A short but happy week was had by all! Well, I hope so – I know I enjoyed myself, especially seeing the children socialise and work with each other so well.
If you see the photos below, you will see we had a bit of fun with some activities, but also completed a task that has taken a bit over a week to do so. If you remember last week we studied the human body and body parts, and then began a ‘life-size’ display of Mr. Burgess and Miss Yu in our classroom. Well, thanks to Miss Yu and the children, we now have a fantastic display showing all the major body parts labeled in both English and Chinese – well done to all!
During Literacy, we looked at instructions. In class we looked at the importance of instructions and why we should follow them as they are given or written. We learned and practised ‘The Chicken Dance’ by following instructions, gave instructions to a partner so they could draw a favourite animal, practiced the instructions of what the children should do at the end of break times, discussed what we should do to give instructions on how to look after a pet, and then finally, wrote and drew pictures for looking after that pet.
In our Curriculum Diversity time we looked more closely at all the Year 2 class animals, by concentrating on their characteristics, their habitat, life cycle, and a few fun facts. The children discovered and recorded many new facts about these animals, and again we will soon have another great classroom display showing all their new found knowledge. One site we looked at and you may wish to visit again with your child is:
http://www.pebblego.com/login/
The username is myworld and the password is pgo. There is a lot of other facts and information to view and learn besides the many, many facts about animals.
Just a few things about homework:
- Maths homework is given by your child’s maths teacher on Monday, and at the latest, should be returned the following Monday. Of course, it can be returned earlier if finished, and should be given directly to their maths teacher.
- Spelling homework is also given out on a Monday, and should be returned, fully completed to our classroom on Friday morning. It should be practised every night to allow your child their best chance to learn the words. Please note that there were about 5-6 children that ‘did not’ bring back their spelling homework this week.
- Curriculum Diversity/Literacy homework will begin next Monday. It should be fully completed and returned to our classroom by the following Monday, or earlier if fully completed.
- Reading should be done every night, for 10-20 minutes, and should be, wherever possible, discussed with your child about the story, likes, dislikes, characters, setting, lesson/s learned etc, from their story.
Just a note about the yellow books – I had a few notes about the children using them, but I did not see them. It is their responsibility to give it to me inside their homelink book in the morning, whenever they write. I will check, and reward in some way, later in the day when I go through all their homelink books.
Finally, I sent home a few worksheets with the children this afternoon. These are various activities the children may do before school or at times during the day that generally support what we are doing in class through our curriculum work. These sheets do not have to be completed unless the children wish to do so. I have told the children if they want to do this, they can return their ‘fully completed’ sheets to me for checking and ‘probable’ reward.
Remember, if you have any comments; please do so through this site – I’d also love to hear from the children about what they enjoyed through the week.
Happy weekend to you all,
Greg