A day in the life of Room 4

This post is especially for you parents.  How often when you ask your child "So what did you learn today?" or "What did you do at school today?", do you get the response "Not much"?

Well, in Room 4 we always have VERY busy days, jammed packed with learning opportunities.  Here's a little snapshot of how today went.

We began the day with singing.  Mrs O even got her guitar out for the first time this year!  Mrs O recorded us singing our very own creation of 'Easter holidays' which can be found on our blog.

At 9am Mrs Harrex arrived in to teach us Bible in Schools. She read us a story about how things are not always as they seem.  Then we completed an activity in our workbooks.

After that it was straight into spelling.  Some of us worked independently at our desks while the rest of us learnt about 'Magic e' with Mrs O on the mat.

Writing was next up for the day. We are all flat-out writing recounts about our experiences.  We are trying to include all of the who, what, where, when, why, and how information for the reader, as well as remembering to order our ideas. 

PHEW!  What a busy start to the day.  Finally time for morning tea and a quick play outside.

Reading was next.  This is one of the busiest times of the day in Room 4 as there are students doing all sorts of different reading activities: reading independently, reading with the teacher, studying reading-related activities on the computer, playing reading board games, listening to stories on the listening post and completing reading research activities.  Busy, busy, busy.

For Maths today we had a post-test.  This is when Mrs O checks to see what we have learnt from all of her teaching - should she get paid or not?  And also, to see what we need to learn next.  Our next maths topic is measuring Mass so she needed to get an idea of what we already know about grams, kilograms and reading scales.

FINALLY lunch-time!  Time for some kai and fresh air.

After the lunch bell, it is always DEAR in Room 4 (Drop Everything And Read), although today we did have the choice of silent reading or silent writing.

Mrs O then read our latest novel 'Tangled Fortunes' by Margaret Mahy to us.  It's great to just sit back, relax and enjoy listening to a chapter book.

We are winding up our Antarctica unit by doing our own research.  We have been allowed to choose any topic that interests us about Antarctica and today we finished off writing our questions that we want to find out and then begin to find relevant information for our research.  Everyone was so on-task today, keen to take their learning in their own direction.

Last of all was syndicate singing, lead beautifully by Room 7 this week.  The junior syndicate sang songs together and congratulated this week's 'Student of the Week' children.

So......  what learning happened in Room 4 today?

"Not much!"