Happy Holiday!
June 12nd, 2016
What an incredible year this has been! Looking back through these blog posts it is hard to imagine that all this learning took place during one school year! But it did and our learners in MP1 should be so proud of all of their achievements, all of their mistakes that they can learn and grow from and of how much they have blossomed over the last year. It has been a magical experience to have been part of their growing and learning process and has been a privilege to facilitate the learning in MP1! It still amazes me after two years at iCAN how resilient and respectful our learners are, they truly are a credit to the school and to themselves! MP1 learners have matured and grown so much over the last year and I know that they will continue to take risks and grow under the guidance of an incredible MP1 Team!
As the last day draws to a close, I speak for the whole MP1 Team; we have had a blast and want to thank you all for your continual support! I am signing out with a bitter sweet ending and personally wish to thank all of you for tuning into to our blog and supporting everything we do at iCAN. I have been so lucky to have been part of this gorgeous community! Happy holidays to you all! Have an amazing time with your children! I will miss them dearly!
We wish our leavers the best of luck in their new adventures! Keep inspiring, questioning and taking risks!
MP1 Learning 2015-2016
Sensational Sensations!
June 4th, 2016
Learning Journey
This week we bid farewell to our sensational unit! It has been great fun and full of surprises! We have learned so much new knowledge about the senses which will continue to help us understand other aspects of our learning as we grow and develop. For our Exit Point we were lucky enough to share our learning with children from different mileposts. We explained everything we had learned on our learning journey wall, asked them lots of questions and they asked us heaps too! They were treated to a peek into our sensory memory boxes. We carefully explained the concept behind our memory boxes and treated them to explanations about the objects which were inside and why they were special to us and why they evoked certain senses. We became teachers and taught the other classes all about our senses and how we can use them to make a sensory ‘fruity face’! Together and with our careful assistance, we firstly designed out ‘fruity face,’ making sure we stuck to the criteria! We then created our faces, made sure we evaluated them and made any necessary adjustments and finally ate our delicious delights!
Maths
At the beginning of the week, those of us in Year 1 focused on capacity. We compared different capacities by direct comparison using cups and different proportion of containers. During the later part of the week we focused on data handling. We presented data of children’s eye-colour by making a live pictogram then used this data to create block graphs! We have been very busy indeed!
In Year 2 we have been focusing on inverse operations! We have played lots of games with our team to help us better understand this concept. We also learned how inverse operations can help us solve missing number sentences! Play this game below to keep practising this skill!
Literacy
In Year 1 we have been creating sense poetry. We started the week by using our senses to describe CHOCOLATE! What does it look like? How does is taste? We came up with lots of interesting wow words. Next, we looked at different features used in a poem called ‘The Magic Box’ by Kit Wright. We spotted adjectives, repeated language and alliteration. This helped us to come up with our own version of poem all about chocolates in a chocolate box. yum, yum!
We have been very creative in Year 2 this week! We have been busy using our knowledge of adjectives to create a delicious menu for The Iron Man! Our learning facilitators were so impressed with our imaginative culinary creations and think The Iron Man will have a hard choice choosing between ´Seven old, rusty springs, laid on a bed of heated engine oil with iron filings sprinkled on top.´ and ´Warm oil soup, served with crunchy metal bread with oven grease spread on top.´……..mmmmmmmmm delicious!
Our Shining Stars!
I wrote a delicious menu for The Iron Man, really thinking about the way I described his food!
I was a super star in iCAN’s Got Talent! I was incredibly resilient and put in so much effort!
I have been putting in so much effort when reading and have been using wonderful expression!
I have been showing great resilience when writing my explanation text about senses and I remembered to use connectives.
A huge thank you to all the families that joined us
for our Family Event last Saturday! We had a
wonderful time!
Surprising Sense!
May 27th, 2016
Learning Journey
We have been amazing designers this week!
In technology we had a strict design criteria; to make a fruit kebab which has different textures, different tastes and has an unusual pattern! We accepted this challenge and firstly tested lots of different fruit; we had to choose a piece from each of the criteria. Once we planned our sensory fruit kebab we got to work making it, eating it and evaluating our successes!
This week we have also been thinking about how our memories evoke certain senses in our mind. We discussed the different smells, sights, sounds, feelings and tastes from our home country. We then bought in photos or trinkets or drew pictures of things that triggered these senses in our mind. We carefully made a sense memory box, decorated it with more memories from our home country and placed all our special items inside. Our memory box is like Pandora’s Box; when it is open all of our amazing memories come rushing out. Our friends opened our boxes and when they did we used our communication skills and explained each of the senses we love and remember from our home country!
Maths
In Year 1 we continued learning about division! We practised the skill of division as grouping and to help us better understand this concept we used lots of objects to support our learning and to solve lots of tricky division sums!
In year 2 we have been focusing our learning on subtraction. We consolidated the many methods we have learned over the year; using a number line, using a hundred square and using an empty number line. Once we had mastered these skills through cooperative learning games we then played shop! We put all our refreshed knowledge and skills into practise and worked out, on the spot, the change we had to give our friends. Lots of quick thinking skills!
Literacy
In Year 1 we have continued looking at non-fiction texts. We used information texts to research and answer questions about our senses. We were good communicators and explained our findings to our teams. We then began to plan our own information text before finally writing our own fascinating facts about the 5 senses. We remembered to use the correct features e.g. headings, question, diagrams and created own own class senses book.
