May the FORCE be with You!

We have continued to explore different areas of FORCE over the last few weeks. The children have been involved in looking at magnets, electricity, gravity, pulleys and levers and wheels and axles.

The next stage of our inquiry involves the children deciding on an area of interest and working with a partner on a design brief to create a machine that solves a problem my making a job easier.

Our writing this term has a strong connection to the design brief process with children composing procedures detailing the process involved in how to make or do something.

Mia wrote about how to serve when playing tennis:

1. Hold the tennis ball up.



2. Put your tennis rachet beside your hip.



3. Hit the ball in the square.



4. Throw the ball up above your head.



5. Swing your rachet.
   

In Mathematics we had fun exploring 2D and 3D shapes. The children created some great patterns and tesselations and were able to tell me that tessellations had no gaps.

It is hard to believe that we are almost half way through the term!

Welcome Back

Welcome back! I hope everyone has had a relaxing break over the holidays and enjoyed having time to do things with their family. We have started our term with a couple of busy weeks! Swimming got underway last week and I must congratulate everyone for getting to school early so that we could leave on time. It is most impressive to see everyone so organised and the same thing continued this week. Great work everyone!

In the classroom we have begun exploring simple machines as the next part of our Inquiry Unit, May the FORCE Be With You. JSS began looking at how wheels and axles work and talked about how clever the first person who invented the wheel must have been. They wanted to make their work easier by reducing the friction when they tried to move an object and the wheels worked beautifully for this. Much easier than trying to push or pull something along the ground! Changing the position of the axle produced some crazy movements of the carts we made! No wonder the inventor put the axle in the middle of the wheel, it was a much smoother ride.

In Mathematics we are learning about 2D and 3D shapes. Can your children explain what these terms mean? We found lots of different shapes in our classroom and in the playground during a Shape Hunt. The photos show children thinking about the attributes of different 2D shapes and sorting them into groups.
It back to the routine of home reading and spelling homework. Please try and make it a habit to keep the spelling books in with the home reading books. That way they will be at school on Fridays and Mondays when we need to test and update the lists each week.
Thank you to all those parents who have offered their help in our classroom this term. It looks like another great term ahead.

Having Fun With Symmetry

How great do these pictures look? JSS had some fun creating symmetrical pictures of ourselves and some of our friends. It was quite a challenge to get the opposite side of the face an exact copy but everyone had a try and produces some wonderful pictures. We hope you like these examples.

JSS have worked with wonderful interest and enjoyment this term and are ready for a relaxing holiday. I hope everyone enjoys their break and returns ready for another great term together.

See you then!

Forces in Our Playground

JSS have been exploring the forces at work in our playground. We found lots of examples of simple machines and were able to identify the type of force needed for them to work. I hope you are hearing about levers, inclinded planes, wheels & axles, gears, screws, pulleys and wedges at home. I am impressed with the number of children who have explored http://www.edheads.org/ and had a go at the simple machines activities. Fantastic work JSS!

Great Activities at CSIRO!

WOW! What a fantastic day we had at the CSIRO Education Centre. Each group of children was able to try two different sessions. One was about Froces, Movement & Simple Machines and the other was about Toy Science. The sessions were very hands on and everyone was able to investigate different machines and toys to learn about how they work and move. The long bus drive was certainly worth it.

Did you tell your parents about your favourite machine? Could you explain how it worked and what made it move?

The excursion had been a great launch for our next inquiry and we are looking forward to learning more about forces.

Lots of Visitors at JSS.

Thank you to all the parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, brothers and sisters who came to visit us. It was great to see so many people in our classroom and they all had great things to say about our projects. I was so proud of the confident way everyone presented their work to such a big audience. Well done JSS.

JSS learn Mandarin

We have been learning Mandarin in JSS! We were very lucky to have Declan's Dad visit us and teach the children a song so that they can say good morning to you in Mandarin. A big thank you to Vince for all his preparation and spending time with us. Declan kept the ball rolling and helped us practise later in the day. I hope you have heard the song as the children sounded great at school.

JSS as Busy as Ever

Hard at work again, we have been busy doing heaps of great things over the last couple of weeks.

In Mathematics the children have been doing lots of measurement of length, perimeter and area. On our Open Day our visitors were able to help us measure the perimeter of large objects in the classroom. We were so flat out that we forgot to take any pictures of our visitors helping!

