The Treasure Map Project

On Fridays we are very lucky to have David with us while Mark has a day in the Library. David has over 30 years teaching experience and also works in 3/4 Neighbourhood One, two days a week. In week 3 David began a maths project around measurement and mapping. With David the children will create their treasure maps for the treasure hunt in week 7. This week the children created models of the school using boxes and David took photos from a bird’s eye view to demonstrate the view one sees when looking at a map.

The children have also been exploring maps during Learning Agreement in the two Constructing Areas. Here are some examples of the models the children have created.

The Torus



The Maths Area

Classification - What is it?

This morning each home group started discussing classification and how we could classify our treasures. Each home group had a fabulous discussion about what classification was, when we classify and how we classify. In 1JB Felix lead a discussion about the classification of television programs. Each home group placed the treasures into tentitive groupings. A small committee of 6 will classify all the neighbourhood's treasures into approximately 10 different groups and these groups will create their treasure map together.  

In Learning Agreement the children had the opportunity to further explore classification in the Investigating learning space. Ludvig, Will H and Elyas classified shells according to level of sound they made when held to their hear. The three groups were 'yes, you can hear a noise', 'no, you can't hear a noise' and 'sort of hear noise'.




Can you guess which group makes the loudest 'noise'?

Circles - Squares - Triangles

This year we aim to give the children many opportunities to work with and get to all the children in our neighbourhood. Last week we mixed the children into 3 groups called Circles, Triangles and Squares. The children have been taking part in a variety of workshops in these groups and this week will take part in specialist lessons (Art, Itialian and P.E) in these groups. We will continue to work in mixed groups, home groups and as a neighbourhood throughout the year.

Year 1 Assembly

The Year 1 Neighbourhood will be presenting at the school assembly on Tuesday 6th March (Week 6) at 9am. We will be rehearsing for the assembly next week and some of the children will have small speaking roles. If your child does have a speaking role please encourage them to practice with you at home.

Tuesday (28th Feb)
Today we chose 12 presenters for the Year 1 Assembly next week. Over half the neighbourhood put their hands up to present. To make it fair we chose 12 names out of a hat (6 boys & 6 girls). All the children will be singing on the day and there will be a number of none speaking roles that we will organise this week.

Parent Information Night

The Prep to Year 2 Parent Information Night will be held on Tuesday, 6th March between 7pm - 8pm in the gymnasium.

Welcome Picnic

The Welcome Picnic has been rescheduled to this Thursday (23rd February). Fingers crossed the rain will stay away this week. It will be held at the same place (Princes Park) and at the same time (6pm - 8pm) as originally planned. We hope to see you all there.

.

Insects, Insects, Insects!

On Friday, Oli arrived in the classroom with the announcement that “There are heaps of insects outside near the passive play area.”  This sparked a very animated and thoughtful conversation in 1MJ as all the children were keen to collect these insects and put them into our classroom ‘insectarium’ tank. 

We had a few challenges to overcome; how could we catch them and put them in the tank if the classroom is closed at lunchtime?  Then someone suggested (was it Will K.?) that we put the small plastic tank outside at the beginning of lunchtime, so that it could be used for a short time, before bringing the bugs inside and putting them in the big glass tank (not with the lizard, though...we have another tank!)

Next the children considered what would happen to them once we caught them.  When we looked in Mary’s little bug-catching tank, we saw that the butterfly someone had put in it the day before had died.  Did we really want them to die?  What were we catching them for?  What do they need to survive, apart from the air that would be available through the grill holes?

Following this conversation, the tank was put out at lunchtime as agreed.  When we returned after lunch, the container had become home to a very large number of insects, thanks to the interest and industry of a group of 1MJ children!  When we took it inside to look at them, it became apparent that they could escape through the small grill holes...soon we had a number of students carefully cradling the escapees, and taking them outside to release! 

We decided that we should release all of them, as we didn’t want them to die or become loose in our neighbourhood!  So we are left with some important questions as we really do want to observe these interesting insects...

1.        What are they?

2.       What do they need to eat?

3.       Why are there so many of them right now?

4.       Can we keep them alive if we know what food to put in the tank with them?

If anyone can research these questions that would be a marvellous help to the scientists of 1 MJ and the year one neighbourhood in general. 