This week in literacy, those of us in Year 2 have been getting into role as Hogarth from The Iron Man! We have been been putting our communication skills to the test and acting out how we think Hogarth would feel during important events in the text. We then changed our verbal ideas into a short passage; we wrote about the moment Hogarth first saw The Iron Man. We had to remember to add lots of true detail and write in the first person. This will help us next week when we will write Hogarth’s diary!
Our Shining Stars
A huge congratulations to all the MP1 performers! You were amazing and showed so much resilience during the run up to the show and during the show! You should all be very proud of your achievements! We can’t wait to see what you are going to do next year!
Taste testing!
May 22nd, 2016
Learning Journey
This week we have continued to learn about our senses. We focused on the sense of taste and pondered this big questions, ‘Do we need our sense of smell to taste?’ We set up an investigation whereby we tasted two unknown foods (they had been blitzed in a blender so we had no idea what they were). We tasted the food samples whilst holding our nose, blocking out our sense of smell. We found it incredibly difficult to know what flavours we were tasting! All the foods looked the same and they were the same colour! How were we possibly going to identify the what we were eating? We sampled the same blended food again but this time we did not hold our nose! We were very surprised with our results! We were able to identify the different tastes with the help of our sense of smell! We continued our learning by being great enquirers, asking lots of questions about how our sense of taste and smell are linked and how they work together! We had no idea and feel proud of all the new knowledge we have learned!
Maths
In Year 1 we have been focusing on division. We were introduced to division as equal sharing. We played lots of games to help us better understand division as sharing. We practised dividing using an interactive games that involved sharing a number of objects between a certain number of children. We worked in groups using different objects to reinforce our our understanding of division.
In Year 2 we have been consolidating our addition leaning. We recapped our knowledge of number bonds and used this knowledge to help us solve tricky addition sums. We did this in a variety of ways: in groups, independently, and with our partner; our learning facilitators gave us sums to solve, we made up our own sums and we played addition games…all of this helped us to practise very important skills!
Literacy
In Year 1 we have been looking at non-fiction texts. We identified the different features of an information text including photos, headings, big, bold text, diagrams etc. We also looked at the glossary and how we can use it to help us understand unfamiliar words. It was easy to find a particular word because the glossary is in alphabetical order. We then applied our knowledge by writing our own glossaries using key words from our unit, Sensational.
We have been continuing to learn through the text of The Iron Man in Year 2! This week week have been putting our acting skills to the test. We have been getting into role as different characters from the story! We were amazing at acting out the scene where the seagulls find parts of The Iron Man! We were fantastic at communicating how we thought the seagulls would be feeling at different moments in the scene! We did this in a very mature manner! Our learning facilitators were very impressed with our maturity and approach we took to this learning task! Year 3 learners in the making!
Our Shining Stars!
I was a super communicator during drama!
I have been so resilient when writing!
Picture
I have been really resilient with my reading!
I used great thinking skills when solving addition sums in maths!
Super Sharing!
May 12th, 2016
Learning Journey
This week we have been learning about our sense of touch! We have continued to learn as scientists and conducted an amazing experiment! We wanted to find out if we base how we feel temperature according to our current temperature. To do this we placed one hand is really cold water, one hand in warm water and left them there for 1 minute. Once a minute had passed we then placed both hands into a container of water which was at room temperature. The results were amazing! Our hand that had been in the very cold water insistently felt warm. The hand that had been in the warm water felt cold when we put it in water that was at room temperature! We found it really strange that our hands felt different temperatures and also found it strange that they could feel both warm and cold in the same container of water…the same container of water that was not hot and not cold..it was at room temperature! With some careful thinking we came to realise that our cold hand felt warm because it had been placed in water that was not warm but was at a higher temperature than our hand. Our warm hand felt cold because the water was not cold but at a lower temperature than our hand. Amazing thinking skills!
Child Led Conference!
We have been busy preparing for Child Led Conference this week. We loved choosing our learning to share with you and really enjoyed preparing to make sure we were fantastic communicators! We practised our communication skills with another class in MP1; our learning facilitators said we were really great listeners when pretending to be adults and asked our friends fantastic learning based questions! We absolutely loved sharing our learning with you! Thank you so much for coming and for getting involved with our optical photo booth! We emailed our learning facilitators the optical creations we made with you!
Our Shining Stars!
I have been an amazing thinker during reading time! I have been carefully sounding out all of the words!
I did an amazing job when practising for CLC! I was a really great communicator!
I have been a super enquirer, asking questions and finding out lots of fascinating facts about sound!
I have been showing great thinking skills when asking questions about how sound travel on length of strings.
Sense Scientists!
May 6th, 2016
Learning Journey
This week we have been busy learning so much new knowledge about our sense of hearing! We firstly discussed how sound is made; we had some really interesting ideas but none of us knew that sound is produced through vibrations! We also learned about sound waves! We can’t see sound waves travelling through the air but when a tuning fork is stuck and put into a bowl of water, the water moves! This is because of the sound being produced by the fork! We did many investigations to make sure that sound is in fact produced by vibrations. During our investigations we discovered that sounds waves travel really well through solid objects. We conducted another investigation; how well does sound travel over long distances. We were able to do our investigation by making telephones with cups and string of different lengths. We then tested our telephones to see which one carried our sound waves best. Which one do you think worked the best? The telephone with the short, medium or long string?
Ask us about the photos below! What were we doing with the balloon? Why are our heads on the table?
