Chickens and Learning

A box of 30 (one for each student) fluffy one-day-old chicks arrived today at school. I thought the kids might have been too old for fluffy chicks but they certainly weren't!
The arrival of these chickens has made for some great maths learning. Yesterday the problem below was posed on the board:

Question:

Pippa, Libby and Gus rang the Lepperton Hatchery on Friday. They will have one day old chickens for us sometime this week, hopefully.

The chickens cost $3.50 each, plus GST and we have asked for 30 chickens.

How much will it cost us in total to buy the chickens?

This prompted some fabulous learning about GST and percentages. Thank you to everyone who discussed GST and percentages at home with their children. Students first had to learn what GST is and why we have it, and how it impacts on our lives. Then they had to work out that GST is 15% which of course lead into percentages - what they are and how to work them out. This will be the basis of our learning for the next few days.

Another problem came to light today when our 30 babies arrived all looking exactly the same! We decided to buy some stretchy rubber leg bands to go on the chickens so we could identify them however the leg bands only come in 6 different colours. The challenge was put to the students to find a way to use the bands and colours in the most effective cost efficient way. To add to the challenge - the bands come in packs of ten.

 

Lots of great ideas and patterns were created. We shared our ideas and looked at the positives and negatives in each idea. In the end we decided to go with one of each colour on the left leg, one of each colour on the right leg, one of each colour on both legs, two of each colour on the left leg and two of each colour on the right leg.  Once the bands have been ordered and arrive, we will be able to identify each chicken and name them!

Week 5 Update

Well last week was a very unsettled week with ex-Cyclone Gita impacting on all of us in some way or other. Hopefully everyone has power and water back now and life is getting back to normal.

Even though we missed a couple of days of school we managed to complete our self portraits - which are hanging on the wall looking very striking! Students began planning their Waitangi dramas which will presented in assembly and will be recorded and posted on individual blogs when they are complete.

This week we begin CSI Reading which is a programme that will help identify strategies for reading and will encourage students to be active participants in reading. These things will help us when reading any text and is necessary at this level as nearly every subject involves reading in some way.

Students will begin investigating percentages this week and should come home asking questions about how GST impacts on your family. It would be very helpful if you could point out percentages in newspapers, shops, etc, so that students can see understanding percentages is a really useful skill.

We continue reading Refugee and it continues to capture the children's imaginations. Last week we began completing a venn diagram that showed similarities and differences between Germany 1939, Cube 1994 and Syria 2015.  The students have been quite surprised that the things we are reading about actually happened and are in fact still happening in some countries.

Reminders 
We are going to the Stratford Pool this Wednesday and next Wednesday for water and boat safety lessons with instructors from the pool. We will be leaving after morning tea and returning at lunch time. Students will need togs and towels. Those that want to have a hot lunch can have it when we return at 1pm. While we are there we will be completing time trials for those that wish to trial for the Turnball Cup relay team.


Students have been shared the House Leader criteria and those that wish to put themselves forward for this leadership opportunity will need to have a handed in a short piece of writing explaining why they would be good for the job by Tuesday.

Week Four Update

Thank you to everyone for attending the initial parent interviews last week. It was fabulous to catch up with everyone and learn more about your children and how I can help them this year. I found these very useful and informative and will use the information provided to make stronger connections with your children.
This week our self portraits based on Modigliani will be posted to individual blogs along with some facts about the artist himself - look out for these. 
Students have also been working on creating performances that explain and show their understanding of our recent Waitangi unit. I hope to share these in our assembly in a couple of weeks.
I have begun individual maths conferences with all the students. We work through the recent maths test together, look at the questions that were incorrectly answered and work out why they got it wrong. From there we plan what areas of maths they need to work on.
This week we will also be looking closely at the science curriculum to see what we need to do, then we will make a plan that fits the curriculum needs and what the students want. Science will hopefully form a big part of our writing programme this term as well.
REMINDERS 
We are going to the Stratford Pool this Wednesday and next Wednesday for water and boat safety lessons with instructors from the pool. We will be leaving after morning tea and returning at lunch time. Students will need togs and towels. Those that want to have a hot lunch can have it when we return at 1pm. While we are there we will be completing time trials for those that wish to trial for the Turnball Cup relay team.
Students have been shared the House Leader criteria and those that wish to put themselves forward for this leadership opportunity will need to have a handed in a short piece of writing explaining why they would be good for the job by Wednesday.

