Hello everyone! It's Mrs. Tindale here. The term is flying by and
the students in Mini MAC have been busy little bees.
We were lucky enough to have the lovely ladies from Kanyana
Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre visit us and share their knowledge on the
special fauna that was once abundant around the Wattle Grove area. They brought
along some beautiful animals for us to observe and learn about, including a
Tawny Frogmouth, Forest Red-Tailed Black Cockatoo, Carpet Python, Bobtail
lizard and an Echidna. They also showed us taxidermied specimens of a quenda,
cat and rat. They discussed the impact that human progress is having on our
local flora and fauna. The students diligently took notes and have used this
information to create Animal Fact Cards on Quendas.
Along with this fantastic STEM project on
bridging the gap between human progress and the environment, some of our
students have been working on their own independent research projects. These
'Passion Projects' have been individually chosen by the students and some of
the topics include researching natural disasters, such as tornadoes,
earthquakes and volcanoes, synthetic blood, minerals and atoms, pyroclastic
flow after volcanic eruptions and animal adaptations. What a great way to build
our research skills by answering questions we've always wanted to know about!
Within our Literacy Block we've been
consolidating our spelling rules, use of quotation marks and the comprehension
strategy of summarising. Why not ask your children how they would summarise the
books they've been reading. Talking about what we read really helps us develop
our own summarising skills.
This term in Mathematics we're focusing on
Money and the class has developed a weekly money system in which they rent
their chairs, table space, book boxes and pencil pots from the pretend Bank of
C&T23 (short for Bank of Court and Tindale, Room 23 - yes the students chose
this name!). Students earn income by remembering to bring their homework folder
every day and their library books/bag each Wednesday. They can also earn income
by applying for and securing 'jobs' around the classroom, such as being the
class photographer or recording the week's events to go on the school
blog. Keeping it real, students know that if they don't keep their cheque
books up to date each week, or if they forget their homework/library bag, then,
uh oh, they get a fine! Students also chose to sign a contract with our pretend
bank and in doing so received a special offer of $10.00 up front! Students are
learning responsibility and budgeting, while simulating real world money
scenarios (and having fun doing it).
Keep an eye out in coming weeks for blog
posts written by our lovely staff in Room 23!
All the best,
Mrs T. :)
