maths

Turning ordinary things into a maths experience

This week is the Junior and Foundation swimming, which is both amazing and exhausting. However, it was while we were waiting for the bus on the first Monday that I realised that maths really was all around and any opportunity is a maths opportunity.

The 1/2s were chatting excitedly which soon crept into too loud territory. I put on my teacher's voice and asked them to calm down and challenged my class to see if they could be quieter than JR. Jack then asked the students a fabulous maths question that got all their brains ticking. “The bus to swimming holds 58 people. If there are 17 ABAH students and 12 JR students, how many spare seats will there be on the bus?” There was a second of blank looks and then fingers started wiggling and counting, there was mutterings of numbers and suddenly the late bus was forgotten and it was all about answering the question!

Then, coincidently, I got an email from Ben from the middle schools showing me some empty bread containers leftover from the WWM. “These WMM bun trays were in the corridor outside FKBC and are a maths opportunity,” his email said, and suddenly some empty containers were turned into some more real life maths! The question could be,

“This is how many rolls are in each crate. How many rolls might there be in 20 crates?” Or “if there are 20 crates with this many rolls and each roll cost $2.50, how much money might the school have made on rolls?”

From the survey from our maths info night last term, some people wanted to know more games and things to do at home and I’d say turning everyday experiences into maths experiences is the perfect way! It could be asking your child how much exact money they will need to buy things at the canteen or asking them if we go past 5 cars, how many wheels have we gone past? Incorporating real life events into maths is a great way to engage students. I know from a teaching point of view, as soon as they have a story they are much more engaged than if I just asked them to skip count. It’s also really important that kids see that maths isn’t just in the classroom, maths is everywhere. It’s maths when you check the time or look at the temperature, it’s maths when you try and figure out how long you’ll need to get to school, or to check the speed you’re driving or to read the daily time table. Maths is a life skill that you will need for real life situations, so why not build it into your everyday conversations or give them a challenge now and again! I know I’ll be looking for ways to turn every day experiences into maths experiences this weekend.

Also THANK YOU to all those people who wrote on our maths wall J If you didn’t get a chance to, please check out our whiteboard near the weekly calendar and add to our poster and look out for some weekly challenges on there!

To keep up to date with maths at BNWPS and to see maths in the everyday, please follow us on twitter @BnwsM

Have a lovely weekend!

Jessie and Alice

book week activities

Get excited, everyone! It’s time for our annual BOOK WEEK celebration!

This is an opportunity for the whole community to share in our love of literacy and reading.

Here are the activities we have planned for the week Monday 26th- Friday 30th August, 2019

Tuesday 27th August- DRESS UP DAY

Please come dressed as your favourite book characters! Mila and Sienna (our illustrious Literacy Leaders) will be coming around to judge the costume competition (one prize for each year level) but really it’s just about the fun of being dressed up and having fun!

Wednesday 28th August- FOUNDIE AND JUNIOR BOOK WEEK TRIVIA (at lunch time)

Based on the shortlisted books from the Children’s Book Week Awards, Mila and Sienna will be running a trivia quiz for Junior and Founder students at lunch time in the library. This is not compulsory, but there will be prizes for winners!

Teachers will be reading the shortlisted books to their students over the next couple of weeks in preparation.

Thursday 29th August- READING FLASH MOB (morning)

During the morning session, at some point there will be a Reading Flash Mob. What this means is that every person on the school premises (from Hannah through to Kris and any parents enjoying their coffee at Sprout) will pull out a book and read for ten minutes. Music will be played to indicate the start of the Reading Flash Mob and Music will be played to signify when it is over. We would love 100% participation for best effect. Thank you.

Thursday 29th August- YEAR SIX BOOK-BASED TREAT STALL (lunch time)

The Year Sixes will be running a book-based treat stall in the Undercover area at lunch time on the 29th so come along for some fun bookish treats!

That’s all for Book Week, but ALSO: Next Week!

VERY EXCITING! The YOUNG AUTHORS AWARD 2019 Winners will be announced at Assembly on Friday 23rd August (except Year 3 and Year 4, as they’ll still be coming back from camp). We have been overwhelmed by the amount of entries this year and the magnificent quality of writing. We are looking forward to acknowledging some outstanding works in our school on this day!

swimming in JR

Week one of swimming is done and dusted. JR has really enjoyed their time in the pool and it’s been great to see how brave they have been.

We are already seeing a lot of progress and everyone is really excited for their lessons next week! If you would like to come along and see your wonderful little people in action please feel free to contact me. Enjoy your weekend everybody!

appreciation of above-and-beyond

Every day we have community members go above-and-beyond to support our school, the community or the individuals within it. We are going to take a moment each week to thank someone for going above and beyond in some special way, to appreciate the everyday acts of kindness that can sometimes be overlooked.

This week we are starting with a big THANK YOU to Tanya Pittard, who has well and truly gone above and beyond in her volunteering and organisational efforts. Against many odds (including weather), Tanya has yet again guided our school to celebrate what makes us special.

Thank you from BNWPS!