Final Week Fun

Authors at work.
Our Grade Two authors have been busy again writing new books! In keeping with our week spent learning about flies, we read "There was an old lady who swallowed a fly" to our classes. They really enjoyed the story. 

In groups they were set the task to write their own versions of the story.  First they brainstormed who the main character would be and then what creatures they would swallow. They each wrote and illustrated a chapter. I was rather pleased with their efforts. Once again they are in the library on display..pop in and have a read. I even star in the one groups story!!

Speech and Drama
On Monday it was my class' turn to say our poem to the Speech and Drama adjudicator. I cant wait to see what the results..  as they were amazing!

Board Games

Today children spend most of their free time playing individual games on tablets or computers. I thought it would be great to show them how much good 'old fashioned' board and card games could be. So on Monday, in groups, we played games like..monopoly, 30 seconds, scrabble, dominoes, uno, and pick up sticks.

It was so great to see how much fun the children had. In fact when I walked into class this morning, the early birds had already organised themselves around some of the games and were happily playing.. what a joy to see. 

Today we allowed Miss Kinlochs class to join us...hopefully we have inspired the children to go home and get their families to play too...families who play together,stay together!

  

Bailey brings us maggots!

There was much excitement today when Bailey managed to bring us some maggots. We are hoping to see them pupate very shortly. It turns out that the maggots are great escape artists..and as you can imagine there was a great deal of excitement on the way to school this morning. Bailey was terrified that they would escape onto her!  Thanks Bailey (and your mom) we really appreciate the effort!

Stars of the week - Shraddha, Onyi, Shristhi, Khanyi and Inkanyezi

I am very proud of the following children...Shraddha, Onyi, Sunshine, Khanyi and Inkanyezi. Last week I awarded them certificates. 

Shraddha was given an award for her good work on recalling flower facts, Khanyi for her valuable contributions to class discussions, Onyi for her part in presenting the story to a group of grade ones during World read aloud day. Inkanyezi and Sunshine were rewarded a certificate in recognition of their consistent work this term. 

Well done all of you!

Stars of the week.

This week we have been learning about flies. These children wrote fantastic sentences.  I am so proud of them all.

A giant sunflower!

Daniel brought a giant sunflower 'seedbox' that had been growing in his granny's garden to show us. I don't think we realised how big a sunflower could grow, and how many seeds it would produce. Thanks for sharing Daniel!

Flies

We are ending off our "growing up" learning about flies. We will be reading the book Shoo Fly by Gill Eggleton each day and learning about the life cycle of the fly.


The weather has been so hot this summer and as a result we had found maggots in our rubbish bins on a weekly basis. But of course this week we could not find any..what a pity. If any of you find maggots in your bins this week, please collect some and send them to school. We would really like to watch them change into flies!


This morning we learnt a number of facts about flies. We wrote what we had learnt on big flies which are now displayed in the classroom. 

Water Week

Last week was International Water week, so we deviated slightly from our theme to briefly learn about a different type of cycle..the Water Cycle!

We started our week by walking out onto the wet early morning grass. We asked the children if any of them could tell us why the grass was wet. We had a few ideas but not many knew the reason why. This started the discussion about evaporation and condensation and what it was.

To demonstrate evaporation, Megan and I had made some coloured ice blocks. We gave each child one of two. We could not have asked for a better morning to conduct this experiment..it was a boiling hot day! It did not take long for the ice blocks to start melting and begin the evaporation process. The children were fascinated. As the ice melted and evaporated it left a beautiful mix of colours behind. By first break the children were left with their coloured paper..completely bone dry.

 

To show the opposite effect..condensation, we had earlier placed ice cubes in a glass bowl. The children were able to see how quickly the water droplets from the gases in the atmosphere had collected around jug. 

After we had some idea of how the water cycle worked we watched a cute video that explained it in cartoon fashion.

On Tuesday we made the water cycle. Our classes were divided into groups, each group made a different section e.g water, land, clouds rain etc. Once everything was complete we compiled the picture. It looked great.

On Wednesday we discussed various ways in which we can save water. It was interesting to hear what the children came up with..we wrote our ideas on a water drop displayed them alongside the water cycle.
My class loves to come and read the water saving tips when they finish their work.

We ended off our week very aptly..by having our annual fun gala1