Enjoyable, challenging end to the week

I hoped for some teaching this week. After having the flu at the end of last term and two weeks of school holidays I was particularly happy (and a little nervous) to get two days of teaching at the end of the week. What a lot of variety there can be in my day. From reading picture books (this week it was one of my favourites, The Day the Crayons Quit by Drew Daywalt), to singing and dancing, a game of kickball (with bases like softball but batters kick the ball), maths, art and more. I taught a year one class on Thursday and a year three and four class on Friday. On Thursday the year ones did some crayon art. I hadn't planned it exactly but it was a good tie in with the crayon book. What a great job they did!

 

 

This activity was suggested by the regular class teacher. It's one I'll definitely be keeping in mind for future relief days. It's really good for talking about working together, as a team and how everyone's contribution is important. Afterwards I was thinking too that it would go well with reading The Dot by Peter Reynolds. We got some maths in too, talking about quarters.

 

This is a Six Word Saturday post. See how other people describe their week or part of at www.showmyface.com. 

Lots of fun at Science Alive

There are a number of things I could write about for Six Word Saturday as I have been quite busy lately and lots has been happening. The six words I have settled on are

Lots of fun at Science Alive!

 

 

This week is National Science Week here in Australia and there are lots of events that people can get involved in. Last weekend there was a fantastic event at the Adelaide Showgrounds - Science Alive. This event is in its tenth year and was held over two days (8 and 9 August). Brianna and I went last year and really enjoyed it. We thought my niece (8) would like it too so this year we went again along with Teya and Brianna's friend. It was fantastic again. The only complaint I have is that there were so many people there, which is really a good thing. It did make it hard to get to some of the stalls though. There were lines for many but they moved fairly quickly. I feel like we only saw a tiny amount of what was there but we all had a great time. I think we'll be back next year. It's a great event with much to appeal to different ages.

There was a mega brain to walk through

as well as a huge inftatable body to walk through. We didn't get to do this - the line was enormous when we were there.

Brianna creating a smoke ring

 

A smoke ring

 

One of the favourite activities was to build a tower with straws and masking tape.

 

 

And the day wouldn't have been complete without a photo with a Dalek (rushed at the end though so not a very good one)

 

 

A bonus for me was getting lots of great ideas for teaching. The class I taught yesterday did the straw tower challenge (to build the tallest tower that a cube can be balanced on, using 20 straws and 1/2 metre of masking tape). The highest yesterday was 109cm and all of the students seemed to enjoy it. For some it was a great lesson in persistence as they worked out how to make their tower strong enough for a cube to be balanced on it for 30 seconds. It's definitely an activity I'll be doing again. Though I didn't realise how difficult it would be to find straws that weren't the flexible ones. I  eventually found some in the fourth shop I looked in.

 

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