A Dream Start to the year.

 

3/2/2005

 

The start of the school year has been amazingly smooth and trouble free. This is due mainly to the wonderful children in the FRAW classroom. This reflection is from the teaching staff but in future we plan to include items written by the students as they learn more and more to communicate their ideas and opinions.

 

 

Setting the scene

 

The week has been about setting the scene in the classroom. The expectations, the rhythm and the balance that they need for healthy learning.

The rhythm that has emerged is as follows

 

á      Body Awareness

á      Morning meeting with singing (the students are wild about singing) and a discussion of the new challenges in the classroom.

á      Morning tea

á      Independent work on challenges which has included pen and paper activities, maths games, painting activities, science, electronics and writing challenges.

á      Group reflection on the morning.

á      Lunch

á      Reading of the story Dragon Rider

á      Sort your brain time (15 minute power nap)

á      Independent work continued including electronic music challenges, construction work, dressing up, cooking in addition to the morning challenges.

á      Cleanup, which is very quick because they are managing the environment very well.

á      Silent reading

á      Reflection on the day and planning for tomorrow.

á      Home

 

 

The students have shown themselves to be very capable in managing their own learning if they are given clear expectations. On the whole they all approach the tasks with energy and good spirit. We have tried to tap into the developmental energy of eight and nine year olds that loves to play games so many of the skill building tasks that we develop will be using this energy to engage the students in skill building activities.

 

Please look at the Class photo album to see your children at work.

 

In the next few weeks we will be starting the children off on projects and integrating our skill work into these investigations.

 

We are interested to know what you would like to see in the reflection pages so please email us if you have any ideas/comments.

 

Thank you for the opportunity to teach such a wonderful bunch of children. We will enjoy every moment of the coming year.