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.