Jesus Feast

 

Today we pretended we were living more than 2000 years ago, when Jesus lived.  We dressed in old fashioned clothes and sat around our table on the floor and shared a feast.  We ate food that Jesus would have eaten, including dates, grapes, cheese, bread and wine.  The children used lovely manners and discussed the different foods they were eating.  We talked about the things that were different about Jesus' life as well as the things that were the same as our lives today.



We all held up our cups and said Cheers!



We all sat and talked about the
food that Jesus would have eaten.

Molly and Jacob



DJ was Joseph, he said the prayer at

the beginning of our feast.



Imogen was Mary.  She gave wine to all the guests at her table.











Mrs Young

Today I was given some time to carry out some 5 Year Old Testing and the children were lucky enough to have Mrs Young in the room.  She is funny and silly and knows lots of lovely songs and poems.  Here is a photo of the children having a lovely time reciting a poem they remembered from last time she visited.

Testing

New Entrant Testing has begun for all children who began school at the start of this term.  When the testing is completed, parents are asked to come into school for an interview which takes between half and three quarters of an hour.  The testing is mostly Literacy with a basic knowledge Numeracy test included.  It will take a couple of weeks to get through the eleven children who have just started school, but I will contact you as soon as it's done because then we know where your child is, where we want them to go and how, together, we are going to get them there.

With this in mind, it is so, so  important for the children to practice their phonics and basic words each night.  Until the letter sounds are known, and basic words are learned, reading  and writing progress will be slow.  Lots of repetition is great and reminders such as "which letter sounds like that?" or "what is the first sound you can hear?"  are really helpful.  If you would like some strategies to help your child with their reading, the Junior School Team will be holding a Reading night in March which will outline great strategies and give you some resources to help your child in this area.  Dates will follow soon.

And finally a quick reminder about our Jesus Feast on Thursday.  If you simply cannot find any "Jesus clothes" I have a few things at school so do not panic.  A dressing gown and tea towel will suffice.  Thank you for your support, these activities are so special and tend to be the things the children remember from their time at St Marys.  I know my children have.

Thanks again, Annie

Jesus Feast

Hi everyone, at present we are learning all about Jesus and comparing his life to ours.  On Thursday we will be having a Jesus feast, eating only foods he would have eaten. These will include grapes, dates, cheese, pita bread, raisins and cranberry cordial as wine.  Please could you help your child find some Jesus clothes to bring on Thursday.  These could include a dressing gown with a belt and a tea towel for head dress.  The children will use these again during the year at Easter and again during the Christmas period.  Also if each family could bring $2 on Wednesday, this will go towards purchasing the food.  Many thanks, photos of the feast will be loaded onto the Blog.
Annie

A busy week!

We have had so much happening this week, we have had to be extremely flexible and we have done this very well!  We have had some lovely learning and the children are so settled, already following the routines and reminding each other of the Golden Rules.  Yipee for them!  Here is an outline of some of the things we have learnt this week.

Printing- We are learning how to start our printing at the margin on the left and move right, beginning our letters on the dot and sitting them on the line.  The children could practice writing their names at home, particularly if there is a letter they are reversing.

Storywriting - This is going very well in Room 13 with lots of children already sounding out new words on their own and finding basic words on their word chart.  I am impressed.  We are learning how to say our story, start with a capital letter and hear and record the first sound of new words.  We are also practising finding familiar words like I, like, going, we, went, to, look and like on our word cards. Some of the older children are learning how to underline a word try and write more using words like because & and.

Mathematics - We do not have our groups sorted yet in mathematics but we have been identifying numbers to 10 and the number before and after, also counting forward to 20 and back again (50 for the older kids). We have aslo been figuring out what makes 5 and what makes 10 as well as using measuring language such as longer, shorter, bigger, smaller and comparing objects size.

Religious Education - We are learning about Jesus and how he lived a long time ago.  We are comparing games he played, clothes he wore, the house he lived in and food her ate.  Next week we will have a feast and eat only food that Jesus would have eaten.  I will send a note home re this on Monday.  We are even going to dress up in clothes that Jesus would have worn.

PE - We have had swimming every day this week, thank goodness because it has been soooooo hot!  The children are practising blowing bubbles out with their faces in the water, kicking with straight legs and floppy feet, floating like star fish on their fronts and backs and kicking across the pool with a flotation device.  We have also been practising Athletics today with Mr Trask and we have some great athletes in Room 13.

Finally we have been talking about Communities and particularly our school community.  Who is in it and what jobs they do.  We did some great cooperative writing today, you can see it on our wall in the classroom. You will also see WALHT on our wall.  It stands for We Are Learning How To..... and is concerned with the children knowing exactly what they are learning and why.  Hopefully, you will be able to ask your child what they are learning in a curriculum area and they will be able to tell you.  Again I say hopefully.
Have a great weekend,
Annie

 

Yesterday

Yesterday I had a super day settling my second oldest daughter into University for the first time.  I hear that the children had a great time with Mrs Deakin and she said they were wonderful!  I already knew that I had the best class at St Mary's.
Remember we are swimming all week this week and please leave us some comments about our Blog.
Annie

Communities

We are learning about communities and today the children told me what they think a community is.  We decided it is a group who has things in common, likes some of the same activities and  enjoys doing things together. 

