Final Camp Messages

Production was a great success and I'm super proud of all the kids. They were fabulous in all respects. Now it's time to move into thinking about camp on Monday! Below are a few last minute reminders and a copy of the gear list in case you've misplaced the one sent home a few weeks ago.

Students need to at school by 8.30am. We will load up the bus and hope to be on the road before 9am. We will be back by 3pm on Friday. If our return time changes we will let you know by alert and the school Facebook page.

We are sleeping marae style at the zoo on Monday night and will need to use our sheets and sleeping bags, so it's a good idea to make sure those things can be reached easily. Also the zoo have said that although it is summer, it gets very cold walking around the zoo at night so make sure lots of warm clothes are packed. We will have to walk about 200m with all our gear, so make sure everything is well packed in one bag if possible.

A day bag is needed for the first day with a really good lunch included. We will be having sausages for tea at the pool before heading to the zoo but it's a long day before then, so pack a filling lunch and remember a drink bottle.

A maximum of $20 is allowed to be brought on camp by each child, although none is required. Children are expected to look after this money themselves.

I will provide some lollies and chocolates so please don't pack these things, other snacks like muesli bars etc are fine if your child thinks they need them.  Also no devices or phones are to be taken. Children can use my phone if they need to contact you.

Any medication needs to be named and handed to me on Monday morning.

Girls need to provide some home baking each and boys need to provide a bag of fruit to share. This will be our morning and afternoon tea when we are out and about.

This is the link for the Camp Itinerary

This is the link for the Gear List

Please remember that all camp fees need to be paid before we leave. You will need to talk to Annette or Kim if you haven't done this.

Feel free to email me if you have any questions - sasha.hancock@toko.school.nz

See you all Monday morning! ☺☺☺

Term 4

Welcome back to Term 4 - the last term for the year, and for the Year 8 students, their last term at Toko School😊. Term 4 is an exciting term for Year 7/8 students - we have the long awaited camp to Wellington and the school production to look forward to - as well as making sure we focus on our classroom learning so everyone is ready for the next stage in their education journeys.
We will be focusing on our individual literacy and maths goals while thinking about time management, making sure tasks and expectations are met on time, and taking ownership for decisions we make around our own learning.
By now I expect that students should know what they need to learn and with my guidance and the right resources, they should be developing their ability to work independently towards these goals. That is the aim for the term!😀

There are many events like Lion Speeches and the Rich/Weir Cup coming up, so it's important that you stay connected and read newsletters and app alerts and check the school calendar. This Thursday we have Agri Day, which should be a fun and educational day. There are lots of interesting events planned for the day which should challenge and interest the students.

I'm looking forward to seeing everyone and embarking on a positive and exciting Term 4!

Speech Board Drama

For Speech Board in Year 7 and 8 students get to choose between presenting a poem individually or working with a group to present a drama. Unsurprisingly most students choose to participate in a drama.
This links in nicely with the curriculum - The Arts (drama), English (communicating effectively) and Health (relating to others).
Students learn so much during this time of the year. They have to work together to pick a suitable script, then learn the lines, learn to actually act, make props and put it all together effectively.
The part students seem to struggle with the most is the actual acting part. Learning to alter your voice or your body to take on a role of someone else is quite tricky. That's why we spent some time working through some of the suggested drama activities in the Speech Board Assessment Syllabus.
Below are some photos of students pushing themselves out of their comfort zones and trying new things through dramatisation.

In this activity, students had to work together to make items of furniture out of their bodies.

In this activity students needed to show others their emotions through facial expressions and body language. 

Space Jump is an activity that involves 'jumping' into a scene and creating a new scene.

Not only did everyone try hard and learn a lot about different drama techniques, we all had a really enjoyable hour!  

Purposes for Writing

One of the areas that students struggle with is remembering all the different types of writing - is it a report or a narrative or maybe a recount? Once they have worked out what type of writing it is then the next step is trying to remember all the features and structures that go with that type of writing. Not easy!

During some recent Professional Development I came across a simple way to make things much clearer for everyone!

