Spring is here!

Spring has well and truly arrived at Penrith PS and the Early Stage 1 and Stage 1 students are investigating Spring this week!


Taronga spring babies


San Diego Zoo kids – babies!


Baby animals being cute at the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium


Dandelion flower and clock blowing away time lapse


Bee collecting pollen on echinacea flowers in slow motion


Sid the seed by Daniel R Pagan

Hicketty Picketty: preparing for Chicks R Us

This week, students in Early Stage 1 and Stage 1 will be learning the nursery rhyme Hicketty Picketty. We will also be reading Out of the egg, by Tina Matthews, which is a variation of The little red hen fairy tale.

The inclement weather last Friday gave Class 1HB another chance to brainstorm a digital story. This time they ended up with an Easter theme, which will prove useful with other classes as the term progresses:


An Easter tale

The subsequent week consolidates the learning with this digital quiz on PhotoPeach, which draws upon images and information gathered in 2011 after a unit of work based upon the annual Chicks R Us experience:


What’s in the egg?

Another picture book favourite is Clifford’s happy Easter by Norman Bridwell, which features a North American (spring season!) Easter egg hunt and the dyeing of boiled eggs.

And our PhotoPeach digital story about Clifford the Big Red Dog’s last visit to our school library:


Clifford & Phoebe at Penrith PS

Frogs, frogs, frogs: life cycles, fables

Early Stage 1 and Stage 1 students are studying the season of spring – and life cycles. These Youtube video clips (below) will help with the trickier concepts (frog attributes, such as their sticky tongue, etc) not conveyed visually in the big book, “Tadpole diary” by David Drew.


Time-lapse: frog spawn


Tadpoles eating bread


Frog fail! (Dragonfly escapes frog attack)

And, for a bit of fun:

Super Fly carries frog (haha)

We are moving onto Fables this term, and the first fable ties in quite nicely with the work on frogs in Life Cycles:


The frog and the ox


La grenouille et le boeuf – The frog and the ox


The frog and the ox fable