Answer this

Maota are learning to use prior knowledge and making connections, to help ask relevant and sensible questions while they are reading. 

This neat widget is called Answergarden, where we can ask our audience a question and respond. Helping us with our learning.

Maota discovered not all animals can be grouped as mammals.  Mammals have special features (characteristics) that make them Mammals.

Warm blooded                                       G.W

Drink Mothers milk

Have fur, wool or hair                           A.N

Mothers give birth to their babies

Can you name any mammals that have these characteristics?  

Making connections

We have been learning how to make connections in our reading.

link to this page http://reading.ecb.org/teacher/makingconnections/index.html  -

• It helps readers understand how characters feel and the motivation behind their actions.
• It helps readers have a clearer picture in their head as they read thus making the reader more engaged.
• It keeps the reader from becoming bored while reading.
• It sets a purpose for reading and keeps the reader focused.
• Readers can see how other readers connected to the reading.
• It forces readers to become actively involved.
• It helps readers remember what they have read and ask questions about the text.

Text-to-self:
What does this remind me of in my life?
What is this similar to in my life?
How is this different from my life?
Has something like this ever happened to me?
How does this relate to my life?
What were my feelings when I read this?

Text-to-text:
What does this remind me of in another book I’ve read?
How is this text similar to other things I’ve read?
How is this different from other books I’ve read?
Have I read about something like this before?

Text-to-world:
What does this remind me of in the real world?
How is this text similar to things that happen in the real world?
How is this different from things that happen in the real world?
How did that part relate to the world around me?

Choco bomb

My holiday snaps

As promised photos of Bruce's and my holiday to Thailand. 

Having a fish spa treatment with fish nicknamed "doctor fish." These hungry fish were nibbling away even though they have no teeth. 

Who says you can't play with your food? One thing I indulged on was the fresh fruit including these rambutan. This hairy spiky ball was hiding tasty and sweet fruit     

A memory of a life time! We were careful with what company we rode with as some treat their elephants (Cĥāng). 

Our lady Dacom, was 65 years old and eats 300 kilograms of pineapples, leaves, bananas and other vegetation. 

Finally we popped over to Phi Phi Island for a couple of days. We quickly realised that this wasn't enough time to explore these remote islands. Another first was snorkelling at night with illuminated plankton! 

Have you got any holiday snaps you would like to share?

Times tables, Multiplication, Groups of...

We are learning about multiplication and division in maths for the rest of the term and a little bit into next term.  Below are some games we play to help reinforce what we have been learning.  Stay tuned to see our progress.

Parents, what are your views on using online educational games to help your child learn?  Do you see the benefits of children playing online games to help consolidate their class learning? Or do you think we run the danger of children becoming to reliant on technology to help their learning? Do you prefer your child to use pen and paper and other traditional 'homework' tools?

I would love to know your thoughts.  Please vote on our poll and leave a comment below this post.  When you have voted your child will receive a Dojo point (Whanau points) and it will help me understand your perspective on this hot topic.

Here are just a few of my favourite games to help children learn their times tables.  Have ago yourself and find out how addictive and fun these games are.  Who knows, it might even refresh your own knowledge of the times tables.


ICT games has many educational games to help teach maths concepts.  This game is my favourite as I can set the times tables I would like to the kids to learn or they can choose the ones they need some extra help with.

Splat Facts upgrades your car when you have gotten 8 correct answers.  Also you can chose which fact to practice.

When helping your child learn their times tables, start with one fact at a time until it's completely mastered.  We are are learning our 2's then 5's as we know how to skip count forwards and backwards.

Mathmagician is a game where you race the clock.

Johnny's Math Page has plenty more of games to help practice those basic facts.



Don't forget to leave a comment on your views about online educational games.

Thanks

Empty the basket

Using some of our skills we learnt during PE interchange, we played empty the basket. 

Matariki

For our Matariki Celebrations we learnt what Matariki means to the Maori.