Homework Guidelines

Homework

My goal is for students to take full responsibility for completing their own homework. However, your child may need some support reading the homework and some initial guidance.

You can help by:

• encouraging your child to tell you about the homework.
• questioning (rather than telling) how they might organize the tasks.
• deciding with your child a suitable workplace and time of day to complete the homework. A workplace that is quiet and organized helps children to concentrate on the tasks.

I will also endeavour to meet the needs of individual children and will adjust the homework accordingly. I would greatly appreciate your feedback. If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact me.

Kind regards,

Jim Anderson

Maths - Doubling

One of our important goals in maths this year is to learn strategies to be able to count effectively and efficiently.

The doubling strategy:

The doubling strategy is one of the most important strategies that young children learn in order for them to be able to successfully calculate mentally. Current educational thinking tells us that children need to become effective users of number.

To begin with, the children were required to build a rectangle with Lego blocks and
then build another one similar but double the size.
This allowed me to assess their current understanding
of the concept of doubling. 

Learning and playing the doubling game
using one digit numbers.
double 4, double 5, double 6, double 7, double 8, double 9

Games help to reinforce new learning and
allow children to practise new skills. 

Playing math games also ensures that children
learn to be collaborative and cooperative.

Demonstrating thinking through 'hands on' materials
 is the first step to understanding. Asking children to explain their thinking is one of the most significant ways to
assess their understanding.

           

Who We Are - The Human Body

Unit of Inquiry: Who We Are

An inquiry into the nature of the self; beliefs and values; personal, physical, mental, social and spiritual health; human relationships including families, friends, communities, and cultures rights and responsibilities; what it means to be human.

Central Idea:
The human body is a complex machine dependent upon its systems and needs to be taken care of.

Lines of Inquiry:

• The body’s systems-respiratory, cardiovascular, skeletal and muscular
• The interdependence of system.
• Caring for the body

Discovering and understanding the central idea. A very important part of the initial learning is to understand the meaning of the central idea. Together as a group we pieced together a puzzle of the central idea and discussed the meaning of the main words  <complex> <machine> <dependent> <systems>. Please talk with your child about the central idea and ask them to explain it to you.

Making decisions about the placement
of the puzzle pieces.

Reading the central idea and highlighting
the main words.

Our first activity involved finding out what we already
know about the body's systems.
We are drawing around Alex's body and
thinking about our prior knowledge.

The Human Body : Recording our knowledge and thinking.

Independent work. Drawing and labelling
what we know about the body.
This is the first assessment piece.

Using resources to help with the drawing.

Independent work allows the teacher to assess
and check individual children's understanding.

Every child's work is different and it
demonstrates their own learning.

Next step in our journey of understanding the body systems: Learning about the brain.

Another puzzle challenge to help us work
collaboratively together.
Our goal is to make sure everyone in our class is actively participating.

Piecing together the parts of the brain and
 beginning our journey of learning about this important body system.

Viewing images and listening to scientific videos
are important ways to gain new information and knowledge.

Reading information from books is another important way to gain
new information. Recording new information on the mind map allows
our brains to remember this new knowledge.

We are a learning community as we work together to build the
mind map of our understanding.

Reflecting, thinking and discussing our learning.

Please ask your child to explain to you about what they know about the brain and how it works.

The students will now work independently and build a mind map of their own thinking and learning about the brain. As a teacher, this allows me to observe each individual and assess where they are at in their learing. These are some aspects I observe, record and assess: 

• ability to work independently.
• knowledge gained from the class learning.
• understanding of the important components of a mind map.
• presentation of drawings and handwriting.