This week Milky Way class has been finalising their enquiries in the transdisciplinary theme how we organise ourselves, with the central idea being that people share responsibility in order to achieve a common purpose.
In addition to the last two week’s collaborative reorganisation of the school library, Milky Way have introduced a second option for the summative interview assessment. On Monday the class practiced and discussed how a team can work together in a game of dodgeball to reach the common goal of winning the game. It was discussed that cooperation within the team was more important than the efforts of any single player and at the same time various team strategies were discussed to help the students understand how sharing the work and using their team-mate in the best position at that time can benefit everyone. On Tuesday, Milky Way made two teams who played each other and then Milky Way spectated as Rainforest did likewise. Milky Way students concurrently discussed the good and bad points of the play, what could be done differently or better and then following this the winning side of Rainforest played the winning Milky Way team. Having returned to the classroom after this the specifics of the plays were discussed as a class. The class groups of three were each given the option of having their interview assessed by reporting on either the library re-organisation or the dodgeball game.
In English, the class is continuing their Dolch sight-words while rapidly improving. In their practice of handwriting students have composed at least three original sentences each for submission to their half-yearly reports. In this, minimal assistance and maximum options for topics were provided. Students continue accustomisation of the new organisation for choosing take-home RAZ and library books. They have also begun further studies into the correct use of prepositions with prescribed statements and accompanying illustrations. In mathematics the class is continuing to use number lines for addition and subtraction where any given number line will start arbitrarily (including in the negatives) and extend sufficiently that it can be utilised for all assigned sums and differences. The students are continuing to enjoy length measurement in (predominantly) centimetres.
This week, the class has been introduced to their theme for the Christmas show with students familiarising themselves with the story and being given time to think about character preferences. Likewise related to upcoming events the students also made more Halloween craft projects for next week’s party.
Milky Way continue to enjoy their daily morning exercise program and their routine and today, both classes enjoyed a cultural and fun excursion to the Chihiro Iwasaki museum for a guided tour, an exploratory activity, story time, lunch and an extended free-play time.