Some of our Room 13 groups

Reasons we belong to the St Mary's family

We talked about other  communities we belong to like our family group, sports groups, Church groups etc and wrote down reasons we think we belong to these communities. You can see these displays on our classroom wall.

Hands to ourselves

Hi parents, we are having some minor problems in the classroom with keeping our hands to ourselves.  It is usually merely through frustration and some language barriers that this is occuring.  I will need your support over the next few weeks with regards to reminding your child about what is expected at school. We are gentle, we are kind and helpful and we play well with others are some of our Golden Rules so if you can reinforce these at home and give some gentle reminders, I would very much appreciate it.  Hurting others will not be tolerated at St Mary's so it is important that the children know they can come to me if they have been hurt.  It is also important that when frustration arises, as it often does in a class full of 5 year olds, that the child feels he/she can come to me so I can help then find a way to move past the problem without the need for hitting etc.
Many thanks
Annie

Measurement



the same



the same





longer and shorter

bigger and smaller

We are talking about measuring language, using words like bigger, smaller, taller shorter, longer.  The children found some ways to compare these measures and we photographed them today.

taller and shorter

We will be doing a lot of oral language learning over the next term.  It helps us order our writing, self correct our reading and even explain ourselves during mathematics.  You can help us by talking to us about our learning at home and using some of the vocabulary we will be using.

Promise Ceremony

Today we all met in the Hall to take part in our Lenten Promise Ceremony.  The Room 13 children had talked about Lent and how it is the time leading up to Easter.  We discussed what Easter really means and talked about Jesus death on the Cross as well as His Ressurection. 

 Following that, we wrote a Lenten promise, something we are going to try hard to do during the 40 days of Lent that will help others and make God happy. Our promises will be burned and tomorrow at the Ash Wednesday Liturgy the ash will be used to make a Cross on our forehead to mark the beginning of Lent and the time of thinking, waiting and praying.  Please talk to your child about their promise, about the Easter story and about this special time of Lent.

Reading

Hi everyone,
This week in Room 13  I will be testing the children's reading.  This means that each child will read a specific text to determine their reading level and their group.  This can be time consuming as some children will need to read more than one text in order to find their appropriate level.  As a result of this, the children will be choosing their home readers and may bring home an interest text they have no yet seen.  Please use your good judgement and if you feel the text is too difficult, read it to them and discuss its meaning and ideas.

Don't forget when you visit our blog, it is great to receive your comments about what is happening in Room 13.
Annie

Swimming

Today we enjoyed an afternoon dip in the lovely St Mary's pool.  It was a really hot day and the water was just right.  Poor Don had stubbed his toe so he couldn't swim but he enjoyed watching the big boys running races. 

KJ

Karolina

KJ showed us her great under water antics, Maiah was able to float on her back, and Max got in the pool for the first time.Karolina loved the big floatie board.  What fun!





Remember Mum's and Dad's we will swim every day in weeks 4,6,8,10.  It is so hot at present, the cool pool is a welcome relief to our day.  Named togs in a plastic bag on swimming days please.

Lilly's Visit

Today Lilly Russell visited our class for the day.  JPC had a teacher only day so Lilly came to help us with our learning.  Lilly read to us, helped us with our phonics and enjoyed our Go4it sports programme outside.

Lilly thinks she might like to be a teacher when she grows up!

Mr Trask came to teach us about balancing, hopping, skipping, jumping and most of all....having fun!  We will have Go4it sessions all week this week and we are very excited.  It was super hot outside but we all wore our hats and stayed in the shade as much as we could.

Welcome

Welcome to Room 13 and our very first blog post.  Room 13 is a class of gorgeous 5 year olds and this blog will showcase some of our lovely work  and experiences as we move along our 2013 Learning journey.  We are all being introduced to blogs and when I have mastered blogging, the children will be encouraged to add their own posts. Please bear with us as we all learn together.
Here we are having our morning tea together.  Our class is growing all the time and today we would like to welcome Max and Jacob.  I know the lovely kids of Room 13 are going to make them both feel welcome.
Tomorrow, Friday, I will be attending a Professional Development workshop.  Mrs Kusabs will be in the classroom with the children.  It is important for me to keep up with what is happening in education so there will be days where I am out of the classroom.  We have a great group of relievers and the children have already grasped the class routines beautifully.  I will be back in action on Monday.
Many thanks for your super effort getting the children to school on time, having all their stationery and being down stairs on time to pick them up.  It is a great support to me and them having wonderful parents.
Please write the children's reading in their log each night so that I can see what they have been doing.  Most of us are concentrating on pointing to each word as we read it, recognising some basic words and discussing the picture.  Lots of practice of our poems, phonics books and word books will help consolidate the letters, sounds and basic words.
Annie