Thank you, from 1MJ

Mathletics

As part of our Library/ICT lessons this week the children were introduced to Mathletics. A fantastic educational website that is used by schools around the country to engage children in Mathematics. Today the children had the opportunity to view the website and some children started to create a profile. The children have pasted their own username and password into their Readers and Writers Notebook and we encourage them to have a play on the website over the weekend. Later this term the teaching staff will be recieving professional development on how to best incorporate the website into our maths program. A link to the Mathletics website is on the side of the blog. We suggest that you help your child with logging in the first few times they use the website.

Our Neighbourhood's Experiment

The Effect of Lemon Juice on Banana

On Monday Mark made the statement 'lemon juice stops banana's from going brown'. As a neighbourhood we decided that we should test this idea. Below is our experiment.

Question: Does the banana go brown when lemon juice has been poured on it?

We need used:
1 Banana (cut in thirds)
1 Lemon
1 Knife
2 Plates
2 Signs (Banana with lemon/Banana without Lemon)

What we did:
1. Mary cut the banana into 3 pieces, placed one piece on each piece and gave the third piece to Sapphire.
2. Mary cut the lemon in half
3. Zoe squeezed the lemon on one piece of the banana
4. Olivia wrote the 2 signs
5. The plates of bananas and the correct signs were placed in the Observing Area
6. On Wednesday morning we looked at the bananas to see if the bananas had gone brown

Result:
The banana with lemon juice did not go brown, but the banana without lemon juice was brown.
Sapphire had eaten some of her banana and what was left was brown.

Tuesday Morning

Tuesday Morning

Wednesday Afternoon

Wednesday Afternoon

Working in the Constructing (Big) area

The children are beginning to explore the different learning spaces of the neighbourhood during our learning agreement time. On Monday (13/02/2012) the group of children working in the Constructing (Big) learning space were using their knowledge of patterns and exploring height when creating wooden structures. The children were comparing their own height with the towers built.

Constructed by Bianca, Greta & Lacey

Constructed by Felix

Constructed by Huxley, Hugo & Lachlan

What do you treasure?

We are beginning to explore what people treasure. Through our selected literature we have drawn three main ideas:

• Memories are treasures
• Special 'things' are treasures
• We treasure differences in people

We are encouraging the children to think about their special memories, differences in their families and their treasured items. Some children have started to bring in items that they treasure.

Atticus's 'Gemstone'

Poppy has had this teddy since she was a baby

Through our exploration of treasures we are finding out about who we are as a neighbourhood and what is important to us.

Sapphire

As most of you already know Sapphire is our neighbourhood's pet lizard. Sapphire is a Cunningham's Skink and has been following Janette and Mary around for a number of years. Sapphire's Sleepover Schedule is near the entrance to the neighbourhood. The weekends are filling up fast, but we suggest that families who know each could share Sapphire over the holidays. Below are few photos of Sapphire enjoyinglife in the Year 1 Neighbourhood.

 

Some Questions you could research:



Library

The Year One library day will be Fridays and we are hoping borrowing can begin next week. We will have a box near the entrance of the classroom for you to put returned library books in. During our libray times the children will have the opportunity to learn more about the Ultranet as well as borrow books.

What is a Pattern?

In the first few days of this term the children have been exploring patterns in variety of ways throughout the different learning spaces. Below are some examples of the childrens' creations. Are these patterns? What is the pattern? 

Our First Day in Year 1

Our first day began with a hunt for our lockers. As more children arrived with their parents the noise and excitement level grew. We started with a neighbourhood meeting before heading off into our home groups for the roll and a little sharing about what we did during the holidays.

Throughout the day we worked in a variety of groups. In the morning the children read one of three books with their home group teacher:

• My Mum and Dad make me laugh, by Mick Sharratt

• Wilfred Gordon McDonald Partridge, by Mem Fox

• Hunwick’s Egg, by Mem Fox

After lunch the children explored two of the learning spaces from the list below with Tara (student teacher), Mark, Janette or Jessica:

• Writing and Art

• Performing and Large Construction

• Reading and Small Construction

• Maths and Science

In the last hour of the day the children explored the question “What is a pattern?” in a learning space of their choice.

The children will be rotating through all the above learning experiences over the next few days. We hope this will allow everyone to get to know each other… both staff and students and to become aware of the possibilities available in our new learning environment.

The teaching team loved every minute of the day and will be sleeping well tonight. We look forward to doing it all again tomorrow!

Welcome Year 1 2012

We hope that you have had a wonderful summer holiday and we look forward to meeting you and getting to know the children of year 1. The Year 1 teaching team is Jessica, Mary, Janette, Mark, David and Shana. We will be using the blog to communicate and celebrate our learning as well as passing on important information. We welcome your feedback and expertise.