Room 1 are very lucky to have two students teachers for the first five weeks of Term 4.

The children returned after the holidays refreshed and eager to learn new things.  First they had to learn their new teachers' names but that was easy, Mr Dickison and Miss Stephens.   

An exciting science experiment last week involved the children poking pencils into a snap lock plastic bag full of water!  It was a big surprise to the children that they had to push and poke hard to get the pencil through the first side and then out the other side.  It was a surprise to the teachers when one student pulled the pencil back out and the water spurted everywhere!  Everyone laughed!

During PE the children have been learning to jump up high in the air.  They surprised themselves by gaining extra height when looking up, swinging their arms back then forward and straightening out their legs.  The teachers kept raising the elastic but they surprised us and still jumped high enough to get to it, causing lots of jubilant cheers.

After working hard to identify and use action verbs in Term 3 the children are now trying to write comparative adjectives like bigger and smaller.  They had a lovely surprise on Monday of Week 2 when they got to go to cricket in the hall instead of doing writing!  They got a different sort of surprise when they returned to find out they would have to write about it.  It was a rewarding surprise to see them work hard to use further, faster and higher in creative ways, when explaining what they did to the cricket ball during their lesson.

Lucy Davy, a visiting author, provided endless surprises when she spoke to the children on Tuesday.  A sudden loud popping sound saw everyone leave their seats!  She sprayed perfume over us!  Everyone was excited to hear how her family, Dr. Seuss and favourite places had inspired her to write books, after previously being a scientist!  A last lovely surprise was when Lucy read one of her books and some children were chosen to dress up as the characters, while the rest of the children pretended to be the 'foo foo' tree.

Even mathematics has had surprises of the yummy kind this week as the students have learnt about fractions and how to share evenly sized pieces, fairly with their peers.  Cutting vegetables and sandwiches at home into halves and quarters, would also be a fun way to practice learning these skills.

Another surprise is lurking just around the corner ...  We'll have news and photos to share next time. 

No doubt having two extra teachers will bring even more unexpected and exciting surprises in the days to come.