A or An?

What an action-packed day we've had!

We started the day off with a lesson on when to use the word "a" and when to use "an". We learned that we use "an" when the word after it starts with a vowel (a, e, i, o or u). Words like apple, astronaut, egg, igloo and octopus all use the word "an". Words that begin with consonants, need the word "a" before them. These are words like cupcake, pencil, house and drink. However, we discovered that there are some exceptions. We wear a uniform to school and some of us drew a unicorn. Even though these words start with a vowel, we need to use "a" before them, because the u doesn't make a vowel sound in those words. Learning about grammar can be confusing, but we were pretty good at deciding which word to use by the end of the day.

Words that need "an"

Words that need "a'"

 In Italian, we did a test about colours. We think we did pretty well. Here are some of the colours we know.

red - rosso

blue - blu

yellow - giallo

pink - rosa

black - nero

white - bianco

purple - viola

green - verde

In Music class, we learned about Peter and the Wolf, which is a Russian musical story. Each character in the story is represented by a particular musical instrument. We needed to match the instruments to each character.

After lunch, we started planting our class vegetable garden. We planted capsicum, eggplant, snow pea, lettuce, rhubarb, cabbage and tomato seedlings. We also got some carrot, lettuce, tomato and spinach seeds to germinate in our room. It was lots of fun getting our hands dirty! First, we needed to spread the soil out so it was even, then we had the Year Sevens help up get the seedlings out of their containers. We made little holes in the soil and very carefully put the plants in them, gently patting down the soil around the roots. Next, we gave them a nice big drink of water to help them grow. We need to check every few days to make sure the snails aren't trying to eat them!

Also, Jack wrote a story at home and published it using Microsoft Word. He brought it in to show us. Fantastic work Jack! Maybe some of the other Smarties could make their own books at home too.

Jack with the story book he made at home

What a fun day! Tomorrow is going to be even better. We're going on an excursion, so we need big sleeps tonight!

Love from The Smarties and Mrs N