Small Groups in the Literacy Block.

Your child may well have told you that each day during the literacy block they do 'small groups'.  

You may well still be a little in the dark as to what this really is.  

The children are grouped according to their next step in their learning. 

 Each group is then given an activity which focuses on skill building in the reading and writing process, such as these sound boxes.

 The spelling wheel focuses on letter patterns and how we use them in our spelling.

Ask your child which games they have been playing.

 Blue group is focusing on the missing middle sound in words in this game.

 Ellie is showing her understanding of contractions with this game.

Eli has been reading and answering questions in this 'Yes or No' game.

 Noah and Reece are reading cards, listening carefully to the clues, to play this 'Who am I?' game.

 Amy plays the contraction game.

 Georgia and Jed are playing 'Contractions Bingo'.

Ryan is doing a great job with the 'Spelling Wheel'. 

 Luke and Cale are building their letter sound knowledge with this game of '9 Square'.

 Luke is doing an outstanding job with 'Yes or No'.

 Aida and Jamie are building their bank of known high frequency words in reading and writing with this 'Fifhing Game'.

Jed and Georgia playing 'Who am I?'.

 Cale doing contractions.

 Amy and Freddie playing '9 Square'.

 Morgan, Jamie, Aida and Julian are playing the 'Laces' games.

This helps them to hear the sounds in words.

 Jed and Ella do the 'Who am I?' game.

 Jasmine and Ellie build their skills with '9 Square'.

 Luke is doing a crossword puzzle.

Noah is working on phonemes where he is building his knowledge of letter patterns.

Katie is always here to lend a hand.  Here she is with Green Group doing crossword puzzles.

Our Amazing Little Readers

I have been very busy assessing the children's reading over that last few school days.  

 I am thrilled with what I am seeing.  Each and every one of them have made wonderful growth as little readers.

 The children read their 'just right' levelled readers, choosing one that they wish to take home to share with you.

 We have been building our stamina in reading.  It is amazing how we are able to read for 15 to 20 mins without interruption!

Once we have read 1 or 2 take-home readers, we choose a library book.

 The children have chosen these books themselves from the library.

 They have become very skilled in choosing 'just right books' from the library.

 "Just right books' are books that are interesting to the children, and which the children are able to read with little or no help.

I am amazed at how well many of our children can very successfully read these library books.

We hope that you have enjoyed this peep into our independent reading session, which happens every morning.

Weighing It All Up.

In Maths this week we are looking at mass.  

 Before we used the scales we did some 'hefting'.

 Ask your child what 'hefting' is.

We became quite skilled at determining which items were heavier and which were lighter through hefting.

 Some of us could even find two things that were almost the same weight.

 Then we got stuck into using the scales.

This was great fun!

 It took great accuracy.

 It took care.

It took patience. 

And we had it all.

Then we got the scales to balance.

 We felt pretty good about our success.

 Julian felt very proud of himself.

Ryan and Georgia had success.

 Cale and Eli were feeling good.

 How happy Amy and Aida look.

It gave us all such a good feeling when we finally got it all to balance.

Hansel & Gretel by Vic Opera.

We had a a wonderful time on Friday when Vic Opera came and presented Hansel and Gretel.  The story was a little different than the one usually found in story books, and though it was sung in German, we had no difficulty in following the story.  Ask your child to tell you what happened in this version.

 Hansel and Gretel

 Poor Hansel is here in so much trouble after breaking the jug of milk.

Here are Hansel and Gretel's Mum and Dad.

 Here is the Sandman.  The children were very keen to get hold of some of his magic dust!

 Hansel and Gretel went to sleep in the woods.

We loved the Fairy's beautiful dress.  I think many of our girls would love a dress just like hers.

 Look at this gingerbread house, isn't it wonderful?  It certainly caught our imaginations.

A very nasty witch indeed!

 Poor Hansel, trapped in a cage.

 The fire was a big favourite with some of our boys.

 Gretel pushes the wicked witch into the oven.

 Thanks Vic Opera, we all had a great time and so enjoyed your story of Hansel and Gretel.