Avoiding Reports Hodgepodge Post

So... I'm supposed to be writing reports. So far I've filled in one child's name on one report!! At this rate it will take me months to write them all - and they're due next Tuesday. I'm just not in the mood today :( Will have to burn some midnight oil during the week, I think...

Anyway - to avoid having to write the things I thought I'd post some of the activities that we did this week. It's a complete hodgepodge :) (Do you use that word? It's quite common in my family.)

Let's start with art :)

We painted parrots this week. We used Gail Bartel's fabulous lesson plan to draw our parrots in a step-by-step process. Then we used water and tempera paint to create our own 'watercolours' and painted what were supposed to be blurry feathers. The overall effect of all the parrots was quite spectacular and my kiddies loved their art work.

On Friday we did Math centers with 15 minute rotations. It's always a bit of a risk doing Math in the afternoons but I've found as long as it's review and hands on the afternoon just whizzes by and the kids enjoy themselves thoroughly.

This week we reviewed measurement, using wool to measure curved lines - this needed some careful management by partners but it kept them busy and surprisingly quiet.

Another group reviewed Venn diagrams - I gave them two big circles and a bag of objects and told them to come up with their own headings and then sort the objects accordingly. I was thinking they'd sort by colour and shape and they didn't disappoint me although one enterprising group stood all the flat polygons on end and told me they were 3-D shapes! Not quite what I was looking for but it showed creativity :)

And we practiced our fact families and I have to say that I was APPALLED! Yes, appalled! We are seriously going to need to do some more practice with this concept. I used these clothes pegs and popsicle sticks so that the girls could play with their multiplication and division facts and it became abundantly clear to me that a lot of my class do NOT get the idea of families at all. Mind you, the clothes pegs (which are the brainstorm of Anne at Common Core Connection) were great fun and being able to manipulate definitely seemed to help some of the students!

 

 Next week we move onto fractions again - it's time for fraction of a number bracelets (yay) and all that kind of good stuff. Plus we have to get moving on our Rainforest Cafe. I had a brilliant idea today inspired by a very cool Pinterest board that I found - I'm going to have the kids make all the food (that they're supposed to serve to their parents) in animal shapes! Don't ask me how we're going to manage because I haven't figured that part out yet. It is still in "vision" form. :) In the meantime I am collecting all the products of the rainforest for our big display and "invite the Year 3s to visit" day. The advantage of living on a sub-tropical island is that I can find quite a lot of rainforest flora in the back yard. :)

Ok - I feel reinspired. :) Maybe I can get one report done after all!!