Sunday 27 March 2011

Thanks Kylie!


Some fun photos taken by Kylie (Amber's Mum) on Skate Night:


        







 It was a tiring day for some...





Just imagine...

                

Look at this delightful comment we received from the author Jacqueline Harvey:


I love your favourite books 2A! I was especially excited to see that one of the girls is holding my books about Alice-Miranda. It sounds like 2A has a fantastic time. Enjoy the upcoming holidays and who knows, maybe one day I might get to come and talk to you about being an author or writing Alice-Miranda's stories.


Best wishes,
Jacqueline Harvey 



This is the photo to which she is referring:



How exciting is that!



Wednesday 23 March 2011

Our First Mystery Reader


Dorothy (Mrs S), Georgia S's grandmother, kept the Year 2s transfixed with 'How the Grinch Stole Christmas'. It was a beautiful book (which we won't describe as old because it was about 5 years younger than I am...)


I was worried that the class wouldn't let her leave but they did after she promised to return. I have 22 witnesses who can attest to that.

Skate Night


Click on photos for a close-up.

Skate Night was a huge success. I hope the birthday boy had a great evening. Happy Birthday Liam!

(Shape Collage is responsible for all photo placements.)

Tuesday 22 March 2011

Blogging

After doing some numeracy problems to work out how much bigger our school is compared to Barton School, we composed this answer together...

Good Day Everybody at Barton School

Our school is 90 years old which is very old for a school in Australia. There are 800 children at our school.

We have friendly hermit crabs in our classroom except for Spikey  who snips hard and is a little cranky. Earlier in the year we had Pobblebonk and Green Tree Frog tadpoles in our class which we set free in the creek when they changed into frogs. We kept them in a tank and fed them fish food. Sometimes one would escape and we would all have to stand still until it was caught. We didn’t want anyone to step on the baby frog and squish it by mistake. Our teacher brought in her rats Grace and Willow to show us. We all had turns holding them on our shoulders. Next week is pet week for ‘Show and Tell’. Tyson has already brought in his tiny Chihauhau foxie cross. She was trained and could do some great tricks.

Our favourite lessons are Smart Moves (Sport) and going to the computer lab twice a week. What are your favourite lessons?

From
Team 2A


If you'd like to visit Barton School's blog , click on this link  http://bartonpri.posterous.com/

If you look at the flag counter, the dot on Brisbane is us!!

Monday 21 March 2011

Barton School

We left a comment on the blog started by this small rural school in North Yorkshire:

We looked at how warmly dressed the parents and carers were in this photo. Team 2A had numerous questions to ask and we had discussions around concepts such as the seasons and the hemispheres and the path the earth takes around the sun.

Today we got this response:

Good morning!
We are reading your post at 9.30 in the morning. We are all together in one classroom as there are only 48 children in our school. We have lots of questions.
How many children are in your school?
We have school pets. Do you?
What is your school day like?
What are you learning about at the moment and do you have exams?
Our school is 150 years old. How old is yours?
Could you send us your website address as we would love to visit you too.
We look forward to hearing from you.
Everyone at Barton School

We're going to have fun writing our response together in the morning! 


Friday 18 March 2011


We were back exploring learning pathways at the Learning Place today. We went to student spaces and used this access key: 85418364    Year 2/3 Maths Interactive Activities (Amanda Dossetto). We're beginning to find it much easier to use our individual logins and passwords.

My Favourite Book




Look at the wonderful variety of books that came in for Show and Tell.
For a whole day, I wasn't the oldest 'object' in the classroom... Can you work out which book I'm referring to?

Thursday 17 March 2011

SOSE- A Great Place to Live

Postcard Project
2A is involved in a Postcard Project!
Many different classes from all around Queensland have signed up.

This is what is involved in the project:
  • Signing  up at the Learning Place to be a part of a postcard project called Beyond Your Back Door.
  •   Selecting and photographing a special place (landmark/feature/building/story) in our general area. 
  • Digitally sharing a co-operatively created class postcard.
  •  Sending the postcard.
  • Hopefully getting a postcard back!
We composed this introduction to our buddy postcard class:


Hello everybody!
We are a friendly and kind year 2 class. 2A has a big bright room with a large map on the wall, hermit crabs, and a class library with interesting and fun books. There are 22 students in our class (10 girls and 12 boys). We live in the ---------- area in Brisbane. 

We read through the introductions of other classes. Imagine our surprise when we found this one:

Hi we are from ........ State School, it is on the Northside of Brisbane.  Our school has more than 800 students.  ......... State School is a Prep to year 7 school.
Our class is made up of 13 boys and 12 girls.  We are a year 3 class.  Our teacher's name is Ms Gane.
8 of our classmates have parents from overseas.  From different countries.
Our class has been offered to join the choir and strings for the first time while at school.  We also have 4 library monitors that help out at the library.
The landscape of our school is made up of trees, bushes and lots of grass areas.
We are all looking forward to seeing photos and reading all the blogs
From
Relaxing ......

We're not the only class at the school who have joined the project!


Tuesday 15 March 2011

Something special happened yesterday...

Congratulations to Jamara and Mark on the arrival of their precious baby Lennox Louey.


(I wonder if our overseas visitors recognise this baby animal?)


Mackensie and Emerson were all smiles. Mackensie told me that Lennox has blue eyes...

Friday 11 March 2011

Photographyrox

How lucky are we to have Roxanne Gorman volunteering to take photos?


Photos taken by Roxanne really do rock!



Our school held a Crazy Hair Day and Team 2A joined in the fun by supporting the Leukaemia Foundation.
For a gold coin donation, students took part in one of the nation's largest fundraisers by coming to school with their hair sprayed with temporary hair colour.
Congratulations to Jordie who was a winner in the Boy's Junior category.
Can you spot the creative cocktail concoction and the amazing Aussie flag?









