What Can You Learn from the Three Little Pigs?

There's a lot of learning to be had from a 'simple' fairy tale.

With auditions looming for our school production of the Three Little Pigs, it was a good week to examine fairy tales and fables.

On Monday I read the traditional story and we looked at the Main Characters, the Setting, the Problem faced by the pigs, the Problem faced by the wolf, and the Solutions to these problems.

We also listened to the Aesop's Fable, The Lion and the Mouse on Literacy Online. We considered the lessons behind both stories.

We decided the Three Little Pigs taught us that being first finished isn't always best. Also that it's important to learn from your mistakes (or the mistakes of others).



These were good lessons to remember when we did our building challenge. Children worked in small groups to build a structure, using only 10 sour jellies and 20 toothpicks, that could balance a small book. The groups worked hard testing different solutions, and trying new ones when their attempts failed. There was a great buzz in the room (and not a single tear!!!). I was very proud of their persistence and resilience. 

On Friday we read Goldilocks and the Three Bears and looked for connections between the two stories. The students found links I'd never noticed. For example in both stories the main character breaks into, or tries to break into, a house that doesn't belong to them.

Luciana suggested that Goldilocks is a 'good' character, whereas the Wolf is 'bad'. This led to a fascinating moral discussion. Some students thought Goldilocks was bad because she stole from the bears, but Gus argued that while what she did was bad, being a child she may not fully understand the rules yet. Juliette argued that the wolf isn't bad, because eating other animals is just what wild animals like wolves do. Others were inclined to be lenient because maybe he was just homeless and wanting a place to stay. Again I was very proud of the way the student clearly argued their points, and of the respectful way they listened to each other.

Maths - Finding Patterns and Working Together

Mums, Dads, Grandparents and other Rua whanau, if you'd like to know more about our maths programme please join us on Wednesday and/or Friday mornings 9am to 10ish. We'd love some helpers - no expertise needed.

Last term the teachers did some intensive Professional Development in maths. This reinforced my thinking in some areas and challenged it in others. I then trialled these ideas in a mini unit on patterns. My aim was to help students find different patterns and to encourage them to share ideas and learn from each other. WOW! I was amazed by the abilities of our mini mathematicians. I am sure you will be too.

The patterns in a 100's board teach us a lot about adding and subtracting. Here Nina has filled in the gaps for chunks of a 100's board. Important Learning: Patterns can help move student thinking. If a student knows the numbers under 12 are 22 and 32, he/she can learn 12+10=22 and 12+20=32.

Students filled in small sections of the 100's board. For each pentamino (shape with five squares) there were three blank spaces and two number clues.

It took lots of brainpower, to figure the missing numbers but having a buddy helped. Important Learning: There are many different ways to solve a problem. Discussing our ideas helps us identify what works best for us.

Ryan and Gus put this section of the 100's board together. When they were finished, they noticed a problem with the pattern. They had made a mistake when they filled in some numbers (see 78, 79) so they fixed it. Great job boys! Important Learning: Good mathematicians double check their results.

There are many patterns that can be discovered on a hundreds board. Griffyn found the numbers on the right to left diagonal starting at 19, all add to 10. Wow, I didn't know that! Trilby also found the secret to the pattern on the left to right diagonal that starts at 11.

Are you as smart as a 6 or 7 year old? What is the pattern for the numbers on the left to right diagonal starting at 1 and ending at 100?  

There are patterns everywhere. William found lots of triangles within this large triangle. He also added the numbers in each horizontal row and discovered the secret pattern. Can you find it too?

Here is a larger version of the problem. The whole class worked together to find as many patterns as possible. We wrote everything down. Each answer added another piece to the puzzle. Finally Luciana and Benji put our ideas together and we added an extra row. Important Learning: By sharing our ideas, we can find out more than we would working on our own. 

Matariki

In Week 8 we celebrated Matariki.

We learnt that Matariki is the Maori name for a group (or cluster) of seven stars. In New Zealand, these stars can be seen in winter from late May or early June. Matariki happened after the harvest was finished. Maori celebrated Matariki by telling stories, dancing, flying kites and feasting.

For our celebrations we read, discovered, illustrated stories, made leaf art depicting the night sky, made lanterns and had our own feast of pancakes.

To make our leaf art, we looked at pictures of the night sky. We saw that the sky is not just black. It has many other colours like purple, pink, dark blue, light blue, orange and red. We used these colours to paint our leaves. It was difficult because when the paint dried it got got darker and darker. and we couldn't see the difference between the purple. blue and black.  After we painted our base we added glitter. Then we painted the seven Matariki stars.
 

To make our paper lanterns we had to read and follow the instructions in our booklets. This was a good test of how carefully we can read.


Another good test was when we made pancakes on Friday. First we had to read the recipe and decide what ingredients Mrs Arnold needed to buy. Then we had to read the instructions to make our pancakes.

There was lots of maths involved. We needed 1 tablespoon of oil and 2 teaspoons of baking powder and 2 teaspoons of sugar. We had to know the difference between a teaspoon and a tablespoon. Our parent helpers were great at showing us.







We also needed one cup of milk and 3/4 cup of flour. Our cups didn't have markings on them so we needed to work out how much 3/4 cup was. We've been learning about fractions this term, so at maths time we estimated how much 3/4 was. We compared our estimates with a strip of paper the same height as the cup that was folded into quarters. Some groups were very close with their estimations.