1/2 K

1/2K has had a very busy two weeks. As a class we were sad as we said goodbye to Jhanvi who has moved to a new school, closer to her new home. We wish Jhanvi all the best and we know she will make some wonderful new friends and keep some lovely friends she has made here at St Francis Xavier. 

Then we were very excited to welcome a new face to our class, Esha. She has settled in well to our grade, made lots of new friends and all the children have made her feel so welcomed. If you see her parents at pick up or drop off please make sure to say a friendly hello.

Literacy

In Literacy we have been reading the story of The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Our focus has been the structure of a narrative story and retelling the events of the story in order including the beginning, middle and end. 

The children made these wonderful caterpillars to display their sentences of the events in the story. They were all so proud that they could remember the details in the story and write them in order. 

Mathematics

In mathematics we have been focusing on data collection and how to display data. The children began the week by using tally marks to collect and display data quickly in a table. Then we began to look at how to display data using pictures in a graph. Finally as a class we collected the data of different fruit we ate at fruit snack time. The students then used this data to create a bar graph. Our next step is to allow the students to come up with a question they would like to collect data about, survey the class themselves and create a graph of their choice. I can't wait to see what they come up with.

Science

In case you missed it, last week the children experimented with some simple science. The children used materials including flour, salt, water, oil and food colouring and attempted to change them into something new. The children loved to watch and see how the materials changed as we progressed through the steps and made play dough. Everyone had a chance to mix, kneed, press and twist the dough as it changed colour and finally became the final product of play dough. It was such a fun experiment making sure we added just the right amount of materials to get the play dough to the right consistency. The children were then able to take their own allocated amount of play dough and see if they could twist, stretch and bend it into letters, numbers, patterns and make new shapes. 

If you would like to make this easy no cook play dough at home here are the ingredients and the steps.

Ingredients:

- 3 cups of plain flour

- 1 cup of salt

- 1 tablespoon of oil

- 1 cup of water

- 1-2 drops of food colouring

Steps:

1. Pour plain flour and salt into a large mixing bowl.

2. Mix together the dry ingredients.

3. Pour the oil into the bowl.

4. Add 1-2 drops of food colouring to 1 cup of water.

5. Pour the coloured water into the bowl.

6. Mix all the ingredients together in the bowl.

7. Kneed the mixture to make a soft dough. 

8. Keep in an air tight container such as a ziplock bag or tub.