Rather than trying to remember all the different types of writing, we can make it easier by grouping writing into three main areas and simply asking - is my purpose for writing to persuade someone, to inform someone or to entertain someone? As you can see from the graphic above, all the types of writing fall under one of these three areas. Thinking about the purpose for writing makes it much simpler. Remembering features and structures for 3 main text types is also much easier than trying to remember the features for around 9 or more possible text types! 

In class we are working on thinking about our purpose for writing and then looking at the general features that go with that broader type of writing. Ask your children about P.I.E and the 3 main reasons for writing. Hopefully they will be able to explain the graphic above! 

The Busiest Term of All!

Term 3 has started with a hiss and a roar and plenty of business for our Year 7 and 8 students. Science Fair was our first activity to complete. A big well done to everyone who entered. Below are some of the entries into the science investigation - not all boards are there as a couple have gone on tour with their sponsors.

                             

 

Next we had 16 student leaders take part in the LEAD Conference in New Plymouth. This event had over 700 students from around New Plymouth attend. There were lots of inspiring speakers to listen to, great music from a local band, yummy pizzas, and some dance competitions -which Ephraim entered and even won some vouchers for his efforts - (video below).

We also had two teams of 4 enter the Methanex Maths Quiz. This is a really difficult competition with lots of challenging questions to answer. Part of the skill of the event is knowing when to persist with a problem and knowing when to pass and move on. Both teams enjoyed the experience and realised that reading the question carefully is very important.

Last Thursday our boys played the first day of their Taranaki Trophy rugby competition and Last Friday we had a team in the Taranaki Chess competition. This week we have teams in the Taranaki Trophy Netball competition and the Taranaki Seven's competition. 

We are also beginning to get stuck into Speech Board preparation. This year we are producing group dramas instead of poetry, so we will need to spend quite a bit of time getting this organised. 

As well as all of that we are working through our math and literacy lessons and making sure that our learning meets our individual needs through our flexible timetable and our Hubs. 

So all in all, it is a crazy busy term but the kids are getting all sorts of learning opportunities - academic, cultural and sporting.  😁😁😁

Mystery Skype

Last week we took part in a Mystery Skype Challenge. This involved being paired up with another school in New Zealand and racing them to find out where each other was by asking Yes or No questions. All we knew at the beginning was that we would be paired up with an urban school.

All students in the class had roles to play so that we worked together as a team. We had ambassadors whose job it was to speak to the other school over Skype, we had detectives who had to use Google Maps to try and narrow down where in New Zealand the other class was, there were reporters who took photos and videos to show what was happening. We also had recorders who kept track of the information. Everyone was fully involved and worked together successfully.

 

We asked some really good, thoughtful questions and managed to narrow it down quickly to work out they were an all girls school within 20kms of Auckland. It took a bit longer to work out that they were Carmel College, which is a school of over a 1000 Year 7-13 students. 

It was a great way to practice our questioning skills, our teamwork and our ability to use Google Maps - not to mention it was great fun and really interesting to talk to a school that was so different to ours.

What's Up Wk 2

Sorry for the last update this week - but better late than never 😀.

Some important reminders this week:

* Lead Conference on Friday - we are leaving at 8am so please ensure your child is at school on time. Toko tops and black bottoms must be worn, jackets will be given out on Thursday afternoon.

* Science Fair - I will be taking boards up to New Plymouth on Monday afternoon. Friday will be the last time students can work on these as Monday is technology and there will be no time to do any last minute work. Those with rockets need to take them up Tuesday morning for judging. Please get your child to get details from me if they are entering a rocket. All students will be going to view the Science Fair on Wednesday next week and then visiting the museum and having lunch before returning to school.

* Taranaki Trophy - this year this will be completed over three days for rugby and one day for netball. Rugby dates are Thursday 16th August, Thursday 30th August and finals will be on Thursday 20th September. The dates for netball haven't been set as yet. 

* Methanex Maths Quiz Teams - students have been selected for these two teams. Notices will come home on Thursday for those children involved. 

* Speech Board - information about requirements for Speech Board will be coming home on Thursday. There will be a parents meeting for new parents or for parents wishing to know more - the date for this will be on the letter on Thursday.

Enjoy the rest of the week.