It was hard for all of us to resist...



Tuesday 8 March 2011

You are wanted...

MYSTERY READERS WANTED!

This is an invitation to any parent, relative or other special person to surprise your child by being a “Mystery Reader” in 2A.  I can imagine that the students will love having a special some-one visit our classroom to read a favourite story aloud!  Mystery Readers will visit us on Wednesday at 9 a.m. each week. However, this time slot is open to negotiation.  Readers could bring a picture book to read or read a teacher-chosen book from our classroom library. 
   Please indicate at least two dates (if possible) that will work for you so that I can accommodate the most people. You can either email me your preferred dates or send your top three choices in a “top secret” envelope to school with your child.  I will get back to you as soon as I can to confirm your official Mystery Reader date.
As part of the mystery, try not to tell your child when you will be coming!


(Idea from Mrs Chicks at www.teacherweb.com)

Monday 7 March 2011

'Show and Tell' groups


Monday 
Tuesday 
Wednesday 
Thursday     
 Friday
Joel   
Georgia K       
 Bella                 
Lauren    
 Jake        
Ashley  
Luke                
Mackenzie   
Liam        
Amber 
Aiden  
Yeju                
Jordan   
Nellie    
Sean
Haley  
Patrick   
Georgia S         
 Dylan            
Aidan R 
William    


Tyson 


Theme for week 8 is My favourite book.
Theme for week 9 is Something about my family. (I wonder who Mackenzie may bring for Show and Tell?)
Theme for week 10 is A special photograph.
Theme for week 11 is My pet or a stuffed toy.

Learning Place

During the year we will frequently be accessing the Learning Place to use their amazing resources. Your child now has their own  EQ logon and a generic password. They will be taking them home tomorrow.

If you follow this link to the Learning Place, your child can login and use learning pathways. They type in the learning pathway number, that I provide, under "access key" (which is under Quick Links on the right.)

1. Science -Water Matters. Access Key :79623090

The info under documents and links can be ignored. Please look under the grey heading Pathway Resources for the interactive learning objects.

    Sunday 6 March 2011

    Beach Party



     Time slows down. Cameras flash.... 




    And Mr H (the principal) survives his dunking!

    Saturday 5 March 2011

    Overheard in 2A

    Jordie: What does NB mean?
    Sean (with a twinkle in his eye): It means Naughty Boy, Jordie.

    Friday 4 March 2011

    The proof that children are natural poets

    By Ashley



    By Haley



    By Georgia K




    By Lauren




    By Luke




    By Sean

    Did you ever see a pig?
    pink colour
    mud lover
    big grunt. (By Jake)

    Did you ever see a snake?
    long body
    no legs
    sometimes venomous. ()

    Did you ever see a dinosaur?
    ferocious teeth
    terrible claws
    hard tails
    now extinct. (By Georgia S)


    By Jordie

    Did you ever see a flesh-eating demon?
    eye-squirting
    flaming hair
    fire-filled body. ()

    Did you ever see a dragon?
    sharp horn
    white teeth
    long tail. (By Joel)

    Did you ever see a giraffe?
    sausage ears
    wide eyes
    sharp teeth
    fluffy-frilled tail
    spotty nose. (By Bella).

    Did you ever see a puppy?
    fluffy puppy
    barking softly
    friendly mannered
    cute body. (By Amber)

    By Yeju (The cat's sign says 'Finish').

    Best friendship advice ever

    We explored the theme of friendship and discussed issues such as:

    • showing an interest in others, 
    • offering help 
    • being encouraging 
    • a willingness to share within reason

    We also looked at some ways to enter a play situation.

    The Team then filled in a worksheet which included sentence starters such as "Would..." and a few " Be..." statements. The following response from William made me chuckle out loud:

    Be lovely.
    Be very very lovely.



    And is William lovely?  Yes indeedyes indeed! (Dr Seuss)
    And are Two A lovely? Yes indeedyes indeed! (Dr Seuss)

    Boggling at this amazingly addictive game




    To quote the advertisement:

    Slide, move & shuffle to find words fast! Line up the tile cubes, press go, and race to find as many words as possible from the letters shown in 90 seconds. When you put tiles together, the smart link technology recognizes the words and keeps score. 


    The Team have used this game recently during literacy rotations and it was a great success. It's possible to pick up a copy of Boggle Flash from Kmart for $39.95 although others have seen the game as low as $29.95 at other stores. They have been in demand, so as a last resort http://fishpond.com.au/ have the game for $46.99.



    Wednesday 2 March 2011

    Where the Wild Things Are

















    Team 2A were engrossed by the  book above. We shared a few philosophical discussions on the difference between imagination and dreams. We also focussed on the theme of being the boss and how in his imaginary land, Max was King of the monsters yet in real-life he was banished to the bedroom by his mother. We briefly discussed behaviour and consequences and every parent will be jealous of Sue & Bob because Jake told me very convincingly that he has never been naughty...

    This is the site that engaged 22 Year 2 students for 30 minutes and is obviously now a new favourite with their teacher:




    Oh my Darling Clementine

    No class could possibly have as much fun singing 'oh my darlin' Clementine'... with a few modifications to the original of course!

    (f necessary, bribe your child to sing- you're in for a treat.)


    Image from flickr

    Water Cycle

    Evaporation (push palms up)
    Condensation (hands together in air)
    Precipitation all around (wiggle fingers down)
    Accumulation (sweep arms in circle)
    Evaporation (push palms up)
    The water cycle goes
    Round and round (make circles with arms)