My school day began this morning at 6.45.
Out in the garden at home with the birds singing and the grass wet with dew, I cut down several large fan palm leaves, numerous long branches of native ginger, a swag of native grass and several beautifully scented stalks of cardamon. These were pushed into the back seat of the car along with a small piece of banana trunk.
When I arrived at school two of the children helped me to unload the car and soon there was a big pile of interesting leaves, palms, grasses and stems lying next to the sandpit. Within minutes it was whisked away by the 'builder boys' who began making a new cubby under the bushes along the fence.
Several children went inside and got their craft bags and began knitting around the lunch table and a group of children began a ball game throwing, catching and shooting goals in the grassy area between the classroom and the fence.
After a few notes were played on the recorder the children lined up and so began our new main lesson which has a focus on many things mathematical interwoven with stories of gardening, seeds, flowers, herbs, vegetables and well-known pixies!
Questions at the door: tell me the number before 37?, after 25?, 1 more than 16?, 2 more than 27?, between 38 and 40?
As it is a new main lesson so the children moved to a new group in the classroom. First they were asked to place their piece of paper in a 'portrait' position. Then the paper was folded in half so that both edges matched perfectly. We looked at the 'line of symmetry' that was created by the fold on the paper. I asked if the children could imagine where we could put a line of symmetry in our classroom, which has 6 sides so, that the part of the classroom on each side of the line would be the same symmetrically. Two of the boys were able to give us a different solution to this (for class 1) quite complex problem. It meant that they were able to visualise within a 3D space!
Then the children in each group were asked to colour in a small piece of paper with the same colour.
More maths questions followed in simple story form....'Pippin found 3 marigold seeds on one plant and 3 on another. How many did he have altogether?' to 'Pippin counted 101 seeds then he gave 50 to the water sprite. How many were left?'
As the question was answered correctly so that the children in that group could choose a piece of the coloured paper that had been placed in a basket. This would tell them where they would be sitting in the classroom.
Once all the children had chosen their coloured paper it was time to move all the desks to a new group. General chaos reigned for about 4 minutes as desks and chairs were moved.
It is amazing how these class 1 children can do this activity so efficiently! Soon everyone was sitting more-or-less happily in their new group chatting with friends or helping latecomers to place their desk within the group. Such a fantastic activity for co-operation and social skills.
Next, we talked again about 'still hunting', an activity we had practised last week down at the Crystal Creek at the back of the school. I told the class that we were going to go and sit in the herb and flower garden at the front of the school. Their task was to observe the flowers, leaves and insects in the garden while sitting still and quiet for about 5 minutes.
Which we did. Morning tea was eaten in the garden...beautiful.
Recess: eating and lots of knitting!
After recess we played a game of 'Secret Number' in the classroom using the numbers between 1 and 20. Then it was time for the class to have a games lesson with Harry (in lieu of Georgia who is away on a class camp this week). 'Red Goblins', 'Crocodile crocodile' and 'Octopus' saw the children running here there and everywhere in the class 1 play area. When I returned for lunch duty several children were playing in the sandpit. They told me that the games were boring and they didn't want to play.
I will talk about this with the whole class tomorrow.......
Lunch: eating and lots of knitting!
After lunch it was rest time.
So cute: a class full of children mostly lying under 4 large quilts....sometimes seven children all fitting around under one quilt!
Several children chose to knit at their desks during rest time while I read the story from the book by Isabel Wyatt 'King Beetle-Tamer'. Thankfully Harry was on hand to help the knitters who ended up in a tangle or needed to change the colour of the wool they were using.
After we had all listened to the story of 'The Four Leaved Clover', Tula, from under his Balinese quilt, put in a request for a short 'Tim Rabbit' story, if I could find one in the book. Which I did and we heard the beginning of 'Tim Rabbit and the Lavender Scent' which fitted in well with our visit to the herb garden this morning.
3.55 and time to put all the desks back into their groups of four, tidy crayon boxes, stand behind chairs with white cockatoo wings folded and finish our day with
'Thankyou for the sun'
then 'Good afternoon and thank you Harry' and 'Good afternoon and thankyou Class 1'.
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