Our Last Blog Post for 2014

A few lasts actually: It's also the last post as Middle S for this group of students and the last post as MIDDLE S as Ms Scott moves to grade 5/6...Stay tuned to a revamped blog in 2015...
In the meantime, here are the future grade 4/5's of Middle S reflecting on their year and some of the things they have learnt...

Natasha – this year I learnt more about Maths and Inquiry. For Maths I learnt how to do division and for Inquiry I learnt how to get lots of specific information from the Internet
Grace – I learnt more about doing presentations. Before I didn’t know how to gather as much information
Lachie – I think my first year at my new school was better than my other school, because I learnt more stuff here like Genius Hour and Inquiry. I did more specific things like the Greta Barrier Reef. I’m looking forward to my new class next year and I hope I fit in
Jake – I really enjoyed this year of school, because it helped me to be a better student, instead of being silly. I just stopped.
Jack – I learnt about times tables and time and how to search up quite a lot of information
Natalia – This year I learnt how to do division and how to tell time. I practised this more at home.
Jenny – I made new friends and I hung out different people and I learnt more about Maths and division. I thought this year was the best year so far.
James – This year I learnt how to tell time and giving better feedback from Miss Liels (our student teaching).
Angelo – This is probably one of the best years I’ve had because we got Chromebooks and I liked having Ms Scott as my teacher and I got my pen licence
Jamie – I thought this year was awesome, being my last year at school. I learnt a lot this year in writing and new ways to share my learnings. Also, getting Chromebooks and my pen licence was amazing
Cooper – This year I thought that it was a really fun year, because of being with most of my friends and meeting new friends who I now hang out with. I’m also really happy that I got my pen licence this year and my Chromebook. Term 3 was a sad term because Adol left. It was a really good year because last year I was really excited to become a year 4 and have Ms Scott as a teacher. We also had Miss Liels as a student teacher and she was really good with Inquiry and Maths, reading and writing. We also learnt how to do a lot of really good behaviour management
Riley – At the start of this year I was really looking forward to being a grade 4 and having Ms Scott as a teacher and this was one of my better years cos I learnt a lot more than usual
Jacob – I was happy that I was going into year 4 at a new school. I thought it was a good year cos I had a new teacher (a strict teacher) so I don’t muck around in class.
Molly – It was a hard year in a fun way. I learnt lots of things that I probably would have learnt otherwise. I really liked class parties and playing with my friends. I love genius hour, because I get to learn things that I never think about. I think I’ll do it at home some times.
Ryan – I liked this year because a different year and this year was probably one of my favourite years cos I learnt how to use computers more and how to use a Chromebook. I learnt more about Maths, especially problems.

Hour of Code

Yesterday, Middle S did an Hour of Code on the website http://code.org/ This was our way of taking part in Computer Science Education Week. Below are some of our reflections on the hour :

• Its really good because its fun and don’t really know you’re learning stuff but you are, like sharing your creative skills - Jamie
• I think some of these games are really hard like one I can’t move to the objective - Lachie
• I like when you start to make the game its easy to do and you can add in objectives and backgrounds - Jackson
• I thought its really cool and its a fun way of learning computer skills - Cooper
• I like how you can make your own games and share it with people - Jack C
• I thought it was really interesting because it was active and fun - Jake
• I think its really good because you work on your computer skills and learn more than you think you do - Natasha
• You get to learn new things on the computer that you didn’t know. With all the games they teach you new things. I’m on a game called tynker and its with a dragon and I’m learning how to control the dragon - Sienna
• It will help you if you made a game that didn’t work , you could use the code to make it work - Brandon C
• I like how you don’t know what the games about but you figure it out when you start - Jack D
• It was interesting how to do angles and degrees to control the character movements - Elisa
• We figured out how to share the game with friends. Click on the Finish button and a link comes up to share with people - Piers
• I didn't like it because it was really hard and confusing - Grace
• It was fun how you need to remember the patterns you did and then update and have to remember them again  - James
• I thought it was fun playing these coding games because we were learning and having fun at the same time! I was playing CODE COMBAT, it was fun because you get to upgrade your hero and then battle against  the computer and you moved by using code language -  Angelo!
• I think I learned a lot about coding like how to control the person.I had a lot fun specially with the type of games- Ryan

 

Computer Science

Next week is...

 

In Middle S we will be learning about computer programming or coding by taking part in the "Hour of Code" on Monday.
If you would like to try some coding programs over the weekend, http://studio.code.org/ is a good place to start.