Welcome to Term 3

Hi Team and welcome back to Term 3. Hopefully you've managed to spend some time family time with your children. I managed to sneak away for 4 days to Rotorua with the family, which was lovely.

This term we hit the ground running with our flexible timetable, everyone knows how it works so we should be straight into it. I've made a few tweaks to things so that I've got my eye on those that like to fly under the radar.

Other than the usual maths, reading and writing, we will be starting a unit looking into our local area and our Maori connections. We are all New Zealanders, so it's important we know the history of the area from both a Maori and Pakeha perspective. We will also be carrying out some small science experiments as a way of looking at writing procedures and information texts. It will also help us to learn scientific vocabulary and scientific processes.

Our Year 7/8 sports exchanges begin this term. At this stage I have no information about this tournament, but I will let everyone know as soon as I know.

We also have Speech Board this term. We won't be starting our work on this until a bit later in the term. But it's time to start thinking about a topic. I will give the children more information about this during the first week back.

Cross Country is also on this term. So we will be running as often as possible. We are changing up the track this year to make it more 'country' which will be great. If your child is unable to practice running please send a note. If I don't have notes I can never be sure what injuries are real and what injuries are because of cross country!

Science Fair projects should be well under way for those that entered. They need to be finished by the end of next week. There will be time to work on them in class but they need to be right into it already or they won't finish in time. If there is a parent available to help put the boards together at some stage this week, I would love to hear from you.  On Wednesday of week 3 the Year 7/8 and 6's will be travelling to New Plymouth to view the Science Fair. We are trying to set up another activity to complete while we are in New Plymouth. I will advise when this is sorted.

Have a great week.

Creating Independent Thinkers

On Tuesday we had another great example of students following their passions and interests. Pippa and Libby are passionate about sports and were also very interested in how our 3D printer works. They decided to organise a touch tournament for the 3 senior classes and to make the prizes for the winners on our 3D printer. 
They planned the whole event, which included getting permission from teachers, making teams, creating the draw, organising refs and game times as well as thinking about captains and how the whole thing would flow.
They then learned how to use the printer and the printing programme (Tinkercad) and created 3D balls for prizes for the fairest players and 3D whistles for the refs.
They both managed to execute a great afternoon of sports and learned a lot along the way around organising events, being leaders and how to use a 3D printer.

Not for the Squeamish!

As part of our 'Out of the Box' afternoon sessions children are encouraged to explore areas of personal interest or passion. Abbie and Kobi were initially interested in the Micoplasma Bovis situation and were researching that, when they realised that although we are a farming community, many kids probably didn't know what the inside of a cow looked like!
This led them to wondering what the organs of a cow looked like and how they compared in size to other animals.  They asked if they could dissect a cow at school - that seemed a little extreme - so we compromised and decided that the organs of a cow would be ok. Abbie and Kobi got hold of Lucy from the Vet and asked for help, they contacted a home kill man to ask for cow organs as well as contacting neighbours to ask for sheep insides. They spent a lot of time working through the organisation and logistics for this endeavor and today they pulled off a great learning experience for us all - along with Lucy's help and Roxy's willingness to transport animal parts in her car!
They plan to make a documentary type movie that shows kids all about the organs and inside of a cow's head. I'm really proud of their industriousness and passion and I'm looking forward to seeing what they come up with in their documentary. In the mean time here's some pics (not for the faint-hearted) of today's adventure......

 

 

 

 

 

Rm 6 Happenings

There's so much going on in Room 6 at the moment that it's hard to know where to start! We're underway with Japanese lessons and had Mrs Karasawa in again last Monday. We're learning the names of classroom objects and have been given the challenge of using the new words in class before our next sessions. Ask your child to share the words they can remember.

It's the time of year when we need start thinking about Science Fair and Math Fair. There is no obligation for children to participate but most children have opted to do something. I've included the list of options at the bottom of this post, as well as the special prizes list. Have a chat with your child over the next few days about their choices. They need to realise that although we will complete some of the work at school, there may be some work that needs to be completed at home for some of the categories.  Also the less adult help they receive, the higher their marks will be.

