Miss Fogarty did some great lessons on our senses.
In one activity we had to go outside and really use our eyes to look carefully at this tree. We talked about what we could see such as how many trunks we could see, where they met, what direction did they take at the top, etc.
Then we sat and drew the tree. Just have a look at some of our pictures which will show you how well we used our eyes to really look carefully at the tree.
This was our first effort at a still life drawing. Mrs Krake thinks that many of us have a great future as artists!
Don't you think that they look pretty good too?
Here we are thinking about our sense of touch. We found that it is quite tricky trying to guess what things are by just feeling them.
We are so lucky in Prep to have the Grade 5/6 Ministers of Education come in every Wednesday. These wonderful big children run small maths groups. They are really patient and make these sessions so much fun. With their help we can have a huge range of activities operating in the room at the same time, and they help us to learn so much more.
Jeremiah was having his turn for some special one on one time with Mrs Rizzo. He did a great job showing her all the clever things that he now knows about maths.
Maths in Prep is great fun. Most of the activities that we do is game based, and very 'hands on'. Here is Miss Fogarty working with a group who is focusing on shape and patterns.
Just look at our focused little mathematicians as we work busily through the varied activities set up to revise the many things covered during this first half year.
Cassidy started a big week of sixth birthdays. Cassidy and her family celebrated her big day with pizza! Happy birthdayCassidy.
Tom turned six over the weekend and had friends over to his house for a celebration. Happy birthday Tom.
It was Ryan's birthday today. He is six years old now. Ryan's family came with cake to share with us. It was really yummy cake and we all enjoyed it. Happy birthday Ryan.
Have you noticed what great little readers we are all becoming? This is because of all the wonderful work we do each day in our reading block. One of the activities is "Reading Partners". This is where we choose a partner to read with. We take turns to read our books to our partner and then to carefully listen to them as they read their own reader. We are getting very clever at helping each other to work out those tricky bits in our reading. When we finish we read old books or work on our words.
What excitement we all had today when a short, sharp but quite violent storm passed through Wangaratta West today just before lunch. Wind, hail, rain, thunder and lightning were all there! Some of us became rather nervous as the roof rattled and the windows shook, and then the tree right outside our door crashed to the ground! The lights flickered and then went out all together! Lucky for us, we have a nice bright room so this was not a problem.
We later discovered that this was all because a branch from the huge tree by the Grade 5/6 rooms which had fallen onto the power lines, but this was not the worst of it. One power line had fallen off and landed on Mr Campbell's car! Now that was very exciting! You will all be pleased to know that Mr Campbell's car is perfectly fine, though this took some time to find out!
The fire brigade arrived incredibly quickly. They blocked off the road to keep everyone safe from the live wires across the road. Then the electricity men arrived and started to try and repair the lines. This was a big job and took them a long time. In fact they finished long after we were home and in bed!
Never to let a golden opportunity pass them bye the Prep Teachers decided that this was a perfect opportunity for the Preps to build on our descriptive writing.
After talking about our ideas and experimenting with our ever growing language skills, we drew what we wish to write about. This helps us to get a clear idea of our story.
We talk about our drawings, and we try to find better words to use to perfectly describe what the storm was was really like.
Once we have shared and listened to many other ideas, we are ready to write our stories. Look at us writing here. We are almost as proud of ourselves as Miss Coats, Mrs Rizzo and Mrs Krake are of us!
Can you see how proud we are as we read some of our stories to you? What amazing writers we have become already!
This short sharp writing lesson was accumplished in the last 45mins of an already full day. Now that really is something!
When beating the milk and chocolate powder together the Preps were quite convinced that it was going to be a chocolate cake, despite the fact that the mixture was put in the fridge, and not the over. What a surprise when a fluffy chocolate mousse was revealed!
When beating cream and condensed milk together they were once again very sure that cupcakes were being made. We discussed that cupcakes have flour, eggs and butter, and we had non of that, but this did not change their minds. When the mixture was put into patty pans they were most definite that they were making cupcakes. What a surprise when individual ice creams came out of the fridge!
Miss Coats, Mrs Rizzo and Mrs Krake are so proud of the huge strides forward that their Preps are taking as writers.
The Preps have been looking at the changes in clothing, activities and weather that the changes in seasons bring. We hope that you enjoy our bright and colourful winter pictures of our class freeze shown on the podcast. As Wangaratta is almost at the foothills of the Australian Alps, we have combined the snowy activities of the mountains, with the grassy footy and soccer activities of Wangaratta.
The Preps have combined all their efforts to compile their first poem, which they have proudly put into a podcast for you to enjoy.
As you will hear some of us are still quite nervous when being recorded, but just watch this space and see our skills grow over the year.