Shopping for the correct change

Today's Learning Intention in Maths:
              We are learning to give and receive the correct change when shopping

Some of the strategies we used were:

• Counting up to 
• Skip counting by 5's
• Mental addition
• Starting with the cents and then counting up to the dollars
• Subtracting from the larger number
• I subtracted the price of the item from the note I was using

 
If you had a $10 note and wanted to buy these items what change would you receive?
$10 - $5.85 =
$10 - $4.30 =
$10 - $2.65 =

Our Photo Tour of Blackburn South

Other random photos from our tour of the local neighbourhood:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Student Reflections on the Similarities and Differences between the two places:
Cooper n Jacob's presentation
Grace n Jade's tour
Angelo n Will P's tour
Jamie n Keira's Adventure
Jenny and Caoimhe's trip
Elisa n Natalia's Walk

A Multiplication Investigation

Today, in Maths, Middle S explored a real life problem as a way to practise a real use of multiplication and to help our vegetable garden. Essentially, it involved solving the problem:

• We need bird netting for our vegie garden. Investigate. In groups use a piece of A3 paper to record your investigation. Record your questions to each other and your answers/actions or what you want to do.

This is what happened...

 

After lots of discussion, measuring and recording, we returned to class to put it all together. Calculating the area proved challenging, but with a diagram and a online search of hardware stores, we found the right materials for the job. Finally, we calculated how much of each product we would need and the total cost.

3 vegie patches with an area of about 3m2, would be covered by a 4x4 metre net.
Multiply this by 3.
If the nets are $12.98 each, what is the total cost of buying 1 net for each of the 3 patches?
We thought stakes might be handy too? Why?
They come in packs of 10 at $3.59 each. How many stakes would we need? How many packets of them?

What do you think our total cost was in the end?

Do you have any suggestions for what we have done?
Would you have done it differently?

Cake Day

Cake day was the best day ever!

It was deliciously fun!

It was a great reward

We worked hard for it.

We had to get 30 stars to fill in our star chart and get the beautiful reward of cake

Yum day = Friday and Friday = cake day

In other news, during Genius Hour, Grace shared her presentation on the children's book author, Sally Rippen. The class was impressed with her use of cue cards and clear speaking voice. We were left wanting more!

A Day in The Life of Middle S

Starting our day, with Christian Meditation

Developing an understanding of the Italian language and culture with Senora

Preparing a Question Web in Inquiry/Literacy

Analysing the organisational features of a text we will use in Inquiry/Literacy

Positive Education

Halloween Art

Today in Maths we did something a little different. Can you work out what it was?...
 I really liked learning from other people. Jamie was using the long number chart and using 2 colours, one for odd and one for even to do number patterns – Natasha
 I thought it was good, because Riley and Cooper were showing us different strategies like, …- Sienna
 I liked being a student teacher because I felt comfortable doing it. I stopped counting with my fingers and did it in my head. Having to explain it helped with this. We all did different sums and then we had to give it to another person to work it out – Cooper
 Molly – I felt safe and trusted Jamie to help me learn. He described it really clearly and the patterns were clear and he went over them with a texta to make them stand out and be separate. If you’re a teacher, it lets you have lots of responsibility.
 Grace - It was good because Ms Scott taught me new skills and we were using the unifix blocks to do division by putting them into groups Jenny - I forgot how to do division and Angelo asked us to put blocks into groups. We also did equivalence sums and now I know what they are, which is one sum where there are 2 sums, but they both have to equal the same thing.
 Lachie - doing equivalent sums with Angelo helped me by him explaining that it has to be equal to the number next to it
 Jamie - I thought it was fun being the teacher, because I decided to do doubles with odds and evens. I explained that one colour was odd and the other was even. and that every second one was odd or even and that made them get better at odds and evens and doubles
 Natalia - Cooper and Riley taught me trading in 4 digit addition by explaining...
 Angelo - It was good teaching people because it made me explain things a bit better than I usually do. I think everyone in my group learnt how to do equivalence a bit better.
 Aerodyne - I thought it was good that we got to choose the area of Maths we would work on, because we might have worked on something we already knew
 Jacob - Ms Scott helped me because me by explaining how to do division by making groups.
 Ryan - I liked being with Angelo because he is one of my friends and I can easily ask him something. It really helped me how to work out equivalence sums
 James - I thought other students teaching you was good because they can expand your knowledge coming out of their knowledge. It helped me work out equivalent sums - the same answer for both sums
Jack - I learnt by Ms Scott, to get unifix and get them into groups with division