
I gave students the story Jack and the Beanstalk all messed up and they had too rider the sentences and find a picture to match. I gave students an example of the story messed up and this led into a discussion about the importance of writing our stories in order so it makes sense.
We had two rain days this week which was very exciting. Lots of thunder, lightning etc.
Week 3 we received a letter from Jack asking for help. The class had to think about how they can help out Jack. Children had to tell the Jack how to care for his plants and how he could fix his relationship with the giant.
We created a flip up leaf book to show that for plants to live they need: water, sun, food and air.
Our plants grew really well and the children loved looking after them and seeing the growth. I planted a seed in a glass jar so the students could see the root growth and the plant growing.
We made some books to label each part of the plant and during our ICT time the children made and labeled a plant.
To finish off our plants topic we took a trip to the gardens. It was a lovely morning, we took our food and ate first and then had a play on the playground (we don't have a play ground at school so it was interesting to see what kids take risks and how they interact with each other) the kids had a blast on it. We then went for a walk around the gardens sketching and observing the different flowers and plants.
Some of our other learning has been alphabetical order. For this I gave my desk groups (which are mixed ability) 10 or so high frequency words and they had to put them in order. Next term we still have a little work to do on this so that they full grasp the concept.
In maths we have been doing graphing, which I love teaching. My first 2 intro lessons we did data gathering using tally marks and displaying it on a bar graph together. I then gave students the next few lessons to do their own. We found out information about colours, Arctic animals and safari animals (3 separate investigations). I gave children each a clip board with the tally area and the names of all students in our class. They had to go and ask each child and then cross their name off and add a tally mark, this worked really well and they were all engaged.
We had a charity carnival several weeks ago which was pretty large, their were food stands, coffee stalls, bouncy castles, chair swing, games, motor bikes and cars. The carnival raised about $12000nzd which is pretty awesome!
In the photo below a child bought his pet snake along with him to the carnival.
We now have term break for a week so I will be doing some much needed relaxing.
