Toko TV!

Over the past week the whole class has worked together to put together our first tv show. The background planning and organisation needed to make this happen was quite tricky and meant everyone had to communicate well.
We had teams of people doing different jobs from the techie equipment team to the script editors to the reporters to the cameraman and the director. Everyone had a job to do, and everyone did their job really well.

The cameraman, the auto prompt, director and techies ready to record. 

Troy and Abbey are the 'Anchors'. 

Working well together. 

Blake and Leah are our weather team.

We are really proud of our first effort and look forward to sharing more Toko TV with you each week. Here's our show....

Maths Mistakes

Today we had a great discussion about mistakes and how we feel about them. Recent research by many neurologists and educationalists such as Jo Boaler from Yale University have found that every time you make a mistake, you brain actually learns. It even learns and develops when you don't know you've made a mistake. If you know you have made a mistake and work on correcting it, the synapses and connections in your brain really start firing and that's when real learning takes place.

In class we discussed how we feel about mistakes and why we don't like other people knowing when we make a mistake. I explained about the latest research and the students decided that perhaps we shouldn't call them mistakes but instead call them 'learning'.

If a child gets 10 out of 10 in a maths session and doesn't really struggle with the answers then they probably haven't learned much that day. Making errors and struggling to get the answer means you've done some learning and made progress. This message was important for the students and they really seemed to understand it.

In fact I had students asking if they could show their 'learning' to the class - which actually meant they wanted to show their mistakes.  Several students talked through their learning and the mistakes quite happily. I asked how they felt about sharing 'mistakes' and one student said "Before today I would have been scared and embarrassed, but now it feels good. "

 


The attitude towards mistakes had gone from embarrassment to excitement to show their learning. We also watched the short video below and discussed what sort of learning the people in it had to do.

What's Up - Week 8

This week we have our school Tryathlon on Thursday afternoon. It kicks off at 1pm and children will need to bring their bike to school on Thursday morning. Please park it on the bottom field in their year group line. There will be signs to direct you. Children will also need to remember their swimming gear as well as suitable shoes for the bike ride. It would be great to see you there cheering them on.

In writing we continue to work on poetry, this week taking a look at found poems and blackout poems. Both activities are part of the Get NZ Writing programme we are participating in. We will also be finishing off our postcards with our metaphorical poetry on them which we will be sending off to our partner schools on Friday.

In maths we continue with decimals this week looking at subtracting decimals. The children are going to need to make use of their place value knowledge for these activities.

In reading we are full steam ahead into our reading programme, introducing a number of new activities and tasks which will support the children in developing an understanding of what they are reading.

Run, jump, throw with Ollie from Sports Taranaki continues this week. The children have really enjoyed the discus and long jump sessions we have had.

Please remember to return TOPEC forms to school as soon as possible. These need to be back at school by Friday 24th March.

This week for our STEM activity we will be needing toilet rolls. Banqer money will be given for each toilet roll that is sent in.

Week 8 already!

Have a good one!

What's Up - Week 7

Welcome back to a short but busy week! I hope you all had a good long weekend, despite the horrible weather.

Since this week is short and disrupted with swimming we will be using it as a finishing week. By the end of the week our postcard writing should be finished, our one-point perspective art should be up on the wall and on blogs and our Toko TV show should be planned out and ready to go.

Students are being offered bribery in the form of chocolate to get people signed up to their individual blogs.  I cannot stress enough how valuable it is for your child’s learning to know that people other than their teacher are reading and commenting on their work.

Please remember to return immunisation forms and TOPEC forms to school as soon as possible.

Wednesday is swimming sports at Stratford Pool. Please ensure your child wears the correct TOko School uniform and brings plenty to eat as well as remembering important things like togs and towels!

Turnball Cup is on Wednesday night as well. If your child is a part of this team they will be issued with jackets tomorrow at school to wear to the event. They will be given toko swimming hats on the night. Please ensure your child is there on time.

Have a great week.  

STEM

Last week we started a 5 week STEM challenge that requires the students to complete 5 different challenges. The challenges are all based around a man who has been shipwrecked on a deserted island. In the first challenge teams had to plan and construct a shelter that would withstand a wind storm. The were requirements such as making it 15cm high and making sure it had an opening door. A marking guide was completed at the end of the task and points will accumulate over the 5 weeks. Teamwork, design, incuding elements and planning were all included in the marking criteria. Here are some photos of us working in groups and our finished shelters.

Metaphorical Poetry

We are busy learning and writing about metaphorical poetry at the moment. We read through a poem by Iain Sharp in which he describes himself in several different metaphorical ways. As a class we then worked together to write a metaphorical poem that described our class. This is what we came up with....

Room 3 is a eco friendly, sports mini cruising calmly through the colourful countryside.

Room 3 is a multi-layered learning tower which challenges us to climb through the learning pit and rise to the top.

Room 3 is a thriving garden in which bees of knowledge pollinate the growing flowers.

Room 3 is a flavoursome bowl of 2 minute chicken noodles sticking together when the heat comes on.

Room 3 is a pair of well-worn green gumboots with laces that bind us together.  

We are Room 3

Students decided that we needed to include our enviro learning, our understanding of learning, our connectedness and our farming community as these are things that are important to all of us in Rm 3. Watch out on individual blogs for metaphorical poems about ourselves.

What’s Up - Week 6

Hopefully you’ve all had a chance to view the videos the students made last week about their Tiny Houses. We’d love you to leave a comment on your child’s blog relating to how you think they went with their goal.

If you are not signed up to your child’s or the class blog, I urge you to do so. It is the best way to be a part of your child’s learning. The school web site and the class blogs have short videos explaining how to sign up.

In Maths we are moving into adding decimals. We’ll be learning how important it is to keep the tenths, hundredths and thousandths in the correct column when adding.

As well as reading individual novels we are sharing a class book called Tomorrow, when the War Began. I share the book onto our smartboard and the students follow along as I read, which really helps with comprehension.

In writing we are looking at metaphors and the work of Iain Sharpe. Students will be creating their own poems based around Iain Sharpe’s work. They will also be learning and creating ‘found poems’ - watch out on our blogs to find out what these are.

This week is the last official week of swimming, however if it is still warm enough we will continue to use the pool in the following weeks.

This week Sport Taranaki begin a weekly programme called Run, Jump, Throw which will support our students in the lead up to athletics.

If anyone has any magazines to spare we would greatly appreciate having them. Also a reminder we are after spare craft type bits and pieces to add to our STEM Challenge box.

Reminder that this Friday is Teacher Only Day - this means students have a 4 day weekend as Monday is Taranaki Anniversary.