The Beech class have been learning about Sphen and Magic!
Sphen and Magic (together, “Sphengic”) are two male gentoo penguins living in captivity at the Sea Life Sydney Aquarium. They are young, in love and about to become parents for the second time, thanks to a foster egg donated to them by staff at the aquarium.
When Sphen and Magic became a couple, Australia had just gone through a bitter battle about whether same-sex marriage should be legal. The human gay marriage debate had brought out thorny personal and religious tensions. These two gentoos, unaware of the political heat around their courtship, became a larger symbol for the country. If a penguin colony could figure this out, a human nation certainly could.
we decided to honour Sphen and Magic by putting them on our class snow globe!
Lyle is working on number and coin recognition
Sean and Skye use their hands or instruments to count out the numbers on coins or play matching games to help develop their coin and number recognition.
Nicole is working on her understanding of her personal timetable and thinking about when different activities happen in her day.
Sean loves our counting Monkey game
We didn’t have much luck skimming stone…mostly because the water has turned to ice! So we had a stone throwing competition to see who could throw a stone the farthest distance.
We also didn’t find many things on our checklist but still had fun!
We were so cold when we got back to school we decided to heat ourselves up with some hot chocolate and a Christmas film 
Lyle and Valo played a game of penalties where they had to answer number related questions before taking a shot at goal!
Numeracy through ICT
Literacy through music beats! Sean and Skye are working on sounding out names and sounds using instruments.
Lyle, Nicole, Valo and Gemma are working on their letter and sound recognition by playing Connect Four with a twist! They have to select the correct letters that are written on the counters!
We practised our communication skills by playing circle time games. This game was Chinese Whispers! We had lots of fun making up sounds to pass on to a friend, then listening to the sound we ended up with at the end! We used the physiotherapy ball to choose which friends we wanted to share with or pass messages on to.
We made our own rangoli patterns using dyed salt.
We learned about the Taj Mahal and other religious buildings that are in India.
We made diva lamps after learning all about the Festival of Light – Diwali
Skye helped to make home-made playdough and used lentils to make a Mandala style pattern on it.
