We tried out some iPod Touches

It was iPod Touch day today, yay!

Once we'd calmed down from our initial excitement, we sorted ourselves into groups of three and shared one in each group. We could choose to use any of the applications Mrs N had written on the board. There were some for us to practise addition and subtraction, others were memory-type games where we had to match number, letters or pictures. There were also mazes and sight word practice apps. Mrs N was very happy with our co-operation and sharing skills and she especially liked how we gave helpful suggestions in very polite ways to the people in our groups.

We also got to create our very own martian using the Make a Martian app. We then took a screenshot of it and put it onto a page in StoryKit, which is an app for making digital stories. Everyone typed in a sentence about their martian to make a digital class book. You can see it here.

We loved using the iPods. Not only was it lots of fun, but we did lots of learning too. We learned how to:

• handle them carefully 
• use our fingers to slide the pages from side to side
• search the iPod for applications
• take screenshots of the things we did
• type using the on-screen keyboard
• use the tilt feature 
• use the home button to exit out of an app

We also learned that "apps" is a short word for "applications", which are little programmes and games that can be downloaded onto the iPod.

We visited our school garden this afternoon. At the beginning of June, we planted vegetable seedlings and they've been busy growing! We were able to taste some lettuce today, but it will be a week, or two, before we can taste our carrots, spinach and snow peas.

Our garden on June 2nd

Our garden today

AND, we also hit 15,000 hits on our blog! Another amazing milestone! Thanks to everyone who visits us :)

Love from The Smarties and Mrs N

100th Day

Today was our 100th day of Grade 2, so we did some activities involving the number 100. For Daily Writing, our topic was "If I had $100...". Mrs N isn't sure we'd actually be able to buy ALL the things we want, but it was fun to think about!

If I had $100, I would get an iPod and a rabbit. One more thing, and that is an iPhone.
By Caitlin

If I had $100, I'd buy a pool, a DSI, iPod Touch, Star Wars Lego and my own school and my own office.
By Jake

If I had $100, I would buy a Wii game, a new TV, a hotel, DVDs, lollies, toys, a Lego set, puppies, a DSI, a phone and Zu Zu Pets.
By Matthew

If I had $100, I would buy lots of animals and I would buy an iPod and I would buy a horse. I would buy everything and I would buy toys and that is what I would buy.
By Tia

If I had $100, I would have animals and I would have a car. I would buy a DSI and some flowers for my mum and dad. I would buy a house.
By Allia

Our classroom is FULL of words. They're in books, on our deskmats and all around our room on the walls. We needed to choose 100 words to write today and we had to make sure they were spelled correctly and written neatly. 100 seemed like a lot to write when we started, but it wasn't so bad. We have already learned so much this year and most of us had no trouble thinking of 100 words to put on our page!

Tia and Kelsi busy writing their 100 words

Charlee with her100 words

We did "spot art" this afternoon. We were each given ten strips of ten stickers (which equals 100!) and we had to make a design or picture using exactly 100 spots. It was so much fun and we came up with some very creative ideas. We had to plan ahead and think about how many spots of each colour we had and choose how best to use them. Don't they look great!?

Mrs N gave us a surprise this afternoon. She told us that on Thursday, we're going to be using iPod Touches! We've borrowed 10 to try out. Some of us have bigger brothers and sisters who have one, but most of us have never used one before. We're so excited (so is Mrs N)!

Love from The Smarties and Mrs N

Maths!

Each morning when Mrs N is teaching us, we love to look at our blog and check out how many hits we've had and to read our comments. We use calculators to work out exactly how many times our blog has been looked at since we were last at school.

Meg, Raquel and Catherine ready to calculate!

First, we check the hit counter and read it out loud. It's tricky to read such a big number, but we're learning fast! Mrs N then writes the number of hits we have and the number we had the last day we checked, as a subtraction problem. We use our calculators to work out the difference. We take it in turns each day to copy sentences about it onto the whiteboard. Next, we write our hit total on a chart to help us learn about place value.

Kelsi wrote our sentences today.

In our Maths lesson today, we practised using number lines to help us add up. We did some practice sums using an online number line, which was really fun. We did it in pairs, with one person writing the sum on the whiteboard with a pen and the other person working out the answer on the Smartboard.

We got the hang of it very quickly, then went to our desks to do LOTS of other sums on our own. We used our rulers as number lines this time. They are always on our desks, so they are always handy when we need to work something out!

Ella is using her ruler as a number line

Caitlin and Catherine made videos to explain how they use number lines.

Love from The Smarties and Mrs N

Wordles and Tux Paint

Yesterday, we made Wordles about the people and things that use water. We can make them completely independently now and we have learned how to use a tilde (~) to link words in two word phrases, like "pool cleaner" and "fire fighter".

We also used Tux Paint to illustrate ways that we use water.

Love from The Smarties and Mrs N

Interesting Places

What an exhausting, but FUN day! We used the laptops for every lesson and we got SO much done. Mrs N is so proud of us and is thrilled to see the development in our ICT, literacy and numeracy skills as the year is progressing.

We began the day by welcoming Miss Mc, who is helping our class out every Thursday while she gets experience as a teacher assistant. Mr F, who is a teacher from America, was also helping us out today.

