After the holiday we were surprised to see how tall our lima bean plants had got! We also observed changes in the roots and shoots growing on the onion and leek. We then planted the onion and leek into some soil for them to hopefully grow some more. We completed our lima bean diary and continued with our observational drawings of the leek and onion.
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To begin our inquiry into endangered and extinct species we first watched a Brainpop video to find out exactly what these two words mean. Next we sorted toy animals into whether we thought they were endangered, not endangered or extinct. Then we checked our sorting against a list of endangered animals printed from the WWF. Next we chose which endangered animal we would like to find out more about. We wrote down questions that would help us when doing our research. Then we sorted and matched our questions to the three key concepts being focused on in our unit (function, causation and responsibility). We learned about to filter searches for non-fiction books on Epic about our endangered animal and also explored the WWF website for information.
This week we used tens and ones base ten manipulatives in order to show how two digit numbers are composed. The base ten manipulatives really helped us to visualise the tens and ones place value of each digit. We enjoyed playing a place value bingo game together. We also made some pictures from the base ten materials and counted the number of tens and ones we used for each picture.
This week we began our shapes unit and have been exploring 2D shapes. We refreshed our memories of the shape names and counted how many corners and edges the shapes have. We were interested in finding out what pictures and bigger shapes could be made by combining shapes so had some time exploring what we could do.
This week we have had a halloween theme for some of our literacy activities. We practiced our word skills by writing lots of describing words about different objects associated with halloween. After our writing we shared our best list of adjectives with the rest of the class. We wrote some friendship potion recipes using imperative verbs to explain the specific action needed for each step of the potion such as sprinkle, stir, whisk and pour. Spooky spell and magic potion writing was fun too, we had to use our imaginations and create spells to help others and ourselves. Our focus was capital letters and full stops to correctly punctuate each sentence of the spell. For Maths we made some spells with different animal legs in a cauldron that added to twenty. For example 1 ant, 1 spider, 1 frog and 1 bird. We came up with lots of different combinations. Dressing up was lots of fun and we really love our new playground!
A few of us were interested in finding out about roots, how they grow and what they do. We set up some experiments to observe new root growth in onions, leeks and carrots. We have been checking on them every few days and making observational drawings with labels to show the changes taking place. We also used some non-fiction books on Epic! to read facts about roots and then answered questions about what we read in note form.
Michael started off our show and tell this week by sharing about the lifecycle of an elephant. We learned that the mother elephant is pregnant for 18 months and elephants can live for up to 80 years. We were interested in the tusks of the elephant which led on to a discussion about the ivory tusks being used for ornaments and medicines. We discussed the illegal ivory trade and how it has led to elephants becoming endangered. We also talked about riding elephants how how this is not good tourism because of the way the elephants have to be trained as well as the way the seats hurt their backs. We found a video which suggests better alternatives for tourists to care for elephants rather than ride on them. These discussions helped us develop the learner profile caring as we made connections to the central idea ‘human actions can impact plant and animal survival’. Ian told us about two different lifecycles...the frog and the butterfly. Both these animals change a lot and do not look like their parents when they first hatch out of eggs. We were interested in seeing the highlighted key words that Ian had used in his presentation. Ms Shradha brought in a coconut palm that was starting to grow roots and explained about the lifecycle of a coconut tree to us. Then she showed us lots of things that were made of coconuts: water, milk, cream, oil, a necklace, string, a table mat and bowl. We were so amazed that so many things can come from a coconut.
To find out about actions humans’ can have on plant survival we set up some plant experiments. We all already knew the things that plants needed to survive (water, light, air and soil) so we had to use our thinking skills and work out a way to prove they needed these! We chose light and water and were allowed 2 plants for each experiment. We figured out that one plant needed to have all the things and the other should have 1 thing missing. We worked at planting seeds and setting 1 plant up with no light and 1 plant with no water. We will observe changes over the next few weeks.
To continue our bean theme for the week we did some beanstalk maths! First we played an addition game on a beanstalk outside, using it as a number line. Then we made our own versions of the game to play inside independently and with a partner.
For this round of show and tell the children have researched about the life cycle of an animal or plant of their choice and then shared their findings with the class. While listening to the presenter the children have been taking part in peer assessment and looking out for eye contact, a loud voice and staying on topic. Naomi found out about the life cycle of a rabbit, shared her Google jamboard with the facts and read us a book on Epic! which she had used for her research. Imran explained about the life cycle of an apple tree. We learned a new word ‘sapling’. We were interested to know more so watched a video on Youtube and were amazed to see that the flower turns into the apple after a bee has pollinated the flower. Nadia had prepared a Power Point presentation about the life cycle of a cockatoo. We found it an interesting fact that they can live up to 30 years!
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May 2021
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