Cluster Debating is on at the end of this term. We have entered 3 teams - all children who were interested have been included. The moot for this year's debate is 'The best team is the team that always wins.' We will be practicing with different moots in class and then attending the debate in the last week of term. We will need transport to Stratford High School for 12 children.

Rippa rugby coaching sessions start this week for our class. Children that were interested will be attending a tournament on Wednesday the 27th of June. Notices were sent home today with more information about this.

Remember to read the school newsletter for more information around what's happening at school. Making sure you have the school app installed is a vital part of keeping up to date with things as well.

I'm looking forward to seeing you all at parent / child / teacher interviews on Monday and Tuesday next week.

DATES TO REMEMBER:
Grandparents Day - Friday 22nd June
Jones Cup - Monday 25th June
School Closed for Instruction from 1.30 onwards on Tuesday 26th June
Rippa Rugby tournament - Wednesday 27th June

Japanese

Today we were lucky enough to have Fleur Karasawa, the Japanese teacher from St Mary's school, come and teach a lesson around classroom objects. We have been looking at the differences between New Zealand and Japanese schools and had begun learning some of the classroom objects ourselves, so it was great to have an expert come and help us with the pronunciation.
Japanese language and Maori language both have similar vowels and pronunciation sounds, so we are linking the two languages. Soon we will be able to recall the names for classroom objects in Maori, Japanese and English! Check out the photos and video below of us learning these words.

Mrs Karasawa teaching us Japanese names for classroom objects

Playing BINGO to help remember the words

Playing BINGO


Learning our words

Week 5 Update

This week marks the half way point of the term - already - and the beginning of winter.  Last week the class worked hard to come up with some cheaper options for our class camp to Wellington. Once they had found all the options they realised that they needed to do some fundraising, as they didn't want to ask parents for more money. This meant writing to the Board of Trustees to ask permission to fundraise. We finished our letters last week and I will be presenting them to the Board this week. Check out your child's blog to see their letter - everyone has completed a letter so if it's not on their blog ask them where it is! Once we know if we're allowed to fundraise we will be able to finalise some decisions and get information out to you.

In other news this week, we will be beginning some different inquiries which will require the children to choose from a range of tasks that fit into 8 broad categories. Children will either inquire into chickens, refugees or successful learning and will complete a range of tasks under the headings - find solutions for problems, come up with new ideas, design something original, invent, evaluate, decide, argue, and consider other perspectives. Ask your child to explain what inquiry they have picked and to show you the range of tasks they will complete between now and the end of term.

When children are working with me in writing we will be focusing on advertising - the language used and the techniques used to entice consumers.  In maths we are looking at strategies for solving problems involving decimals, fractions and percentages. In reading we are setting up reading circles where small groups of children will read the same book and have regular catch ups and discussions to share their thinking and understanding.

This week for homework I have asked the children to complete a task around their self management strengths and weaknesses. It would be great if you could have a discussion with them around this task as we will using this information to help with our learning.

Reminders :
Please send back any ripper rugby or basketball notices
Stratford High School opening evening is this Wednesday night
Jones Cup practices start on Friday - remember correct clothing and equipment

Week 4 Update

                       

The last couple of weeks have seen our children involved in some fabulous learning programmes that they normally wouldn't get the chance to experience. Half the class have worked with small robots and worked right from setting up the robot through to creating a dance / performance using the robot and making it 'dance' in time to a piece of music. The routines created will be entered into a competition called Robocup next term.  There has been plenty of opportunity to explore problem solving, maths application, time management, team work and much more.

The other half of the class have had the opportunity to explore hard metals such as pewter, copper, and aluminium as well as softer materials like clay and fimo. They have designed and then carried out the making of necklaces, key rings and badges. They have used tools ranging from a drill press, to files to a kiln.  Skills such as persistence, listening, problem solving, design technique and tool use have all been developed.

A big thank you to Sally and Colin for working with the children and teaching them these new skills and processes.

         

      

In other news, it's back to normal in the class this week. We continue looking into how we can help the refugees and link it to Social Sciences and persuasive writing. We will finalise some of our findings around camp and continue to look at strategies for solving problems with decimals, fractions and percentages.
Later in the week, children should have posted a reflection around their learning in tech and included some photos the share their learning.

