Explain a Life Cycle

We've been learning about minibeast life cycles and looking at dragonflies, butterflies and frogs. We had to put together sentence openers like "first, next, then, after that and finally" with parts of sentences about life cycles. Then we learnt them off by heart and presented them to the whole class as a way to explain the lifecycle of a butterfly. Here are videos of the Beetles and Grasshopper groups who did the best presentations. Well done to everyone for learning your explanation sentences!

Information Writing

We've been busy this semester learning all about how to write and present information. We have learnt that it is important to use facts and not your own opinions and that information writing has special features such as diagrams, headings and wow fact boxes.

We have made some of our own information posters about our chosen minibeasts. All the children made a great effort - well done! Here are some that are on display outside our classroom.

Idea's poster had a great diagram and lots of facts.

Amy's poster was about hornets, which we saw on our minibeast hunt.

Fah's poster had great 'wow' fact.

Our School Trip

Here are some photographs from our trip to Khao Kheow Zoo. Can you remember when and where they were taken?

Using iPads in the Classroom

We are very lucky in Year 3/1 because we have been given a set of six iPad minis to help us learn in the classroom. The iPads are part of a study into how tablet computers can be used for teaching and learning. 

So far we have used an app called Educreations which records you as you talk and explain things. This is good for improving our speaking. The children have also been very excited about making their own iBook about bees using an app called Book Creator.  They have made a book cover, taken photographs and imported them into their books, written and formatted text, embedded sound recordings they did onto a page and also embedded video recordings they made of fact sentences.

The children have been very quick to learn lots of new skills. Well done and watch this space!

Spider TV

We have been practicing speaking our fact sentences about minibeasts. Here we spoke to the video camera for the first time and watched them to see where we could be better next time. We noticed that we often forgot to say the 's' at the end of spiders and also that we pronounced the Thai 'er' sound and not the English 'er' sound at the end of words. It was a good way for us to learn about speaking English and also help us remember minibeast facts. Here is a short clip by the grasshopper and dragonfly groups who remembered their facts the best. Well done to everyone for being brave enough to get up and speak to the camera - it's not easy!

Learning About Symmetry

We have been learning about symmetry in class. We have learnt that symmetry can be found all around us. We were given a challenge to find out which capital letters of the alphabet have symmetry and which don't using a 'hit and miss' thinking map. We used mirrors to help us check. Some letters were quite difficult! Can you think of letters which have more than one line of symmetry?

Why not play a game to test how good you are at symmetry? Click on this link to play a game which asks do these shapes, pictures and letters have symmetry (are symmetrical) or no symmetry (not symmetrical.)

All About Bees Homework

Next week we are learning all about bees for our final week of information writing. Click on the link below to go to a webquest featuring a video and information about bees. Watch the video and click on the questions next to the video. Can you answer them? Then explore the other websites for amazing facts and information about bees.

To go to the webquest click here.

I look forward to talking to you all about bees on Monday ^___^

Wow Fact Competition!

What facts make you go wow! Look in information books or go on the internet with your parents to find amazing facts about minibeasts and you could win 5 gems. Choose your best wow fact and write it in the comments box below. Only write one wow fact please and remember to add you name. I'll choose the best wow fact and name the winner on Friday. Happy fact hunting!