Silly behaviour!

Karen the cleaner has asked me to take this complaint directly to parents -

There are some bricks near where the children store their bags, and these bricks have little round windows in them to let the light through.
Apparently, one of the room 10 children is in the habit of stuffing their lunch into these little windows for the cleaner to clean up - and she is getting very tired of doing so.

I don't know why the child is not eating their lunch, nor why they are stuffing it into the wall cavity, but Karen has asked me to investigate.

If your child was given one and a half rounds of ham sandwiches on Tuesday (white bread) and the same on Thursday (multi-grain), then you may wish to ask them if they are eating their lunch or not - and what they are doing with it if not.

Nation study (2)

I have been doing a little internet research myself, because I realise that the children have such limited contact with computers during the average school week.

http://www.enchantedlearning.com/geography/flags/ For those of you who don't know Enchanted Learning, I think it is a fantastic starting point. The information on flags of nations is good, but some nations are a little hit and miss. Also, there is some general information on certain nations, but this is even more hit and miss.

http://www.tiscali.co.uk/reference/encyclopaedia/ This site has lots of general information about many nations, but I find it poorly set out and difficult to read. What I do like about this site is the clear and concise way it deals with the features of flags, and puts many other sites to shame.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/country_profiles/default.stm This site is run by the BBC, and has great general information, with clear headings for easy navigation. It also has a timeline of important events for each nation.

Children should, by now, have a reasonable store of information about the flags of their nations, as well as some maps. It is now time they started concentrating on important events from their nations history. These may be modern (USA - 911 terrorist attacks) or ancient (Egypt - pyramids), as long as they are important to the nation and their culture. The timelines available from BBC should help here, but it also may be useful to find national holidays, holy days for the nation concerned. These are almost always related to a special point in a nation's history.

The due date for this project is by the end of week 8 (20th June). I know that some children have little or nothing to show for the last 3 weeks work, so I hope that they will take this as a wake up call. I am trying to get around to those I see struggling, but so far very few have asked for any real help.

Chance & Data

In the newsletter I talked about falling or non-existent presentation standards. Chance & Data was the topic that we were working on that prompted this gripe. Among the problems I spotted with various children's notes were these biggies;

• No ruling up (yes, I do insist on it).


• Children taking notes on scrap paper from the recycling bin.


• File paper torn from file without bothering to open holders = torn paper.


• No title, headings, name or date.


• Written in pencil only - no colour variation.


• Previous notes not filed = crumpled and torn.

All children were expected to have notes from these sessions up to an acceptable standard last week - which was not checked at the time because of disruptions like falling daughters.

Here are my notes from that session, and even though I have used Publisher, they reflect the sort of presentation that I expect children to emulate if they are to be able to re-read and learn from their notes in future.

Those are the breaks!

Apologies to everyone - I've been neglecting posts to this site because my eldest daughter - part monkey in origin - fell off the play equipment at school and broke her arm on the way down. When she hit the ground she dislocated it as well. I guess if you're going to do something you may as well do it right...

Super mega maths brainbuster!

Take away 8 matches, to leave only 2 squares.

Nation study

Last week the children were assigned one of the nations of the world as part of a long term project for completion by the end of the term. This is a significant project, and will be assessed from many different angles. Since we have very little class time that we can allocate to library research, word processing and Society and Environment as a whole, the children will need your help to make the most out of this project. In particular -

• Taking your child to their local library to borrow some books on their nation would help enormously. Please work with them to filter out irrelevant and out of date information.


• If you have a computer at home, please help your child with typing and word processing difficulties. We really only have an hour a week where we are guaranteed computer use in school time, and only half the class can work on them at one time. Saved material should be compatible with Word or Publisher 2003 (no WordPro or WordStar please).


• If you are online, please let your child use the internet to source images and information. I am well aware how tempting it is for young ones to stray when using the internet, so supervision is the best medicine. While in general, I am not a huge fan of Wikipedia, for a study of nations I believe that it will (generally) provide an excellent starting point as long as you remember that anyone with internet access can edit Wikipedia. Children should look critically at any Wikipedia entries, and seek confirmation from other (more reputable) sites.

By the end of the term, your child's project should include;

• Vital statistics - The children will copy these from atlases within the class and transcribe to computer. They will need to check these figures to see if they are out of date.


• A flag of the nation - In class we will be dissecting the Australian flag, and examining why all the pieces are present. Your child's flag (most likely) will have a story behind it too. What do the colours / figures represent?


• Maps - Include a map of the nation, as well as a map of where your nation fits into a map of the world.


• History - Your child's nation will likely have undergone many significant changes over time. Some of these will be prompted by internal affairs, and some by external conflicts. Each child should be able to notate and summarise between 3 and 10 events (and I do not expect capable students to jump under the bar here!) from the past that have shaped their nation into what it is today. In this section they may need to include more maps, or other graphics which will aid their presentation.


• I will also be looking for evidence that your child has identified skills which have been learnt in other subject areas which will be useful to this project. Three things that immediately leap to mind are timelines, graphs and Publisher presentation skills.

This project will also form part of your child's Speaking and Listening assessment. Finished projects will need to be explained fully within a five minute oral presentation.

Trophies

As part of their Technology and Enterprise learning area, the children will be designing and constructing a trophy in the first part of term 2. The best trophy (as voted by the class) will be used as part of the inter-class rivalry we have going with Mrs Beard's class.

This is an open ended project, and the children are free to work with any design that they feel they can create. The emphasis, as always, is on the responsible use of resources and materials, and so recycled material works best with this project. Your child's individual design will determine which materials thay require. Generally I would advise that children bring in milk cartons or soft drink bottles, as many of the trophies that we see in the sporting world are based around cups or jug-like containers.

ENPS Olympic Reading Challenge

After checking up on the class' Olympic Reading books I have to say that I am a little disappointed in the effort that is being put in to home reading.

If your child has not let you know what is involved in the Olympic Reading challenge - here is a brief summary of the rules;

• Children need to read independently for at least 10 mins a night (Monday to Thursday).
• They may read on Fridays and weekends, but these sessions are not scored.
• Parent to sign off that reading has been completed.
• Regular readers are recognised with a certificate and a mention at the assembly.

So far there are four children who can hold their heads up high in the challenge. They are Stephanie, Kiara, Talia and Simon. Others appear to be dragging their feet, or are unable to produce evidence of their participation.

My motto is simple - Read to Succeed! Reading is one of the few activities that you can do where your ability will improve without formal coaching or training - as long as you DO IT!

NAPLAN testing.

The year 7's will be taking part in the National Assessment Project for Literacy And Numeracy in week 3 (May 13-15).
For mathematics, we have been working in class on similar types of problems to those which they will encounter during the test. NAPLAN numeracy questions emphasise conceptual understanding, and we have been working in small groups to overcome difficulties in several different areas.
NAPLAN's reading and spelling components will be tackled in detail this week.