3D shapes | Diary of an Adventurous Retiree

We are really back in the swing of things at my very active school. Looking back I have a feeling of satisfaction that so much has been accomplished because I never believe there’s enough time! The week started with a long ‘to do’ list and two big events to get through. In spite of this we managed to complete all the work planned, fit in an assembly practice and survive the ‘big events’

On Thursday we had our Creative Expo Day. Visitors shopping for the best school for their youngsters popped into our classrooms to see what sort of creative things we did with the children. The Grade Ones have learned all about 2D and 3D shapes and so we decided to do something creative around this. After viewing a PowerPoint presentation on shapes and where we see them in everyday life the children designed a model and then used toothpicks and Jelly Tots to construct a 3D building. What fun the girls had and how impressive their models turned out to be. Girl brains do not get the engineering thing quite as easily as boy brains but most of my princesses managed beautifully. There were one or two who insisted on making pretty shapes in 2D but that’s okay – they’ll get the 3D thing eventually

I wonder how I should design this thing

Totally absorbed in the task

I’ve done it

We joined ours together!

This morning there was great excitement as it was Outing Day! Everybody arrived with packed lunch ready and after reading and handwriting we set off to Simonstown. We call this kind of outing an Ignition Outing the idea being to ignite the children with an idea of what kind of career they might like to enter when they grow up. The naval officer who was our guide told me that he was inspired to join the navy at a young age when he went on a similar class outing. We joined our brother class on this outing and it was clear that it was a big hit with the boys. The girls, however, were also asking questions and thoroughly enjoying the experience although not quite so excited by torpedoes that killed the enemy.

Listening intently to all this new information

Looking at a Battle Ship

May I ring the Captain’s Bell? No!

It would be fun to be a Navy Diver

The children were allowed to explore the Naval Museum, saw a short video on how a helicopters are used for rescue and got to learn about a variety of things you could work at in the Navy. Our handsome young naval guide was brilliant with the children and they all went home with a good insight of what the Navy was about. Thanks to the Moms and Dads who gave up their valuable time to transport us there and back. We really appreciate it.

No matter how well you plan as a teacher you never know what is actually going to happen on that day! Take Thursday for example. As I greeted my girls no fewer than five arrived in mufti! Five birthdays on the same day in the same class – what were the chances! Of course this meant five lots of treats to celebrate too. Oh boy – we worked flat out till snack time before I handed out the first party pack at 10:10. And yes – the sugar high had set in and I had to do a lot of movement activities as sitting still was going to be a problem. At 12:30 they got the sliced cake and cake pops and finally as they left at hometime cup cakes and iced donuts were distributed.

The Five Birthday Girls

It’s a Barbie Cake

We have been working hard on our number concepts. We can count to 100, in ones, twos, fives and tens. We have worked hard on knowing the difference between before and after, one more and one less, recognising numerals and number names and many more things. Now we are ready for real sums. To introduce the concept of partners in our bonds we play a wonderful game called dancing digits which gets the children moving – so good for the brain. Each child is marked with a number (Don’t worry moms – it comes off easily!) and told to find someone else that she can partner with to make, in this case, five. They scurry around and argue and debate, little fingers work overtime and finally they connect with the right partner holding tightly to her hand until the teacher congratulates them on their cleverness.

Together we make five!

So do we although its the other way round!

Zero is a difficult concept but we’ve got it!

Mathematics is so much fun!

In our groups we use concrete apparatus to reinforce the concepts. I cannot emphasise enough how important it is for children to use all their senses to learn. Seeing the counters, touching them, moving them around, listening to songs and rhymes about numbers etc are all part of the learning process. Learning bonds off by heart before the concept is embedded in the brain does more harm than good.

Find three with your eyes and grab it make it one more – make it one less – how many do you need to make five

Interpreting the written sum – Those signs can be confusing!

The girls also did another cooperative activity this week and learned from the previous weeks’ experience. It was so rewarding seeing the lesson learned and the ones who were in conflict last week working beautifully this week.

This week’s activity got the girls looking for 3D shapes in pictures of actual things. They made a graph of these. They compared their columns but also discovered where they went wrong by comparing their graphs with those of the other girls.

It goes in this column I think

This is so much fun

Do we have the same results?

It is the Autumn term and the weather is getting chilly but we have been lucky with some lovely sunny days and inside the classroom there is always sunshine with these precious little girls.