Holiday Fun 2: Princess maths and Skater fun

Here are two new games to play from www.primarygames.com. The blue titles are hyperlinks.

Princess Maths

Skater Maths

Holiday Fun- Comix

Mrs Thorburn always finds great ideas for holiday activities like Comix. You make your own comics by dragging and dropping images. I wonder what you can make and draw? (Click on the blue hyperlink above.)

Congratulations Miss M!

Local Community Walk

On Thursday, we set off on a Wintry day for our SOSE (Studies of Society and Environment) local community walk. It was difficult to imagine rural beginnings, a tram, tanneries, a piggery and quarry. We looked down a hill at a neighbouring suburb that used to be called 'Happy Valley'.

We looked at Enoggera Hill and the Newmarket Brickworks Chimney (built 1912) to the West and the Brisbane River and the city to the East.

We looked at the house that our local area is named after:

We looked at a quaint Gothic church: 

And some of us managed to slip in a little bit of mucking around... or was that some redirection around a safety hazard?

As you can see, we had great support from Lisa, Kath, Ben and our photographer Kylie:

We looked for Queenslander type houses that are especially built on stumps which allow cool air to circulate below them, reduce the impact of notorious floods and cope with sloping properties. They have a covered verandah and often have steep iron roofs and can be very decorative. Can you spot the Queenslanders in this slide? 

After an hour or so we returned, still full of beans, ready to celebrate with a popcorn party. No more looking!

Show and Share- News and weather

We had some outstanding newsreaders and weather reporters in 2A this week. Well done to you all!

We love mystery readers!

Wednesday started off with a bang - we had a mystery reader! If you (Mums, Dads and relatives) have been tempted to come in to read a book to our class, please let me know. You can bring in a book of your choice or borrow one of mine. The students love these visits. I can promise a class of bright, enthusiastic faces but unfortunately, at times, the photographer's skills are a little lacking... 

Owl Babies is a winner!

Georgia K was very excited that her Dad saw an owl recently. Running with this interest in owls, we used two books to explore the structure of narratives. 'Owl Babies' by Martin Waddell is the perfect book to use because of its simple but touching storyline. There are also several lesson plans available on the internet (see TES Connect) as well as a great reading on YouTube.

'Billywise', by Judith Nicholl, is a magical book about a young owl's glorious first flight. The vocabulary in Billywise is so powerful and lyrical, we were inspired to write a diamante-like poem on owls too.

Poems:

Dylan

Bella

Nellie

Owls

swoop, dive

down, hoot, stare

screech, drink, eat, nocturnal

fluffy, eyes glow

glide, strong

Liam

And here's a link to this wonderful Owl Maths:

Owl Maths

Workers of the Week

Orkut Scrap Toys

Woohoo our third new student!

Glitter Text @ Glitterfy.com

Fly swat and clothesline take away

Lessons we enjoyed with Mrs Deane:

Take away using little felt items of clothing on a washing line.

Fly swat with sight words.

Paper helicopters in push pull.

Poster Swap

Roxanne made this wonderfully bright and bold 'Thank You' poster for our pre-service teacher, Mrs Deane. I think our portrait artists were Nellie and Lauren...

Inspired by Reggio Emilia, Mrs Deane made Team 2A a poster by capturing their words after the Sciencentre.

How to make easy Paper helicopters

We've been studying Push Pull in science and have made helicopters, using a Primary Connections unit, with Mrs Deane. We looked at how gravity pulled the helicopters downwards and at how air pushed upwards at the paper wings.

These websites have cool examples of paper helicopters if you want to make more at home. Click on the blue link.

Helicopter template

 "How to Make Paper Helicopters"  11 October 2007.  HowStuffWorks.com. <http://tlc.howstuffworks.com/family/paper-helicopters.htm>  03 June 2011.

I love the pink bird with the feathery wings!