Maths
This week in Year 1 we’ve continued practising our multiplication skills. We learned what an array is by using objects like egg boxes, muffin baking trays, squared paper, ice-trays and blocks of stickers. This really helped us understand the meaning of arrays and helped us solve multiplication problems.
In Year 2 we have been consolidating our multiplication learning. We did this through real life word problems. It was great to apply our knowledge and skills to help us better understand mathematical word problems.
Literacy
In Year 1 we continued our descriptions about a spooky setting. First we drew our own pictures showing the outside and inside of a spooky house. We then labelled the images with adventurous adjectives. Finally we wrote our own creepy descriptions using adjectives, alliteration, and even similes. ooOOooo!
Those of us in Year 2 have started a new unit of learning on extended narratives. This week we have started to read The Iron Man by Ted Hughes. We have been focusing on the amazing opening to his story; created our own Iron Men/Monsters, described them using similes and metaphors and finished our week learning about clauses. All of this learning helped us to create the most amazing wanted posters! We were able to apply of our learning from the week to help us create a fantastic description of The Iron Man!
Our amazing stars of the week!
I have been a great thinker! I answered lots of questions about The Iron Man!
I have been a great thinker! I answered lots of questions about The Iron Man!
I have been a great communicator when sharing my knowledge about senses! I also listened really well to the ideas of my peers.
I have been a great thinker during phonics and applied my new phonic knowledge to my reading!
Optical Art
May 5th, 2016
Learning Journey
This week we have been getting very creative and artistic! We consolidated our learning about optical illusions and thought about how optical illusions fool our senses. After looking at many great examples of optical illusions we felt ready to create our own. We used our cooperation skills and thinking skills to create amazing optical illusions on the iPADS. Our learning facilitators then supported our ICT learning further and we were able to email our creations to their accounts!
We continued learning about the senses through art. We discussed how artists depict certain emotions through their artistic creations. We began to look at famous portraits and used lots of cooperative learning structures to facilitate our discussion into how these portraits resonate with certain senses and how and why the artist has communicated certain emotions in their art. We then challenged ourselves to create portraits that could fool our senses. We created portraits which showed more than one emotion!
Maths
In Year 1 we have been practising counting in 2s, 5s and 10s as an introduction to multiplication. We have been learning about multiplication as repeated addition. We also practised asking “lots of” in pairs when trying to write number sentences. E.g. How many “lots of” paws can you see? We have also been learning to write multiplication number sentences in a quicker way by using the multiplication sign.
Those of us in Year 2 started the week learning more about time. We focused on telling and writing the time to quarter past and quarter to the hour. We then shifted our focus to measures! We have been busy learning about capacity. We have practised the skills of estimating, measuring and recording our results using the correct unit of measurement!
Literacy
In Year 1 we have been using our senses to describe a spooky setting. We practised our communication skills using facial expression and actions as we stepped inside a spooky picture during our role play activity. We were all very brave and fantastic risk takers!
In Year 2 we continued to retell our own version of Mama Panya’s Pancakes. We created puppets and gave our peers a puppet show performance! This really supported us when we wrote our stories; they were fresh in our mind and we had practised saying them out loud. There was a lot to remember when writing our own version of the story but they were great and full of description. Some of us were amazing risk takers and tried really hard to use new vocabulary and punctuation!
Our Shining Stars!
I was a great thinker and communicator when retelling my story!
I was a fantastic thinker when telling the time to quarter past the hour!
I showed fantastic cooperation when exploring senses during my knowledge harvest!
Entry Point!
April 22nd, 2016
Sensational and Family Learning Day!
This week we started our new unit all about our senses! Thank you to all the brave families who participated in our ‘blind taste test,’ ‘mystery box test’ and ‘sound quiz’! It was really great to have families join us for our entry point! We hope you enjoyed it as much as we did!
Maths
In Year 2 we have been focusing our learning on time! We have been playing lots of time games to help us tell the time and write the time to quarter past the hour.
Literacy
Those of us in Year 2 have been busy planning our own version of Mama Panya’s Pancakes! We have changed the characters, the setting and the food that our Mama is going to cook! We will retell our stories using puppets next week and then write our stories using our new gamma skills.
Our Shining Stars!
I was an amazing risk taker during my entry point!
I have been a great thinker and shared lots of information about the senses during my knowledge harvest!
I have been so resilient and a great thinker when learning about time in maths!
I have been a great thinker when using suffixes in my writing!
The celebration never ends!
April 9th, 2016
Learning Journey
We have come to the end of our Let’s Celebrate unit! It has been a fantastic unit filled with much fun and we have learned lots of new knowledge skills and understanding! To celebrate the end of a fabulous unit we held a hat parade. We created celebration hats in art with Ms. Laura and showed off our creative side during our parade! Our hats were fantastic and definitely fit for a purpose!
Maths
Those of us in Year 1 have been consolidating our 3D shape learning and finding out about properties of 3D shapes. We searched for 3D shapes in the classroom and were asked to describe them using the words faces, edges and vertices. We also described the differences between 2D and 3D shapes.
In Year 2 we have been learning about data handling! We now understand how to create tally charts and turn these tally charts into bar graphs. We also practised interpreting our data based on the results we had!
Literacy
In Year 1 we have been practising speaking and writing the past tense. We used our knowledge of suffixes and spelling rules for words ending in ‘ed’ to change present tense verbs into past tense verbs. We noticed how some words change completely e.g. go becomes went.