We took some the next day when we used small units of measurement to check the perimeter of smaller objects like our foot. Kelsey's mum was our parent helper and we kept her very busy!

Where did we come from?

JSS have used the data from our surveys to create graphs showing where our parents, grandparents and great grandparents were born.

The process involved making a tally listing the name of each country and using tally marks for each person.

The next step was to use concrete materials to create a graph to represent this information. The children worked in small co-operative groups to create their graphs.

They discovered that the materials need to be the same size to make the graph accurate, a graph needs a title to explain to people what is is about and it needs labels to tell people each thing that was measured.

We then transfered the information into the Excel Program on the computer to create a different version of the graphs.

Well done JSS! I hope some of your grandparents can come in to look at the great display of our work on Grandparents Open Day.

Happy Mother's Day

We have had a busy day preparing for this Sunday! The children were very careful bargain hunters at the Mother's Day Stall and were very proud of doing there own shopping for the special person in their life.

Next came the important job of using our creative skills on the most important part of their gifts. Have a look at the children hard at work making their own cards! We had to take of photo of the mess on the floor as well. Creativity takes a lot of work but it was all worth it as I am sure you will agree when you see the finished results on Sunday. No peeking before then please.

I hope you have seen the newsletter with the photo of all of JSS nominated as Mathematicians of the Week. The children really worked with fantastic focus during our place value unit of work and all demonstrated improvement in their understandings. I was very proud of themall!

Spelling Homework Begins

Welcome back to another busy term. The children have settled back into our routines and are working well together.

Spelling Homework has begun!

Children will bring home their spelling book each Monday and return the book on Friday ready to be tested. I would encouraged them to keep their spelling books in their Take Home Reading pouches for safe keeping. The words will incorportate both THRASS and high frequency words and the children are encouraged to practise them regularly during the week.

We are fortunate to have a pre-service teacher working in our room at the moment. Mr Picone has enjoyed getting to know everyone and will visit us during the year.

Last Week of Term

Wow! Where has the time gone? It seems hard to think that our first term together is almost over. Well done JSS, you have all worked to your personal best and should feel very proud of your achievements. Make sure you show off those wonderful portfolios that are going home on Friday!

Here are some photos of some of the great activities that we have been involved in over the last few weeks:

The Yarn Strong Sista incursion puppet play was a wonderful introduction to our Indigenous Australian as the children listened to the story about possum hunting.

Liz Smith spoke to the children about the South African culture and had them all enthralled with the clothing and other artifacts. We were not too sure about exactly it was that witch doctors do in South Africa. Maybe that will be an inquiry question that needs investigating?

Amber Blackwood wowed the children with some fabulous Easter singing and games. We had great fun making our own Easter eggs using eggs produced by our very own Yarrambat chickens! Our classrooms did smell a bit eggy at the end of the day.

Congratulations to all of JSS who have now finished presenting speeches about their family to the class. We heard some confident presentations and children asked relevant and interested questions. It was a pleasure to hear them all. Well done everyone.

I hope you enjoy a happy and safe holiday over the next two weeks and look forward to another busy term with you all next term. Happy Easter for next week too!

Place Value Champians

Wow! JSS have really been impressive this week when working on their Place Value unit in Mathematics. Look at them hard at work playing the Plus-One game on their trading boards.

Can they explain to you when they needed to trade in the different lands we visited? Do you know about Zibland and Glibland?

We are looking forward to our incursion on Monday when we will see a puppet show performed by 'Yarn Strong Sista' and then try some ochre painting. The activities will help us begin to learn about Indigenous Australians as part of our 'I Am, You Are, We Are Australian' inquiry unit.

Stand by for some more great photos of our parent guest speakers talking about their different cultural backgrounds.

Say no to bullies

Hello from JSS after another jam packed week. We have concluded our Foundations with a focus on rejection of bullying. The children created badges to promote their ideas about how to reject bullying and have a happy classroom and school.

Our class pledge brings the ideas discussed during Foundations together and the children have signed this as a promise they make as members of JSS.

Hello again after another busy week. Foundations continues with children creating a class definition of 5 Star Learners and 5 Star Work. Doing our personal best was high of the list.

We have also voted on a class mascot and chose a lion. Who can explain why we chose a lion?

Our next challenge is to decide on a class motto!