Inky Fingers

We got rather messy in art this week, I'm afraid.  It all started as a follow-on from our story about Fox and his new friends (see previous post).  You see, after we had read the story, we got talking (regular readers will know that's something we get up to quite a lot in Class 2i!) about the kinds of places that you can go to play with your friends and the different things you can do there.  For example:

Tommy told us he likes to play in the playground.

Meghna agreed.  'In the playground you can swing on the swings', she said.  Seyf added, 'You can play on the slide.' and Thomas said, 'You can swing on the ropes.'  Viivi summed it up.  'You can play with your friends.'  Playground, you see!

Tatiana told us she likes to play in the sea and at the beach. 

Virginia agreed.  'You can swim with your friends and play in the water,' she said.  Meghna added, 'You can make sand castles with each other.'  Chloe had this suggestion.  'You can let your friend bury you.'  (She was prompted to add - 'but be careful to leave your face out!')  Sharukh told us that you can play in the sand and Quentin said, 'You can do a giant castle.'  Aabis told us, 'You can swim at the beach.' and Shahrbano suggested, 'If you know how to swim, you can teach your friend.'  But that's another story.....

Anyway.  That bit of brainstorming about those and other places where we can play led to the inky fingers of the title.

Coloured paper was chosen with care - yellow for the beach; blue for the sea or the swimming pool; green for a football pitch or the playground (you get the idea, I'm sure.)

Inky fingers.....

 

.....were used to make 'fingerprints' on the paper.

  

Fine-tipped pens were used to turn the fingerprints into friends.....

(not without some difficulty;

after all, how do you hold a pen with an inky finger?)

.....as well as for other details (ski-poles, goal-posts, climbing-trees, sand-castles).

Some of us still have a bit of work to do before our 'what-to-do/places-to-play' pictures are finished, but parents will no doubt be glad to read that surely enough fingerprint-playmates have already been made.  Lids are firmly back on the ink pads. 

And anyway, we have a secret supply of a very special spray that Mira can use to get the worst inky stains off.....and fortunately it works on inky desks as well as inky fingers.  Phew!

Fox Makes Friends

As part of our Unit of Inquiry on Building Our Classroom Community, we read the book 'Fox Makes Friends' by Adam Relf.  In the story, Fox was bored; he needed a friend to play with.  His mum told him he had to make friends.

So Fox set out to make a friend.  He found some sticks, some nuts and an apple

and he used them to make a friend.....

 

Look carefully at our pictures; can you see what Fox used the apple for?  How did he make the body?  What do you think he used the nuts for?

Of course Rabbit was rather disappointed when his new friend did not move or play with him.  Then Rabbit asked if he could help, and together they made a bigger friend; this time they used a

for the head.

This new friend did not move or play with them.  Then Squirrel asked if he could help, and together they made an even bigger friend; this time they used a

 

for the head. 

Even this new friend did not move or play with them.  However, at the end of the story, Fox looked over at Rabbit and Squirrel and suddenly realised that he had been making friends all along.....he had made friends with Rabbit and Squirrel by letting them play with him!

Our First Unit of Inquiry - a note for parents

This year our first Unit of Inquiry is on Building Our Classroom Community.  The Central Idea is 'How knowing about the learner profiles and attitudes helps make communities run smoothly'.  In order to further our understanding, we will be following three main lines of inquiry:

• The Learner Profile - what’s that all about and how is it going to make our community run smoothly?
• Setting up a code of behaviour
• Putting it into practice

For those of you new to the school or unfamiliar with the IB Primary Years Programme, our students are encouraged to be

• inquirers
• knowledgeable
• thinkers
• communicators
• principled
• open-minded
• caring
• risk-takers
• well-balanced
• reflective

In order to make our classroom community run smoothly, we need to learn to get along with one another.  Some of the qualities needed for this are clearly more important than others.  At the start of the school year, we are risk-takers when we approach unfamiliar situations and uncertainty with courage.  We should be caring; showing empathy, compassion and respect towards the needs and feelings of others.  We must learn to communicate effectively with one another.  We should try to be open-minded, understanding that there might be more than one point of view and we must learn about being principled and taking responsibility for our own actions.

At the moment, we are looking at these five qualities in some detail, through anecdotes and stories, discussion and drama.  You should begin to see your child displaying these qualities and to hear the words being used appropriately.  Using the words yourself in your praise would also help support learning.

