D2 - Demonstrates a positive attitude towards learning

Children played number games in maths, such as Monopoly, around the world, pairs.
Created a text-to-self story which I read to the class, and which was highly relevant to them. See below:

My Life as a Third Grader

        

         I was late as per usual. When I opened the classroom door everyone was already gathered in a circle and Mrs. Quiggly was taking the register. “Justin,” I heard as I walked in.

         “Just-in-time,” I heard someone snigger.

“Here,” I replied from the back of the classroom.

Everyone waited while I took off my coat and put my bag by my desk. Then they shuffled up to let me into the circle. “Why are you late today?” Mrs. Quiggly asked me as soon as I was seated.

“Traffic,” I replied, giving her the answer I thought she would accept easily enough. But Mrs. Quiggly wasn’t as gullible as all that.

“But you walk to school,” she reminded me. “Do you want to tell us why you’re really late now Justin?”

“No thanks.”

That got a few more sniggers, then a wave of silence as she glared at the sniggerers. But I really didn’t want to explain how Dad had spent all morning looking for his phone, and how I had eventually found it in the fridge jammed between the butter and a very furry piece of old cheese.

“That would explain why I’ve been getting so many cold calls,” he said, trying to laugh. I know he was making an effort to be funny, but I didn’t really get it. Still, I smiled as him because I appreciated him trying. I hate it when he’s all serious – it gives me butterflies in my tummy because it means something bad must have happened or is about to happen.

Just then Claire put her hand up and distracted everyone from me by talking about some super park she’d been to. I looked at her, pretending to listen, but really my mind was miles away. I was back on the phone, wondering why my mum would put it in the fridge.

“Justin, what do you think?” Mrs. Quiggly was suddenly asking me.

I pretended to consider the question, then said, “I’m not sure.”

She sighed and asked someone else, and I went back to the mystery of the phone in the fridge. Then I heard someone talking about a volcano in Mexico, and about how this particular town in Mexico lay on a fault line. A fault line is a place where tectonic plates meet, and possibly rub up against each other causing an earthquake. I suppose it’s not really anyone’s fault, but it can cause a lot of damage. The earth’s crust must have got broken deep down so that the magna came flying out, a bit like bursting a big spot or a boil. Yuck !

I wondered if that’s what had happened in Mum’s head, two tectonic plates colliding into each other, causing an eruption and all her brain cells to come pouring out. It made sense to me. It was clear that some of her brain cells had erupted, but not all of them. She could still remember plenty of things, like her favorite beach and what happened when she was at school. But obvious stuff, like where the telephone belonged, now that was tricky.

The rest of the morning was spent working on similes; this is where you compare one thing to another so you can imagine it better, or just to be funny like when you say, ‘your head is as empty as a flower pot’.

We had to write a similes poem, I was rather proud of mine. Here it is:

As funny as hilarious Mr. Bean

As serious as being spotlessly clean

As thin as a spindly stick

As fat as a big red brick

As enormous as the legendary Big-Foot

A tiny as a speck of black soot

As exciting as blowing bubbles of glass

As boring as a 3 hour maths class

I rather think mine will have a place of honour on the wall outside the classroom, where visitors might like to read it.

Finally we got to go outside for recess, or break-time, if you prefer. I played football, or soccer, if you prefer. If you say football to an American they think you’re talking about a game where the players wear helmets and try to run away from everyone else with a small rugby ball. The other players have to throw themselves at your legs, pull you down and get the ball. I’ve never played myself, just seen it on T.V. Anyway we played the other kind of football, and I was on top form and scored two goals in just under ten minutes. Everyone was jumping on top of me, screaming congratulations, and Mrs. Quiggly had to ring the bell three times before we heard her!

The rest of the day dragged by, probably because I was in a hurry to get home and check up on Mum. Since the accident Dad and I have to help her a lot. Damien, my little brother, helps too, but he’s only five and isn’t honestly much help, though he does make her laugh and Dad says that’s the best therapy in the world.

About a month ago Mum had an accident in her head. No-one knows why, but her brain started bleeding, but we didn’t know because it just bleeds internally, which means you can’t see the blood. We only knew because in the morning she poured apple juice on her cereal instead of milk, and that means there’s something wrong in your head. She had to go to hospital and the doctors looked inside her head with a special kind of microscope. They said that luckily the bleeding had stopped and there wasn’t too much damage, but Mum would have to re-learn some things, and that we would need to help her.

Oh yes, I found out what a cold call is. It’s when someone you don’t know rings up to sell you something really boring, like insurance or windows. Normally you just want to put the phone down, but you can’t be so rude, so you have to make excuses, like “I’m sorry, but I have a cold and need to go to bed.”