Those of us in Year 2 have been very busy consolidating our learning about instructional texts. We practised ordering instructions, this helped us to remember the key features that we have to include when writing instructions. We learned the importance of imperative verbs and adverbs and tried really hard to include these in our own instructions! We created a recipe for our very own special pancakes! Once we had created our recipe using all the relevant key features we then followed the instructions to make our own scrumptious pancakes! They were delicious!
Our Shing Stars!
I was a great thinker and wrote a fantastic set of instructions!
I showed so much enthusiasm during my Exit Point this week!
I have been a respectful member of 1R and have been showing cooperation with my teammates.
I have been so resilient when writing in the past tense!
Happy New Year!
April 1st, 2016
Learning Journey
In learning journey this week we have been focusing on society and international. We discussed the different groups we belong to (home, school, Cambodia and the world) and thought about the different celebrations that happen within our groups and communities. We used lots of cooperative learning structures to support our discussion and this helped us to speak freely about the festivals and celebrations which we have experienced in these groups. We were surprised that many of our groups and communities have overlaps and share similarities. In international we have been leaning about New Year celebrations from our home countries. Many of us discussed our New Year celebrations with our families and this really helped us to communicate our understanding of how we celebrate New Year. It was really interesting to listen to the ways our friends celebrate New Year and that we celebrate at different times and in different ways. We really enjoyed noticing the similarities between our New Year celebrations too, it was great to learn that family and friends are a close part of all New Year Celebrations!
Maths
Those of us in Year 1 have been practising our sentences; remembering capital letters and full stops. We even used conjunctives to extend our sentences and added lots detail.
In Year 2 we have been applying our multiplication and division skills to help us understand word problems! We consolidated our learning of multiplication and division and then practised solving real life word problems. We had to read the text carefully and firstly decided if the question required us to solve it through multiplication or division. We then had to create a number sentence based on the information given to us in the word problem and finally we used our skills to solve the sum! Now we definitely have a better understanding of real life word problems in maths!
Literacy
In Year 1 we have been have been busy looking at 3D shapes. We used our prior knowledge of 2D shapes to help us remember the properties of 3D shapes. We went on a shape hunt around school and found lots of shapes. We then sorted these shapes into different groups e.g. curved faces/straight faces/both.
Those of us in Year 2 have been learning about direct speech in narrative text. We learned about inverted commas (speech marks) and how we use them when writing direct speech. We created comics inspired by scenes from Mama Panya’s Pancakes and then turned our speech in the speech bubbles into direct speech using fantastic alternative words for said and amazing adverbs!
Our Shining Stars!
I was really respectful towards my friends when I had my face painted in technology!
I am resilient and try my best in all of my learning!
I have been a really respectful member of 1N!
I have been a careful thinker and have remembered my number bonds to 10!
Consolidating Continents!
March 25th, 2016
Learning Journey
In our learning journey this week we have been focusing on geography! We learned the skill of reading maps and answered questions based on the information we could see on the maps. We also learned about the continents! We were great enquirers and had LOADS of questions about the continents. We used world maps to locate the continents, and also located which landmarks, festivals, food, clothes and animals came from which continent. Our learning this week gave us a better understanding about the world, continents and countries. Wow, we really did learn lots of new knowledge this week and had lots of opportunities to practice map reading!
We loved exploring this website!
www.kbears.com/continents.html
Maths
Those of us in Year 1 have been using pairs to add to 10 and used pairs to ten to help us bridge ten. We did this when adding and then when subtracting and used visual supports to help us with this skill. We sorted calculations according to whether they will bridge ten or not.
n year 2 we have been busy thinking about how our knowledge of the 2 times tables can help us with the skill of doubling and halving. We consolidated our 2 times tables through lots of interactive games. We then applied this to doubling and halving questions. We now know that when we double we are multiplying by 2 and when we halve we divide by 2. We made sure we could apply our knowledge and skills by playing lots of doubling and halving games!
Literacy
In Year 1 we have been very bossy this week – writing instructions. First we looked at the different features instructions need e.g. numbers, time connectives, bossy verbs and adverbs. These features then helped us sequence a set of instructions. Next we followed a recipe using the instructions to help us make pancakes (they were even better than Mama Panya’s pancakes). Yummy! Finally we wrote our own instructions using all the features we had looked at over the week.
Those of us in Year 2 have been focusing on questioning this week. We returned to the front cover of Mama Panya´s Pancakes and realised there
were many unanswered questions. We shared our questions and then learned how we could create more detailed questions using nouns and adjectives.
Question like “What is she holding?” changed to “What is the girl in the royal blue, patterned dress holding in her hands?” which then changed to “What is the girl with the braided hair, wearing the royal blue patterned dress, holding on the large, white dish?”
We created many wonderful detailed questions!
Our Shining Stars!
We were fantastic communicators during our class assembly!
My understanding of map work has been fantastic this week!
Mahli we will miss you! We wish you the best of luck in Australia, you have been a super star!
I have been a great listener this week and a fantastic role model to my class!
Festival Painting!
March 18th, 2016
Learning Journey
In technology we have been busy thinking about how we use objects/symbols to enhance celebration experiences! Pancakes on Shove Tuesday, flowers at weddings, fireworks during New Year celebrations and face paint at many different celebrations like birthdays and sporting events. We decided to use the idea of enhancing a celebration experience by designing and then creating a face paint creation for a festival of our choice. We carefully planned our design using our knowledge of our chosen festival, used our design to paint it onto our partners face and finally we took a photo and evaluated our creation. We thought about what we really liked about our finished design and how we might improve it next time. We had lots of fun during our technology learning!