Maths manipulative materials - let's take a closer look!

For the last couple of days, we have been taking a closer look at some of our maths manipulative materials; doing some individual and 'with-a-partner' investigations.  Pretty much anything goes, although it has to have some connection with the world of mathematics.

Let's take a closer look at some of what has been going on!

To begin with, Virginia and Meghna decided to make tens with their Unifix cubes.  'We are making patterns with two colours,' said Meghna.  'Yes,' added Virginia.  'We made groups of ten and sorted them and put them together.'

When they had finished, Owen spotted that they had made 15 sticks of ten altogether.  'You have used 150 cubes,' he told them.

Sivert also made tens with his cubes.  'I am trying to use 100 cubes,' he said.  'I will be using ten tens!'

How many has he got so far?

Now, what about this for a long column of cubes?  It was the start of Harrison's huge challenge.....

.....which needed to be carried to the floor when he ran out of desk!  'I am going to make 100,' he began.  'No, I think it will be more than 100.'  He clicked together cubes.....

.....and eventually made them go all the way round the carpet.  Sadly lunchtime got in the way of us finding out exactly how many there were in all.  But we all agreed it was more than 100!

Thomas and Quentin also liked the idea of trying to make their cubes go all the way round the carpet.

'We're trying to make a circle,' said Quentin.

'And we're going to count them,' added Thomas, somewhat optimistically.

For one of her investigations, Shani started with a pile of cubes.  'I am putting them together.  I am seeing which one is the highest,' she explained.

Tatiana was working with buttons.  'I have sorted them by colour,' she began.  'Yellows are here, blues here, reds here.  I am going to count to see which has the most.'

'I used triangles and squares to make a pattern,' explained Aabis.

Look what else you can make using just squares and triangles:

  

and look what you can do with just circles:

Shabano put her buttons in pairs. 

'I have made a pattern using triangles,' said Tommy.

  

'Then you can put them together like this.....

 

.....or like this.....'

 

Seyf lined up some rows of sorting bears.  'That's a pattern,' he said.  'It is green green green, blue blue blue, green green green, blue blue blue.....'

 

Raamy also used bears.  'I have 11 green bears,' he announced.

Mark counted 24 orange bears in his pattern. (Unfortunately though, the photographer cropped a few of them out of the picture.....how many are missing, I wonder)

 

Sharukh made a pattern of bears with Leon.  'We are going to find out how many bears we there are in our pattern,' he explained.

Chloe and Viivi wanted their bears to look rather more regimented.  They were trying to line up pairs of baby bears in rows of ten.....

 

How many baby bears did they use altogether?  They had 6 rows of ten.....

Leon continued working with sorting bears.  'I am making the same pattern as the carpet,' he told us.  'Blue, yellow, blue, yellow.....'

Martin used pattern blocks to make this pattern:

'I used ten orange squares,' he said.

Shani also used pattern blocks to make a very complex pattern.  It began like this.....

  

.....and by the time she had finished, she had used 24 white shapes.

If you start with a hexagon.....

just look what you can make.....

What shapes do you see immediately surrounding the hexagon?

If you don't fancy making intricate patterns, how about sorting and counting?

How many hexagons can you count?  Are there more triangles than hexagons?  What other questions can you ask?

Harrison and Owen worked together with pattern blocks.  'We are making a beehive,' explained Harrison. 

'We are using all yellow and all hexagons,' added Owen. 

When shapes fit together like this, with no gaps, it is called tessellation.  How can you find out what other shapes 'tessellate'?

Of course, this is just a 'snapshot' of what we got up to, but I think you can see that a lot of thinking and learning went on and importantly, a lot of fun was had at the same time.

And so a new year begins.....

As the last school year ended, so I began to feel quite bereft; whole evenings with no 'blogging' opportunities stretched emptily ahead of me.....

However, just as I was beginning to get into 'holiday' mode.....

happy feet

.....suddenly it was all over; back, as they say, to the chalk-face (or in my case, to the fancy new all-singing, all-dancing interactive whiteboard-face. And a new class; full of eager six year-olds, all rarin' to go (and including some who are 'old hands' at this 'blogging' lark, which is very good news indeed!)

Watch this space!