Middle Unit -2/3

Term 3 already. How fast is this year going? It was wonderful to have the students back this week. It sounds like everyone had a wonderful and restful break. It has been great to see how energetic and positive the students have settled back into class this week.

We say a fond farewell to Libby Tobin as she goes on maternity leave, this week. We will miss her and wish her all the best with bub. We can’t wait to meet her!!! With Miss Tobin going, we welcome Greer Arnold and Katie Cashen to the 2/3 team. We are looking forward to working with them for the rest of the year.

In reading the students are looking at how authors create a visual image of a rhyming couplets (a pair of lines. The two lines typically rhyme i.e. “It’s hard to see the butterfly, As it flies across the night sky”), highlighting the words the author used that helped them visualise what they pictured in their head and explain how the authors “tone” of the poem made them feel. This has led to some great discussions between the students and their different interpretation of a rhyming couplet.

In writing the students have begun learning how to write their own poetry pieces. The students have been drawing pictures of different things (animals and food have been the most popular things to draw), then brainstorming both positive and negative toned words to describe their image e.g. spider could have words such as creepy, hairy legs, venomous, stealthy, fearless, efficient, predatory, protective. After the students picked their audience, and what sort of message they are trying to convey to them, honing in on the correct word choices to ensure their audience (reader) would be hooked and understand the point they are trying to express.

In maths we are starting our multiplication unit this term. The students have started by learning about arrays. (An arrangement of objects, pictures of symbols in rows and columns.) The students have enjoyed going on an Array hunt looking for different arrays around the school. The students discovered there is a lot of arrays in the school yard. They have also created an array city, creating a picture of a city and using the windows on buildings as their array.