Maths
In Year 1 we used 1-digit and 2-digit numbers to bridge ten when adding with visual support. We used really great thinking skills and showed a resilient attitude when practising this skill!
In Year 2 we have been consolidating our place value learning. We used arrow cards and dienes to support our thinking and partitioned numbers in hundreds, tens and units. Some of us even had a go at partitioning thousands, hundreds, tens and units! This really helped us later on in the week when using partitioning to support our addition skills!
Literacy
Both Year 1 and Year 2 have started new units. We are looking at narrative and have been busy with a new book, ‘Mama Panya’s Pancakes’. In Year 1 we read the story of Mama Panya’s Pancakes, set in Kenya, which we were able to locate on a map. Then we sequenced the story, picking out the key events. We then chose our favourite food from our own home country to write about. If you know the story you know there is a big focus on food! We used our 5 senses to add detail to our description and even used alliteration to make it interesting to read. In Year 2 we started our week learning about different markets, we created a sound scope using the sounds we would hear in markets from our own country. It was amazing to hear all the different languages and phrases! We continued our week making predictions about the text and asking questions based on the front cover.
Our Shining Stars!
I have been a fraction super star in maths and showed lots of resilience
I have been showing so much respect to everyone in my class!
I have been a phonics super star by showing lots of resilience!
I have been so respectful to all the children and adults in my class!
Party Time!
March 12th, 2016
Learning Journey
This week we had our Entry Point introducing us to our new unit, Let´s Celebrate! For our Entry Point we held an amazing party! This party really got us in the mood for our new unit! We made carnival masks, played musical chairs, made our very own fruity punch, decorated cookies, played balloon games and even had a disco! Lots of fun was had by all!
Maths
In Year 1 we have been practising our addition skills.
We consolidated our understanding of adding 10 more to a two digit number and then used this knowledge to help us add 11 to a two digit number. We firstly added our ten and then added our unit. We showed great understanding about partitioning in order to solve addition sums.
Those of us in Year 2 revisited learning we experienced before the February holiday. We have been busy finding fractions of shapes, factions of numbers and have used our thinking skills to solve tricky word problems involving fractions! It was great to be able to consolidate our fraction learning.
Literacy
Those of us in Year 1 are still in a party mood! We have been practising writing lists in literacy! Can you guess what lists we have been creating? We made party food lists! We have also been creating party invitations, making sure we remember all the key features of an invitation.
In Year 2 we have been very creative with our poetry learning. We discovered all the fun things you can do with alliteration and also learned about acrostic poems. We then created amazing acrostic poems about our friends and tried to use our new knowledge of alliteration when creating these poems.
Our Shining Stars!
I used really imaginative language when creating my acrostic poem about my friend!
I was a great thinker this week and thought of lots of amazing alliteration in Literacy.
I have been a really resilient learner in maths!
I used great thinking skills when practising addition sums!
We say goodbye to The Magic Toymaker!
March 5th, 2016
Learning Journey
This week saw the end of our fantastic unit, The Magic Toymaker! We celebrated our learning through a very grown up exhibition! This was a new style of reflection for us and we took it in our stride. Our learning facilitators were so proud of the communication skills we displayed! We reveled in sharing all our new toy knowledge, showing our adults the new skills we acquired during this unit and very much enjoyed consolidating our learning before we said our last goodbye to The Magic Toymaker. A huge thank you to all the adults who joined our celebration of learning! We hope you enjoyed dancing like toys; making optical toys and puppets; learning about the history of teddy bears; finding about old toys; practising the skill of ordering them in chronological order and much much more! Our new unit is called Let’s Celebrate! We will be kicking off this unit with a huge party! Photos to follow next week.
Maths
Those of us in Year 1 have been busy ordering two-digit numbers from greatest to least. We also looked at fractions of shapes and amounts – finding 1/2 and 1/4. We showed great resilience and thinking skills in all of our maths challenges this week!
In Year 2 we have been focusing our learning on addition and subtraction. We reminded ourselves of the different methods we have been using this year to support our addition and subtraction learning. We then applied those key skills to help us understand word problems. We were great thinkers and applied lots of resilience when solving tricky word problems.
Literacy
In Year 1 we have been writing recounts from our favourite day in the holiday. We practised writing verbs in the past tense and tried really hard to remember time connectives to help us sequence the events.
Those of us in Year 2 have been learning about calligrams and shape poems. We have been busy creating our own calligrams both on paper and on the computer. We then used our new knowledge of calligrams to create shape poems! They were excellent and you can see how much thought and care went into our creative and artistic learning this week!
Our Shining Stars!
I showed great thinking skills in maths this week! I was very resilient and did not give up!
I have done a fantastic job at settling in to my new school and new class!
I displayed excellent communication skills in our exit point this week.
I have a really positive attitude and try my best everyday!
Creative Arts Celebration!
February 25th, 2016
Wow! We have had a busy but AMAZING week!
Our focus for Creative Arts Celebrations was ‘A Sustainable World’. We have
learned so much new knowledge this week we think our brains might just explode!
We started learning about the damaging effects of pollution to our environment;
we were shocked to learn about all the people and creatures that suffer
because of our waste! We now know that some of our waste is biodegradable
but some of it isn’t; this means if we throw it away it will be on our planet
forever! This led us to discuss what we could do about the waste problem in our
environment. We were amazing thinkers and came up with so many fantastic ideas!
Why don’t you ask us about our ideas, maybe we can come up with some more
ideas with you at home! True to Creative Arts Celebration, we became very arty!
