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......