Literacy

In literacy we are working on writing a persuasive argument. The students e-mailed me to request topics they wanted to work on within this Learning Intention. They requested a range of topics including space, countries and animals.
I chose to go with the topic of endangered animals as this fitted well with the persuasive writing focus.

The students have spent some time researching endangered animals and are working to complete a persuasion map.
This has been an interesting activity as the students are being expected to read and research independently to find out information that is relevant to the activity.

They will choose between three different formats for their final product. I have given them the choice of either a slideshow, radio show or a persuasive essay. Below are the three examples I have created to show the students what they should be aiming to achieve with their own work.

Persuasive Essay



Slideshow



Radio Show

Art

In week 3 and week 4 we have been looking at primary and secondary colours and complimentary colours.
If you read our earlier post about primary and secondary colours you would know we were working on popsicle ice blocks but hadn't yet completed the project.
Here are the finished products, the children worked independently during their SDL (student directed learning) to complete their works.

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The next week we were working on complimentary colours and started by discussing the colour wheel and that complimentary colours are located at opposite sides of the wheel.



Unfortunately we couldn't find all the correct paper colours so when it came time to actually complete the art the students were allowed to select from any of the paper colours available.

First we drew some (reasonably) simply shapes around the edge of the paper. The rule for the shapes was that they had to go over the edge, otherwise they wouldn't work for cutting them out.

Then the children had to cut out the shapes very carefully, and not lose any (this was tricky!). Once all the pieces had been cut out they needed to be flipped over from their original position and glued onto the other sheet of coloured paper. This lesson took longer than I had anticipated and required a lot of careful cutting and working.

Have a look at our photos below and see what you think of our art.

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Black out Day

Today we had a black out day to support to All Blacks for their final against Australia on Sunday.
The students took part in a middle syndicate rugby cup and got the play several games of touch rugby throughout the day.

The boys relished the opportunity to perform a haka to start the tournament and made sure they did so multiple time!

Here's a photo of one of the first hakas introducing the tournament.

PrEP

We have now been working on our PrEP project for three weeks. PrEP stands for Primary Enterprise Programme.

In room 10 we are creating products out of recycled materials under the 'eco challenge' theme.

There are four groups in this class and each student spent the first few weeks choosing what job they would like to undertake in their factory and writing an application which was submitted to Mrs McKnight and myself.

The jobs are

1.  CEO - in charge of the group.
2. Accountant - responsible for organising money and pay.
3. Advertiser - in charge of creating adverts for their product.
4. Designer - responsible for the appearance of the product.
5. Cleaner - making sure the cleaning is done to a high standard at the end of the session.
6. Worker - taking on the hard labour jobs.

I gave the students a design brief which they had to use to help them select a suitable product. They then pitched their products to the teachers before being advised if their product was a successful choice or not.

 

Design brief

1. Environmentally friendly (made out of recycling).
2. Safe for children.
3. Colourful.
4. Does a job.

Check back later to see some photographs of the students' prototypes and work in their production lines.

Money matters

For the first few weeks this term we are looking at money in our maths classes and incorporating this into our maths strategies. Our hotspot for week 1 was learning about multiples of ten that add to make 100. We used cents and added them together to make $1. I find that New Zealand money lends itself perfectly to this as the cents are only available in multiples of ten anyway.

We connected this learning to our prior knowledge of pairs to ten and looked at the pattern with 4+6=10 and 40+60=100.

The next step for the students is to learn about pairs to 100 that aren't multiples of ten. These could be pairs such as 45+55, 73+27, 31+69.

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Shakeout day

On Thursday the 15th of October, at 9:15 we took part in the national shakeout day.

We were in our literacy classes when the alarm sounded and students quickly found themselves a safe place to follow the steps of earthquake safety. The children were already familiar with the drop cover hold drill, but with a limited amount of space under the tables some of them had to take up the 'turtle' position.

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Primary colour art

Welcome back to school! We have had a busy first week with the students and the teachers all working hard to continue making progress in our learning.

For art this week we were learning about primary and secondary colours. Before we started our art we watched a video about primary colours. The students picked up on this concept quickly.



We started an art activity that I found on Pinterest which looked at the primary colours and then mixed these to create the secondary colours. The trickiest part about the activity was mixing the colours to get the right shade they wanted to use. We ended up with some very dark purple and a bit of brown.

Next week we are going to complete the popsicles and glue them on, check back later for more pictures!

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This week we had our first session of deconstruction. The students were provided with a broken computer, a screwdriver and told to take it apart.