We used lots of waste items and turned them into useful products and works
of art! All of our creations are going to be put to good use in our new secret garden!
We have transformed the space between 1R and 1N. It is now a
pleasant, usable and exciting place to be and a stimulating place to learn!
We are very proud of our efforts and proud that we created this space using junk!
I hope we have become an inspiration to you all!
We made:
A tent out of old rice sacks
Huge plant pots out of old tyres
We used the top of a plastic bottle to make ‘forever’ flowers and used the bottom of the bottle to make flower pots
We made musical instruments out of bottles
Our ladybird decorations were made using the bottom of a plastic bottle
We learned lots of new knowledge about ecosystems and made our own using big plastic jars
Toys that fool your eyes!
February 16th, 2016
Learning Journey
his week we have been designers, planners and creators! We learned all about toys that fool our eyes! These are called optical illusions. We looked at many different optical illusions! They were really fascinating and we could not believe that the pictures were not really moving! Once we had researched optical illusions we then decided to make our own optical toy. We designed it first using a planning sheet and then got to the business of creating it using simple tools and materials. We were so impressed with how well our designs worked! They really did
fool our eyes!
During this week we also learned about puppets! There are so many different types of puppets and they are famous in many countries! We loved learning about all the different types of puppets! We then spent the rest of the week designing and creating our own sock puppets! It was a tricky task but we were very imaginative and made some wonderful puppets!
Maths
In Year 1 we have been practising our number bonds to 10. We then used this knowledge of number bonds to help us when solving 3 digit number problems. We were really great at using our thinking skills to help us with this task and remembered to draw on our new knowledge to help us!
In Year 2 we continued our fraction learning. We started to learn about fractions of numbers and we were introduced to different methods of finding a faction of a given number! We were very resilient when practicing our new skills! We were finding 1/2, 1/3, 1/4 and 3/4 of numbers! Wow!
Literacy
Those of us in Year 1 have been busy learning about stories from other cultures. We read the story Handa’s Hen, which is set in Africa, and we put pictures from the story in order to help us retell it. We then started to write our own Cambodian versions of the story. We thought of our own new characters and changed the places and animals in the story for places and animals in Cambodia. On Friday, we started to write our stories and we will finish them next week!
In Year 2 we have been learning about different types of poems. We read acrostic poems, shape poems, rhyming poems and repeating poems! After gaining new knowledge about these types of patterned poetry we began to sort poems based on this new knowledge. We then listened to a poem called The Magic Box by Kit Wright. It is a beautiful poem which uses a repeating patterned. After exploring the poem we wrote our own magic box poems. We used lots of amazing description to let the reader know what special thing we would place in our magic box!
Our Shining Stars
I have been using very quick thinking skills in Maths this week!
I have been showing great reading comprehension this week!
I have been using adventurous wow words in Literacy!
I have a positive attitude and always try my best at everything I do.
Year 2 had some very special visitors this week!
Year 7 gave Year 2 a sneak peek of their fabulous Poetry Slam! The younger children absolutely loved watching Year 7 perform their poems! It really helped them put into perspective everything they have been leaning about over the past couple of weeks! They were able to recognise lots of poetic features that the Year 7’s included in their poems and comment on the poems they had watched and listened too.
A huge thank you to Year 7 and Ms.Clare! Year 2 gained so much from this sharing experience!
Super Scientists!
Febuary 2nd, 2016
Learning Journey
This week we have been learning as scientists! We started our week learning lots of new knowledge! We discovered that toys are made from lots of different materials and have many different properties! We were then introduced to new vocabulary to facilitate us through our science learning. Rubber, plastic, wood, metal, smooth, rough, bumpy, rigid, absorbent, waterproof, translucent and opaque are just some of the new words in our repertoire!
With these new words at the tips of our tongues, we got to business! Our classrooms were scattered with the Magic Toymaker’s toys, he is a messy toymaker and needs to practise sorting his toys based on their properties! We thought we could help him do that and sort all the toys left in our classroom. In groups we selected two criteria in which to sort our toys. We then created a Venn diagram with hoops and began sorting! Once we were happy with our decisions and they had been checked and verified, we changed our sorting criteria! We hope the Magic Toymaker is happy with our sorting, we certainly enjoyed helping him!
Sorting based on a toy’s properties is not the only thing we helped the Magic Toymaker with this week! He wants to design and make a new bath time toy. He sent us some plans and included samples of the materials he was hoping to use to make this new bath toy. We were not convinced by some of the materials he had chosen! This is when we used our thinking skills and thought of how we could conduct an experiment to test the suitability of the materials. Our experiments were a great success and we were able to test which materials were waterproof and send our results and conclusions to the Magic Toymaker.
Next week in our International learning we will be finding out about different games played in our home countries. Can you add any games you know of below?
Maths
In Year 1 we have been practising doubling and halving numbers. We enjoyed lots of games and activities to help us learn this tricky skill. We have been busy sharing objects equally into two groups and identified odd and even numbers too.
hose of us in Year 2 have been consolidating our multiplication skills this week. We have been rotating through a series of multiplication games and workshops! Some of these games involved a race against the clock, some of the games required us to remember our multiplication facts and other, more challenging games allowed us to practise the methods we learned 2 weeks ago. Towards the end of the week we were reintroduced to fractions of shapes and fractions of numbers. We will continue to consolidate this learning next week!