You Can't Always Have What You Want!

Sometimes you try something new, a new way of learning, and it's so successful you think to yourself - why haven't I done this before? !!??😏😏

Since we only have one day together this week, I decided to do something different and get the kids to help me organise our Wellington Camp.

We started by looking at the purposes for camp. I introduced the students to the purposes for camp in our school charter and explained that these are set by the Board of Trustees, based on advice from the Ministry of Education.

We worked out our learning goal and how we would know if we've achieved it:

Learning Intention : to plan a week long educational, interesting and exciting camp to Wellington city.

Success Criteria: * our ideas will be practical in costs and meet the budget requirement

                             * our activities will meet the needs of the group

                             * Mrs Waite and the Board of Trustees give their approval

Then we discussed our budget:

33 people at $330 each = $10,890

$1500 from the Board of Trustees

$1000 from the Fundraising Committe

Gives us a total income of  $13,390

I then shared that the accommodation we  have used in the past had quoted us $8500 and the bus company had quoted us $3740. Total for accommodation, food and transport would be around $12,240. Only leaving us around $1000 for activities for the week.  This was a bit of an eye-opener for the students 👀👀 as $1000 doesn't go far for 33 people!

We have now split into four groups - transport, accommodation, food, activities - and are investigating some cheaper options as well as investigating what activities we might be interested in. Of course the activities will depend on how much money we can save on food, accommodation and transport. 

Once we have competed some research and got some of the above sorted, the students have decided they might need to write to the Board of Trustees to either ask for more funds or ask to be allowed to fund raise. 

The buy-in and interest from the kids and the real life budgeting decisions as well as the reality of not having endless funds has been great learning for the kids.

Watch this space to see what interesting suggestions they come up with!!!!

Week Two

Well our first week with our flexible timetable went quite well. The idea behind it is to encourage student agency, which will help the kids learn skills for life. We made plenty of tweaks as the week went on, and now after a fabulous teacher only day on Saturday, I will be making lots more changes in order to really get that student agency up and running!

Students all have maths and writing goals that they are working on in order to help them move to the next level. We spoke this week about learning being a bit like moving through a dark tunnel. If you don't know why you're doing something or where the end is, it's easy to get lost. 

So the analogy is that where we are now is the start of the tunnel, where we want to go is the end of the tunnel, our learning goals are the torches or lights that show us the way, and our success criteria are the signposts that help us check we're on the right track. I hope this will help the children understand a bit more about their learning and the purpose of what they are doing. 

Tech is Thursday and Friday this week and Monday, Thursday, Friday of week 3. The kids have been split into two groups and will either be completing a robotics unit or a hard materials unit. In the robotics unit they will be working with Edison robots and programming them to complete routines and performances, with the aim being on entering a Robocup competition at the beginning of next term.  In hard materials, they will be working with pewter and enameling and also completing some design modelling. Those in hard materials will need closed in shoes but other than that, all equipment will be provided. 

Term Two!

Welcome back to Term Two! This term promises to be as busy as usual but hopefully will feel much more settled without all the short weeks.
I am introducing the students to a more flexible learning programme this term which should give them more opportunities to learn at their own level and to make choices regarding when they do things and how they do them. However, this doesn't mean that class becomes a free for all and kids just do what they want! There will be set learning intentions and set amount of times for each subject, but students will be able to choose how their day looks and what part of the learning is right from them. I'll be introducing this new way of doing things to the students tomorrow and over the next week. Hopefully they'll come home and share it with you. I'll be looking for feedback from the students over the next couple of weeks. Feel free to ask any questions or come and see me for more information. Over the next few weeks I'll share some links to research that backs up this approach.

This term we continue to investigate refugees. We start by looking at this really interesting poem that shows two points of view and should provoke some great discussion.


Our writing unit is based around learning about writing persuasive texts and our maths will be focusing on aspects of fractions, decimals and percentages.

Tech this term will be running in two blocks - Thursday and Friday of Week Two and then Monday, Thursday, Friday of Week 3. More information about this will be shared with students this week. They will be involved in either robotics or enameling and jewelry making. Both have outside experts taking the groups which will be fantastic.