The group worked together well, helping to use the screwdriver correctly and offering tips for stubborn screws.

They got to look inside the cables to see what wires were inside and explored the different chip boards.

During this activity we came up with a few questions that maybe our readers can help us to answer.

1. Why is the box so big when there is a lot of empty space inside?
2. How do they choose the different colours for the different cables used?

If you know the answer to either of these questions then leave a comment below!

Class Marae

This week in school we completed our class marae.

We started the project during taku time with the students giving the cardboard a nice whitewash. We then sourced a pattern to use for the panels around the edges which gave the marae a lot more character.

So far in the class the students have been enjoying using the space in the classroom to work in, practice singing in or role playing.

Scavenger Hunt

This week in Taku Time I ran a scavenger hunt as my activity. The students had to use their iPads and the app Pic Collage to take pictures of 10 different learning based things around the school.
The activity worked well and the students had to use lots of different skills to complete it;

• Using google classroom.
• Using Pic Collage.
• Working as a team.
• Thinking about their learning.

 The students had to find;

• A learning intention.
• Someone who helps you learn.
• Something you’re proud of.
• Teacher feedback.
• Students learning.
• Your progress indicators.
• People collaborating.
• Someone having fun learning.
• A group photo.
• Your favourite book.

Reading Activities

In reading last week the students all decided that their groups would read the activities in their journals. We took this as a spontaneous learning opportunity to make the crafts described in the instructions.

Three groups of students made a range of cards and card chickens. It was interesting to see some children didn't return to the instructions to make their craft and therefore struggled until pointed back towards their journals.

This was a fantastic activity for the children, particularly as our whole class focus in reading at the moment is comprehension. What better way to show comprehension than to follow some instructions.

Next week the students have requested a 'play' week so we will be reading and performing plays. Come along to the assembly on Friday to watch one of them performed on stage.

Space Team

I was able to attend #educamppalmy this term and got to experience lots of fantastic new ideas and interesting activities.
One of these activities was the app 'space team', a collaborative game where students play on individual iPads working together to fly their spaceship safely through lots of different zones.

The students enjoyed the app which I introduced to them during taku time.  The teams who managed to get the furthest through the games were the ones who worked together, sharing the information on their screens rather than the teams who struggled with collaborating.

Maths

WALT: compare volumes.

The past few weeks this term room 10 have been learning about volume. We have covered a range of learning intentions but today we're looking at comparing.

Students were to compare different containers with either a litre or half litre container and work out how many litres they could hold.

Luckily the weather stayed quite dry and allowed the children to complete their work outside. They worked well and enjoyed seeing how much water they could fit into all of our equipment!

Technology in writing

In the middle syndicate we are implementing a new initiative. The hope is to improve student progress through making their writing indicators available to them on google docs and to encourage the children to update them when they think they have achieved each area.

The students will also be expected to request teacher workshops on area which they need to improve.

Shapes

We are continuing to explore and sort different shapes in room 5a. At level 1 geometry the students
have to work on sorting shapes based on one feature - size, colour, shape, etc. The activity shown above came from an idea I saw on Pinterest and the students had to find classroom objects and sort them into specific shapes.

They really enjoyed this activity and allowed us to have a discussion about the difference between a square and a rectangle. As you can see from the pictures above, they didn't manage to find anything in the classroom which was triangular.

We also worked on a shape identifying activity called 'Roll a Robot'. Again this activity came from something I saw on Pinterest. Students have to roll a dice and each number relates to a shape on the robot which they colour in. Here is the worksheet I created for my class. 

Counting Down

Today my maths group were working on explain everything on the iPads to demonstrate their ability at counting down.

Paige and Tristan have showed off their skill here.

This strategy is where you count down from the largest number to solve a subtraction problem, rather than counting them all. So 11-5 = (10,9,8,7,) 6!

The whole group showed seem really good skills on the iPads which was good, but are still developing their understanding of the counting down strategy. Check back next week to see how the group is doing!

Radishes

Two weeks ago we read the book The Gardener's Maze in room 5a. During the week the students had been learning about the letter r, so as a follow up activity we became gardeners and planted some radish seeds.
First we decorated our cups so we would know which cup belonged to which student, then popped five holes in the bottom. Popping holes in the bottom with a pen was very tricky and a few children popped some extra large ones!
We filled the cups with soil and put 3 tiny radish seeds in.
They have been growing for 2 weeks and are ready to go home and be planted in the children's gardens. I chose to use paper cups so they could just plant the whole thing in the garden to keep the radishes as undisturbed as possible.