3D Space, Literacy and ...

"Sneezy"

 

KR have been reading "Sneezy the Snowman" and "Snowmen all Year".
These stories have given the children great 'writing inspiration' as well as terrific opportunity to learn about 3D shapes and the feeling of achievement when they persevere at tasks that require concentration, fine motor skills and coordination.

We have had a wonderful time creating, exploring and learning !

Here's our Sneezy the Snowman - who didn't melt! (I'm sure your child could tell you what DID happen to the real Sneezy).

The make Sneezy's body we needed two spheres.  KR made these from paper mache - thank you Mrs Naughten for your help in making the glue!

2 1/2 sheets of newspaper - scrunched up!

Then we glued his body to an upside down bowl

 Thank you Mrs Van Helden and Mrs Mayo for helping us glue their bodies.

 Next we glued his head

Then it was time to do his face
We used small beads (what shapes are these?) and cut-off orange pencil tips (what about these shapes, what are they called?) 

SO CUTE!

 Next was Sneezy's hat, buttons, some 'glitter snow' and scarf.
The hats were made from 2D shapes - a circle and rectangle.
Everyone did a fabulous job!
The scarves were finger-knitted! (Thank you Mrs Rowlands for helping with this such intricate of all the tasks).

It began with many "I can't do this!" exclamations, but once each student got the hang of it, their exclamations changed to "This is easy.  I really like finger-knitting" - some took theirs home.  Others took extra wool home to knit another one!  A job worth persevering with.  The resulting satisfaction each student expressed made it worth it!!

 What a fabulous job they all did!!
So proud!

The finished Sneezy

During this time KR was able to write about what they had done so far.
Here are some pieces written after we had finished the steps up to the gluing him to the bowl and finger knitting:

 (To make Sneezy I scrunched up balls.  I had to scrunch up the big ball and we put the little head together on the plate upside down.  I liked the finger knitting.  I made the scarf from all of it)

(To make Sneezy we made hime white like a snowman and we made it a sphere.  We made Sneezy little and big)

 (To make Sneezy we scrunched some newspaper up into spheres.  Then we glued the head onto the body.  Then we painted Sneezy white.  We glued him on a bowl)

 (We made made Sneezy with paper mache and spheres.  We glued Sneezy together and we are going to put eyes on him.  We have done finger knitting for Sneezy's scarf)

 (To make Sneezy we got paper mache.  We also had upside down bowls.  Spheres are circles.  We also scrunched up newspaper.  There was glue, yucky sticky, that was like a big blob of snot)
When I read this to the class it got a huge reaction, as I'm sure you can imagine!

 (To make sneezy we got two spheres, stuck them together.  Then we got to get our bowl.  Got it upside down.  It was messy and fun and we did finger knitting it was fun as well)

Don't you think KR are great story writers!  

To spell any unfamiliar words the students are encouraged to say the word they want to write, listen for sounds they can hear, check the word wall, butterfly chart, dictionary chart and any other print in the room.  At the time we try to focus on one or two things only - eg capital letters for names and sentence beginnings, spaces, full stops, spelling familiar words, etc.

Father's Day Stall

The children had a lovely time deciding on what Father's Day present to buy - a difficult task especially when there's so many great things to choose from!

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY

Congratulations

Lauren received a Merit award for having received 5 'yellow' class awards

Chayse and Archie received another class award

Many many KR children have received these awards also, unfortunately I have only now worked out taking photos on my phone.  So my apologies to all those wonderful KR people who I haven't taken a photo of.  I will get better at this electronic 'stuff' - maybe not as good as Mr Edwards though!

Kiara filled her entire Home Reading Record book

(Now I am blogging I will try to remember to mention all KR award winners)

Book Week Parade

KR did a spectacular job today.  Their costumes were amazing!

We had:

Woody (aka Kasey)

Cinderella (aka Lauren)

Transformers - Bumble Bee (aka Archie) & Optimus Prime (aka Ben)

 Princess Alira and Amber

The Mad Hatter (aka Indiana)

Dorathy - Charlotte and Kalani

Iron Man (aka Dean)

Robots (aka Chayse)

Power Ranger (aka Hunter)

Hello Kitty (aka Kiara)

Spiderman (aka Tane)

Batman (aka Mackay)

Mr McGee (aka Joshua)

T-Rex (aka Kyan)

Hermoine (aka Sienna)
Rapunzel (aka Tiarose)
Princess & the Pea (aka Mrs Jones)

Some changes to routine:

~ Today at 2:05pm kindergarten have their walk-a-thon.  We are walking in the school grounds along a track already marked.  The sponsorship form will be stamped as a student completes a lap so try to remember to bring it along to school today.

~ Tomorrow is the Book Week Parade.  This year the donation is a gift for the Fathers day stall.  All gifts go to Julie in the canteen so just pop yours in the lunch order tub.

~ Friday is Kindergarten's visit to the town library.  This is straight after lunch.  Unfortunately I will miss it as I will be away at L3 training (L3 is the Department's latest training in teaching literacy (ie reading and writing) to children in their early years at school).  On that day I think Helen Sorely will have KR from 12:05-3:15.

We are back online!

It's a pleasure to now be familiar with KR's Blog spot and to be finally posting to it!  So a BIG "Hello" from Mrs Jones!

Since becoming KR's teacher we have done a lot together and I have witnessed their amazing development.

Since the last post in March it seems there is so much to catch up on, I hardly know where to start.

Here goes....During term 2 KR has:
~ Visited Healthy (& happy) Harold;

~ Held their first assembly and show-cased some of their work on Road Safety, including their "Stop, look listen" song;

We also had our 'Roads' displayed in the library during Education Week:

 (If you haven't already, visit the library to see all of them!)

~ Had the pleasure of Mr Picken, a 4th year practicum student from the University of Wollongong.  He stayed with KR for 4 weeks and took us all on a 'deep sea' adventure where there were sharks and whales!  KR made fish from their own hand shape and whales out of paper bags!

~ Enjoyed a hot chip lunch for all their hard work (the 'play at the park' is on pause temporarily);

~ Taken part in the Sports in Schools program;

~ Learned many sight words and began to use them in their sentence writing;

~ Learned about 2D shapes; and

~ Listening for and recognising letter sounds in some words.

(and much more!)

So far during term 3 KR has already enjoyed so much!

~ Celebrated Education week;

~ Are beginning to learn about vowel and consonant letters;

~ Focusing on Winter, snowmen, hibernating bears, and raccoons like Chester whilst reading lots of books, like
Sneezy the Snowman

Snowmen all year

The Kissing Hand

Bear Snores On

 

Also ... Joy Berry's books about making good choices, like being careful, treating others kindly and knowing what to do when others do the wrong thing http://www.joyberrybooks.com/en/

~ Introduced 'Chester'

Chester the Raccoon gets to spend the weekend with a lovely KR member and have all his adventures recorded in our special book.  He has already spent the weekend with Amber, Kyan, Charlotte and Kalani.  This weekend he will be at Lauren's house - enjoy!;

~ Learning our dances for the end of year concert;

The Sid

Despicable Me

~ Enjoyed the AFL morning.  KR got to kick and throw a 'footy' around like the professionals!;

~ Getting ready for our 'Walk-a-thon" next Wednesday (21-8-2013) and the Father's Day Stall in Week 7;

~ Writing fabulous sentences about the books we have read, using capital letters at the beginning, full-stops at the end, leaving spaces in between words and writing on the lines!;

~ Looking forward to our Zoo excursion in September; and

~ Beginning to learn about 3D shapes as KR makes a paper mache 'Sneezy the Snowman' (photos to be posted once they are all finished! - can't wait to show them off!).