Have a great week.

A Real Life Refugee Comes to Visit!

Wow!
How lucky were we today with our visit from Sam, a refugee who came to New Zealand from Cambodia?!
Sam shared his story of being a week old and spending 31 days being carried by his parents through the forests from Cambodia to Thailand and then spending 7 years living in a refugee camp before getting his name pulled out of a ballot and being sent to NZ on his own, where he lived for 5 years without hearing from his family or even knowing if they were alive!
The children listened intently and then asked some fabulous questions, not only about Sam's life, but about ways we could help refugees.  I'm sure they'll have lots to share with you tonight.
The children are currently finding out more information about refugees and next term we will look into how a small group of Year 7 and 8 children might be able to help make a difference for refugees in NZ.  It's a fabulous opportunity for us to develop empathy, and understanding for those that are different to us and it links nicely with choosing kind and not being judgmental.


Here's a couple of short videos from this morning.....

End of Term 1

We've made it to the last week of what has been an unusually mucky term. I, for one, am looking forward to Term 2 and a far more settled term!
This week kicks off with athletics - weather dependent - postponement is Tuesday. We have been having regular athletic skills practice with Olly from the Run, Jump, Throw programme, so we should be good to go.
The rest of the week will consist of continued learning around the Commonwealth Games. We will be using a maths lens to look into the numbers around the Games and then using this to investigate our wonderings around the impact the Games is having on the Gold Coast.
As you know, we have been reading Refugee this term and we are nearly finished this amazing book. We are incredibly lucky because we will be having a visit from a real-life refugee called Sam, who has made New Zealand his home. He is coming to talk to the class on Thursday morning. A big thanks to Kim Watson for organising this visit for us. I will post about the visit afterwards.
Lastly, a reminder, that we love getting comments on our blogs, so please keep them coming.
Have a great week.

 

Learning with the Commonwealth Games

Today we starting looking at the Commonwealth Games - what we already knew and what we wanted to know. This lead to some fairly low level - closed type questions from the kids. For example - When did they start? How many countries are in it?
I introduced the Social Sciences Level 4 Curriculum to the kids and explained that we needed to think much harder and much wider about what we wanted to know if we were going to meet the demands of the Curriculum.
After some discussion around society, people, cultures and communities, etc we came up with something that was worthy of Year 7 and 8 learning....

What -

We are learning about the impact the commonwealth games might have on the Gold Coast.

Why -

So that we can learn to think carefully and understand about issues in society and how they impact on all of us.

From here students will move into small groups and take this big idea and turn it into a smaller idea that they choose. They will be encouraged to think about things like - sustainability, waste, organisation, finances, impact on people, environment, etc.

It would be great if you could have some conversations at home around the impact - both positive and negative - as this will help students decide what aspect they wish to investigate.

Week 9 Update

It's all about the Jubilee this week as we have 4 days until kick off. Students this week will be involved in planning, organising and show-casing some of the learning that goes on in the class and some of the opportunities that weren't around 25 years ago. We will be showing our chicken journey and things like Toko TV, the drone, the 3D printer, the robot and the science trolley. During the Jubilee, those children that are helping, will be explaining and demonstrating how these things work.

Thank you to those parents and grandparents that commented on their child's learning on their blogs. It really helps the children lift the level of work output when they know that others will see and comment on it.

Reminders

* If your child is participating in the Weet-bix Triathlon on Wednesday please make sure the office is aware that they will be absent from school.

* Run, Jump, Throw skills session on Wednesday

* Those going to the EPro8 Challenge will have notices sent home today that need to be returned asap.

* School is closed next Tuesday after Easter.

Check Out Your Child's Blog

We have finally found time to get some of the awesome learning we have been doing, up on our blogs. Students should have posts and videos about their Waitangi Day learning,  a presentation about Averages - Mean, Mode and Median, a piece of art related to our book Refugee, and a metaphorical poem about themselves. Despite all the short weeks and interruptions they have been working really hard and I am proud of them all. It would be great if you could find time to comment on some of the learning your child shares on their blog. 

Refugee art - dictator facts 

Matthew's Metaphor Poem