For Daily Writing, we all wrote on our writing blog. The topic was "An interesting place I have visited." We wrote about the Perth Mint, AQWA, Penguin Island, Rottnest Island and lots of other places we found interesting. Our writing has improved so much since the start of the year. Some of us could hardly read what we wrote on the blog in the first week of first term, but we're doing really well now! Mrs N was especially happy to see that we were remembering to call the C.O.P.S. while we were writing.
 

Taj and Lachlan helping each other out

We did some more thinking about water and how it is used. We created Wordles listing people and things that use water. We also used Tux Paint to illustrate a way that we use water ourselves. Unfortunately, silly Mrs N left her thumb drive at school so we can't show pictures of our work until tomorrow, so check back then, but trust us....it all looks FANTASTIC!

Taj, Lachlan, Raquel and Charlee using Tux Paint

Noah creating his Wordle

Love from The Smarties and Mrs N

Welcome Lachlan!

We were very pleased to meet our newest Smartie, Lachlan, today! Taj and Isaac are his class buddies and they did a great job of showing him around the school and organising games to play with him at recess and lunchtime. It was great to learn a little about Lachlan today and we're sure he's going to love being in our class! Here are some of the things he told us about himself:

• He likes to sleep over at his Nanna and Pop's house.
• His grandparents have a pool that he loves to swim in.
• He likes to play football and go running.
• His favourite food is apples.

Not only were we excited to meet our new friend Lachlan, we were also very happy to be back at school seeing our old friends. We were all full of news about our holidays and it sounds like everyone had a great time! We wrote about it in Daily Writing.

On the holidays, I went to a farm. My cabin number was 10. I went to the shearing shed.
By Jake

On the holidays, I saw Marmaduke, Toy Story 3 and Shrek Forever After at the movies. On Saturday, it was my brother's party. He got a cricket set and a Ben 10 race track.
By Kyle

On the holiday, I had a sleepover at Raquel's. Allia was there and Catherine was there. Meg was there and we were playing on the Wii. We played Just Dance and we were yelling and we played Polly Pocket and we had a cake and then we cooked. We watched Aliens in the Attic. The cake was yummy.
By Charlee

On the holiday, I went to see three movies and went to three birthdays. Kate, Holly and Raquel had birthdays.
By Tia

I got the Star Wars Wii game. It is cool. I went to the movies to see Toy Story 3. I got lollies, popcorn and lemonade. It was yum.
By Matthew

I went to the movies. I went to see Karate Kid. It was fun. My favourite bit was when the Karate Kid hit the bad guy. The master said to break the Karate Kid's legs, no matter what.
By Joel

On the holidays, I went to the shop and I went to the park. My brother's name is Cambell. We had a bath then we went to bed.
By Lachlan

Our theme for this term is "Water". We'll be learning about the water cycle, how to care for our water supplies and also a little about animals that live in the water. This morning, we did some investigations into water using our five senses. Here are some of our observations:

Sight - invisible, glowy, wavy, clear, bubbly, see-through, shiny, sparkly, runny
Smell - chlorine, nothing
Taste - nothing
Touch - cold, wet, fizzy, soft, warm
Sound - bubbling, wooshing, dripping, crashing

We also had a brainstorm about all the places we can find water.

In Art, we started to make some 3D fish. We had to carefully fold a big sheet of paper in half, draw an outline of a fish, then cut it out, going through both pieces of paper so that we ended up with two fish. We painted and decorated them with sequins and paper. Next week, we'll be stapling them together and stuffing them with rolled up newspaper. Our classroom will look like an aquarium soon!

It was a great start to Term 3!

Love from The Smarties and Mrs N

Almost Back to School!

A Quokka on Rottnest Island

The Smarties are enjoying a two-week holiday and are getting ready to go back to school for Term 3 on Tuesday. I wonder what interesting things we'll have to tell each other when we get back?

One of the best things I did in the holidays was go to Rottnest Island (we call it "Rotto"). It's a small island off the coast of Perth, Western Australia, and is very popular with people who want a relaxing holiday. Most people who go there ride bikes, or walk everywhere, because only the people that work there are allowed to drive cars!

I saw a lot of Quokkas, which are small marsupials. They are very tame and wander around the shopping and accommodation areas, looking for bits of grass to eat. I even found one under my table in the coffee shop!

I can't wait to hear about what all The Smarties have been doing on the holidays!

Love Mrs N

Our Blogging Challenge Winners

The Smarties have been having a blogging challenge over the last three weeks to try to encourage our family and friends to participate in our blog by leaving us comments. The challenge ended last night and we can now announce the winners!

Congratulations to KYLE, JAKE and ALEX who were our top 3 comment-makers! They each receive a Civic Video voucher, popcorn, lemonade, lollies and chocolate to enjoy in the holidays (and to share with their families!). In addition, they get to star in a JibJab dance clip. It was easy for Mrs N to choose which dance they should do, because all three would make great break-dancers!

Mrs N also decided to give some runner-up prizes because there were three other Smarties who were close behind our winners. Well done to MINNESOTA, JACK and KIARA. They've received some goodies too.

Thankyou to all our friends and family who participated in our challenge. Reading all our comments has been a fantastic way to start each school day. Remember, just because the challenge is over, doesn't mean you should stop commenting! It is so great to have you all helping us in our blogging experience.

Love from The Smarties and Mrs N