Literacy
Those of us in Year 1 have been busy creating shape poems! We started our week generating ideas as a team and then we put our ideas together to write a shared poem about racing cars. Towards the end of the week we created our own shape poems! Our shape poems were based on some of our favourite toys! We communicated fantastically when writing our poems and made sure we included adjectives, similes and alliteration. We even used some onomatopoeia!
In Year 2 we have continued our quest into the disappearance of the naughty toy box! He is nowhere to be seen! Our ‘Wanted’ posters are clearly displayed and we hope someone can track him down! In the mean time we have been listening to lots of poems about other naughty toy boxes. Who would have known there were so many! We recapped our learning about rhyme and rhyming couplets and then created our very own poem inspired by the naughty toy box. The poems are fantastic, full of description, similes and we even achieved the tricky task of including rhyming couplets!
Using the laptops, we then typed our poems and added pictures that linked well to our creative writing
Our Shining Stars!
I wrote a fantastic poem filled with great description and rhyming couplets!
I did a wonderful job when creating rhyming couplets for my poem!
I have been for a super enquirer when finding out lots of fascinating facts about teddy bears.
I have been really resilient and trying very hard with my spelling words every morning.
Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear
January 30th, 2016
Learning Journey
We have continued to learn as historians this week and have been learning about the very first teddy bear! We discovered lots of new knowledge about old teddy bears by practising one of our key goals. We used the skills of using a variety of secondary sources to find out about the past. We used laptops, iPADS and information sheets to learn about when the first teddy bear was made, where it acquired the name ‘Teddy’ from and features that are specific to old teddy bears. Once we had put our research into notes we decided to make a teddy bear guide! We thought it would be useful for other people to know the difference between old and new teddy bears. This also helped us to compare toys from our life and toys from the past. Our guides include a handy contents page and each page has a heading, information about old teddy bears and an illustration. We even made the paper books ourselves!
If you need to identify an old or new teddy bear, speak to us, we are teddy bear experts!
Maths
In Year 1 we have been showing great resilience when practising counting in 2s, 5s and 10s. We also practiced our estimating skills and estimated before grouping objects into 2’s, 5’s and 10’s. This really helped us count more reliably. We have also been writing repeated addition number sentences to show how we found the answer to some tricky sums!
hose of us in Year 2 have been really resilient this week! We have been learning about division! We firstly consolidated our division learning; reminding each other what division is, familiarised ourselves with the symbols used when writing a number sentence and then discussed two different methods which would help us solve tricky division sums. We spent the rest of the week practising our dividing skills. We did this through grouping and through sharing. At the start of the week it all seemed quite tricky but we had a growth mind-set and accepted the challenges we faced!
Literacy
Those of us in Year 1 have been busy making our teddy bear guides in literacy! After discovering lots of new facts in learning journey, we used this new knowledge to create our guides! We included a contents page and lots of information about what old bears look like! We illustrated our books too!
In Year 2 we continued to get messages from the toys! This time they asked us to follow arrows that were placed around the school. The arrows led us to the naughty toy box! We used our thinking skills to capture the toy box and figured out a way to keep his terrifying mouth closed! We got him back to the classroom just before playtime but would you believe it, he escaped again! We were really worried for all the toys around the school! Our worry led us to make a ‘wanted’ poster. Our posters had to include a really detailed description of the toy box using adjectives and similes. We also focused on making sure we included correct punctuation on our ‘wanted’ posters. We hope that our detailed descriptions and use of punctuation will help people read our posters, get a good idea of what type of toy box they are looking for and hopefully return him too us before it is too late!
We also made our own toy boxes using nets, check out the photos below!
Our Shining Stars
I have been showing so much resilience in Learning Journey this week
I have been really resilient when solving division sums this week!
1R and iCAN school would like to wish Tae Rin the best of luck with her new adventures! We are going to miss you!
We are all stars in 1S this week! We were all fantastic communicators when performing our class assembly!
Past, Present and Future!
January 22nd, 2016
Learning Journey
his week we have been learning as historians! We started our week learning new vocabulary; timeline and chronological, ask us what these words mean, we should be able to remember! The next part of our learning was really exciting! We looked at a timeline of the most popular toys from 1900-2000! We were really surprised to discover that the first teddy bear was made in 1902 and that Mr Potato head was actually a toy from the 1950s!
Once we had grasped our new learning about timelines, we used this new knowledge to help us put toys into chronological order. It was a tricky task, especially if you were born in 2008, 2009 or 2010! Some of us have never had to say ‘nineteen sixty-two’ (1962) before and when we see this number written in digits we want to say ‘one thousand nine hundred and sixty two’! Once we had discussed this misconception with our learning facilitators we were able to use dates to help us put toys into chronological order!
Our current learning goal is to be able to identify differences between our own lives and those of people who have lived in the past. We spent the rest of the week focusing on two pieces of art to help us explore our learning goal, The Toyshop by Peter Blake and Children’s Games Pieter Bruegel. We have been considering the toys and games in both of the artists work and have been really great at communicating the similarities and differences between the toys and games we play now and the toys and games that were depicted in the art work. We created our own toyshop in the style of Blake’s, our had three windows, one repenting the past, one the present day and one the future. We then drew toys onto our toy shop window making sure we commented on the differences between the past and present day toys.
Maths
Those of us in Year 1 have been busy working systematically to find different ways to make amounts of money. For example –
5 + 5 =10
and
2 + 2 + 1 + 5 =10
and
2 + 2+ 2+ 2 + 2 = 10
This is a really tricky thinking skill to master but we were resilient and really enjoyed challenging ourselves! We also role-played adding different amounts of money together at our very own shop.