Have a great week.

Week Three Update

After two short weeks we are into our first full week of school. Last week we started learning about the Treaty of Waitangi and how it came about. We will continue to develop our knowledge in this area this week as well.
Our class book - Refugee - has really caught the imagination of the students and they are already learning how lucky we are to live in New Zealand! We have put maps of the three countries into our books and are starting character studies about the three main characters. We have had some great discussions around what a concentration camp is as well as how some people can.. become leaders when they obviously aren't very nice people.  Some of the students are really showing their thoughtfulness and caring as they wonder how we could help the Syrian people.

Our class motto this year is - CHOOSE KIND. It's part of the full saying "If you have a choice between being right and being kind, choose kind". We will be working hard throughout the year to live up to this motto and ensure we are kind to everyone, not just our friends.

Towards the end of the week, look out for some great self portraits on the students individual blogs. These portraits take the pressure away from drawing an accurate picture of themselves as they are based on Modigilani and his style of portraits.

Looking forward to seeing you all at interviews this week and learning more about each of the students in my class.

Week 2 Update

We had a great first week back at school. Everyone settled in quickly and this new group of Year 7/8 students already has a great feeling.
We spent a bit of time creating a class treaty. We decided that we already knew the rules and behaviour expectations for Toko School, so we didn't need to dwell on that. Instead our treaty is about learning and being the best that we can be - as that is why we come to school.
After a lot of discussion and brainstorming we decided that the things listed below were the most important for us.

• Have a positive 'I can' attitude
• Remember the power of 'YET'
• Celebrate mistakes and successes
• Challenge ourselves by taking the path that pushes us
• Judge people by the size of their heart
• Make wise choices with our learning  
• Live to our Learning Star values
• Respect other's right to learn
• Use Plan B-Z if plan A doesn't work

We will be displaying our treaty on the wall and will be checking in that we are following our agreed learning behaviours.

Last week we also spent some time looking at our learning stars and linking them to the book Make Your Bed. Each of the chapters in the book link to our learning stars as well as containing a great life message.

This week, as well as continuing with last week's learning, we will begin a unit on the Treaty of Waitangi. We will work through a unit that starts from when New Zealand was uninhabited by humans, then the arrival of the first Maori around 800 years ago and on to the settling of New Zealand by the British. Gaining an understanding of how the Settlers changed the lives of the Maori is vital in order to understand how the Treaty came about. At the end of the unit students will work in small groups to create a performance that shows their learning in this area.

We will also begin to brighten up the room through a unit of work looking at the artist Modigliani. Students will investigate Modigliani and will produce a self portrait in his style of art.

Team Building activities also continue. Last week students completed an activity where they were either giving instructions or listening to instructions. Some good lessons were learned around giving precise instructions and making sure help or further explanations were given if you didn't understand an instruction. This week students will complete a maths task in small groups that actually can't be solved unless they work as a team with another team. Teamwork is important in all areas of life as we nearly always have to work with others and consider their point of view.

Also this week we begin reading our class book - Refugee. This is a powerful book that follows the lives of 3 children as they escape their countries of birth with their families. The following is a review that Common Sense Media have written for parents:

Parents need to know that Refugee by Alan Gratz is a historical novel that braids the stories of three young refugees in three different time periods and settings: 1938 Berlin, 1994 Cuba, and 2015 Syria. The circumstances of all the kids and families are dire, and their journeys are fraught with imminent danger. The publisher recommends this book for kids starting at age 9, but due to the level of violence and peril, we recommend it for 10 and up. Though all three protagonists survive for the length of the story, all lose family members. Josef the Berlin Jewish boy gets beat up, as does Cuban Isabel's father. Syrian Mahmoud's home is destroyed by a missile, and he sees a dead man floating in the sea, as well as a soldier with a bullet in his head. Some in the book almost drown. But the book isn't gratuitously violent. It paints a vivid picture of the plight of refugees, and the kids and families seem both real and relatable, making this a good book for sparking family discussion. 

Thank you to those of you that have already signed up to this blog. It really is the best and easiest way to keep up with the learning your child is involved in.

Have a great week and enjoy Waitangi Day.