September 20

Walkathon

Last Friday 18th of September, our School held a walkathon which was a fund raising event to raise money for our Japanese Garden. Students had collected sponsorship or donations for the walk. Our aim was to complete as many of the circuits as possible in one hour. Each lap was 1.2 km and was estimated to take 15 min. Given our determination in fitness, some of our enthusiastic walkers were aiming for six laps. It is possible I managed that last time.

Thankfully the day was pleasant with overcast skies and a slight breeze, perfect for walking. Our class was allocated to start with Mrs Baldwin’s class (our fellow bloggers) in the second round at 11.30.  We had a short rest before we were asked to line up at the start. Our CAT buddies would be walking in this session too we looked out for them.

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Oh come now Indi it’s not that scary!

 Our station was purple and Logan’s Mum was there ready to stamp our cards each time we completed a lap. We thank her for doing that job, she gave us lots of encouragement to keep going as well as protecting our drink bottles from disaster.

 

I had a great couple of laps chatting to Kate’s mum and then Narla and Ava kept me company for the last ones. I lost sight of most of the class, you guys must have had rockets in your shoes! I thought we all did well.

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After the walkathon we were able to snack on some delicious fruit that was kindly cut up and delivered to our station. It was just the thing we needed after using up all that energy. We thank whoever did that, in fact there were a lot of parental support around the track making sure we were safe. What would we do without those tireless volunteers, thank you.

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Quite a lot of class members did indeed complete six laps and others like me did five. Well done to us all. Now we need you to collect your sponsorship monies and donations and bring them into school by Wednesday if possible. It would be good to see how much our class raised. Thanks for your efforts in supporting Grange everyone.

What did you think of the walkathon? How did you go?

Do you have any other ideas on how we can raise funds for school projects?

July 30

Premier’s Be Active Challenge

be-active-headerOur school will be participating in the Premier’s be active challenge this term. This information came too late to put in my newsletter, but I have signed the class up and we have begun to fill in our logs. If you want to find out more visit http://www.pbac.sa.edu.au/Home.aspx

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The requirement is that students record their fitness/ aerobic activities completed over each day. They need to complete four weeks of an hour a day. Now given we have three sessions of fitness – twelve minute run, corporate clump and beat up, one lesson of PE and most kids are very active during lunch and recess which collectively add up to an hour, this shouldn’t be too difficult. Of course the activities must be the huffing and puffing type. By all means include any after school sports.

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We have begun by filling our logs in for our swimming and we’ll back date last weeks activities given the late start. Each different type of activity needs its own colour code. There are incentives for the school if students manage a whole ten weeks. Perhaps some of our students may want to take that on too.

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July 28

Week two is Swimming Week at The Adelaide Aquatic Centre

Our Swimming skills brainstorm

Our Swimming skills brainstorm

On the Friday before our swimming lessons we set about making a list of the strokes/skills we already could do. As we have two lessons each day, that was a lot of time to develop our skills further. I asked the students to reflect on the skills they could already do and were confident in and to have a goal to achieve three things during their lessons if possible.

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Using strategies from the Habits of Mind, I asked them focus on  creating, innovating and imagining – to try to display their thinking in new ways. They were creative indeed.DSC08133DSC08129 DSC08130 DSC08131

 

It’s been fun meeting our swimming teachers and learning new skills in our mixed groups.

What has been the best part of your lessons so far?

What do you think about swimming lessons at the Adelaide Aquatic Centre?

How do you think you’ll go with your goals?

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Swimming this week has been great fun. Each lesson is filled with lots of practise in all sorts of swimming skills. We’ve been challenged by our instructors and working hard to push ourselves to do our best. Sometimes though, the way we think can affect how well we do. We discussed the many worries, fears or what if’s that get stuck in our head whether we want them there or not. Then we discussed different ways of thinking to overcome these worries. Students again used their design skills in creating, imagining and innovating to show how they faced their fears in swimming. Personally I think their art skills are developing well, but I am biased.DSC08290 DSC08291 DSC08292

 

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Did we do any maths in swimming lesson? ( I asked that one just before our work on metres today as we missed all of last weeks lessons)

 

Yes of course was the unanimous reply then they rattled off a whole heap of skills, concepts, ideas etc…

estimating distances, checking depth, judging how far to swim, sizing up flippers, working out how far to throw the rope, counting enough boards, subitising equipment comparing amount of students, timing our swims, co-ordinating body parts, patterns, walking in arrays ….. just from what I remember. Aren’t they great.

 

See just when I thought we had missed a whole week of maths they had made connections with numeracy to their fitness!