In Year 2 we have been busy solving multiplication sums. Some of the sums we were able to solve in our head or by counting in 2’s, 5’s or 10’s. But what happens if we can’t count in a certain number? To help us with this potential problem we learned two methods of solving very tricky multiplication sums. We then went on a multiplication hunt around the school and practiced the new skills we had learned in the classroom. It was great to have been shown two different methods, we can now choose the method which works well for us when solving tricky multiplication sums!
Literacy
In Year 1 we have had lots of fun learning about riddles! We began the week learning new knowledge about riddles. This involved listening to lots of great riddles and playing lots of games to guess the riddle, we had to use our thinking skills to help us with this challenge! Once we had a greater understanding about riddles we decided to write our own toy riddles with our partner! We had to make sure we carefully described our chosen toy with lots of really great adjectives but at the same time we could not give to many clues away! Finally we used ideas we had generated in our teams to create a toy riddle by ourselves! This was great fun because once we had created our riddle we read it to a partner and they had to guess which toy our riddle was describing!
Those of us in Year 2 have been on a mission! On Monday morning we had some very strange riddles to solve. These riddles led us to different places around the school. Hiding in these places were lost toys with a secret message! It was our job to decode their message. Their message was worrying! It said ‘Please help us! We’re afraid of the toy box!’ We wanted to help the toys but didn’t know why they were afraid?
In groups we used our imagination and thinking skills to think of all the reasons why the toys might be scared of their toy box. We then decided on our own idea and wrote it into sentences paying particular attention to our punctuation. We left our literacy books out for the toys to read when we had gone home.
The next morning the toys had left us another message, they were asking us to write a poem describing all the things the toys were scared of. This poem had to include rhyming couplets; something we were learning about last week. Our poems are now complete and we are gong to leave them out for the toys to read. we hope they appreciate all the effort we we made when practicing our rhyming skills! I wonder what they will ask us to do next?
Our Shining Stars!
I have been a really resilient learner when practising my 2 and 10 times tables.
I have been cooperating really well with my team and classmates!
I have been very resilient when practising my phonics and reading.
I have been using my thinking skills to come up with lots of interesting alliteration.
The Magic Toymaker!
January 17th, 2016
Learning Journey
This week we started our new topic, The Magic Toymaker! For our Entry Point we entered the Magic Toymaker’s Workshop and it was amazing! We had a very important job to do in the workshop! The Magic Toymaker wanted us to help him rate his toys so he knew which toys he should carry on making and develop based on their popularity! We were given a special rating sheet and had to give his toys ratings out of 5 stars! We really enjoyed our Entry Point and the important job we had to do! It was a great introduction into our new unit all about toys!
Maths
Those of us in Year 1 have been finding the difference between two numbers by using and exploring a variety of strategies; taking away objects and pictures, counting back on a numberline and counting on from the smaller number (finding the difference). It has been a tricky skill to master but have enjoyed learning different strategies, now we can choose one which helps us learn best!
In maths this week Year 2 have been very busy practising our 2, 5 and 10 times tables! We used many different resources to firstly help us understand multiplication and then to help us remember our times tables. We have been playing lots of times tables games and have even produced some times table art to help us with our learning!
Literacy
In Year 1 we have been learning to use alliteration! We practiced this skills using lots of our cooperative learning structures! We then felt ready to use alliteration to write sentences for an animal counting book we are making. We then drew animal pictures to accompany our sentences. We thought of some really funny sentences!
In Year 2 we have started a new unit on poetry. We started our week listening to lots of different toy poems, identified the poet, commented on the poem and finally performed poems! We practised this skill by firstly deciding what makes a great performance! Once we had set our criteria, in groups we added actions, sound effects and expressive voices to make an amazing performance! Our learning facilitators said we have been really great communicators when performing poems! We only had half the lesson to turn a poem into a performance, we think we did really well considering we only had a short time!
We have also been consolidating our understanding of rhyme this week. We identified rhyme and pattern in the toy poems we read, played lots of rhyming games and used our thinking skills to come up with rhymes for a route word!
Maybe you can practising your rhyming skills by playing this game?
Our Shining Stars!
I have been really adaptable when settling in to my new school!
I was a really great communicator during performance poetry!
I have been using careful thinking skills in maths when subtracting numbers!
I have been a great thinker and wrote fantastic sentences using alliteration!
IPC Learning Journay
Year 1
In LITERACY this week we have been practising when to use has or have, as well as am, is or are. It’s a little tricky but we’re starting to get the hang of it. In the new year we will be writing about our favourite day in the holidays. What fun things you will get up to?
In MATHS we have been busy halving numbers. We used cubes to help us have bigger number into two groups. We then tested our knowledge by playing a halving game to see which halves we could remember. It was lots of fun.
Year 2
In LITERACY we worked more about Little Red Riding Hood. We described Little Red Riding Hood’s character, as well as the setting of the story. We made lists of what we hear, see, feel and smell in the wood. After the long Christmas break we will work more on this story and write our own versions!
In MATHS we worked on our addition skills and we will follow up with that after the break. What can you find to add together at home?
MATHS DAY!
We also had a fantastic Maths Day! We spent the morning preparing for our Maths party where we learned about fractions when making sandwiches, measured different amounts of juice, made number sentences using cookies and made patterns out of the decorations for the party. During the party we enjoyed all of the lovely food and drinks that everybody made and we played some great Maths games. We think Maths is so much FUN!
