The last post

I should get some music playing here that you would usually hear on ANZAC Day but I won't.

Here are some of the things we've been doing over the last couple of days.

We've been making some plaster noughts and crosses games. The class have been painting these up too.

We had our fun day yesterday. Our class probably had the best timetable. Gymnasium in the morning playing some basketball and indoor soccer. Then we had some tennis followed by a sausage sizzle for lunch. After this it was time for a swim and then we finished with some art while it thundered overhead.

Today we had a special guest, unfortunately I missed out on seeing the guest but Angus took some photos, one of each student.

And here is a photo of Wian with a box on his head.

I hope everyone has a merry Christmas and a happy new year.

Thank you room 8 for being such an awesome class I have loved every minute of it (well almost ;) )

YOU GUYS ROCK!!!!!

WICKED!

The children have started bringing their book trailers in over the last few days. Here is Mila's trailer on Wicked.

Gymnast of the year!

Erin Kelly from our class won Gymnast of the year for her Gymnastics Club, Hastings Gymnastics. She is super excited about, especially because she knocked the top gymnast of her lofty perch.
Here's a photo of her with her trophies.

Congratulations Erin!

WOOHOO!!!!!!!

Today we won the lunch time sport finals for handball. Here is a short video of the game (No we didn't travel to Taupo for the game, the location service seems to have messed up a little on the iPad)
I'm so happy that we finally won. This is my 6th year of working here, 5th year in charge of lunch time sport, and my class has not won once in that time. WOOHOO!!

Gold Badges

I should have been doing this throughout the year but better late than never.
Two students received Golds last Friday. Tyrin received a Cultural Gold and Carys received a Technology Gold. Congratulations guys.

Important task

Our class was asked to make a video showing the student's voice about working in a digital class. This is going to be shown to the up-coming year 6 students and parents next Tuesday night.

AAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!! BIGFOOT!!!!!!!

Charliot and Carys (absent from the photo) created this impressive bigfoot wall display. It was only just small enough to fit into the class room, stretching to reach the 2.75m tall ceiling.
Well done girls!

Silent explanations.

We have been working on some silent explanations. The class only had a short time to research and prepare these to the class. They were presented over two days. Some children used pictures to explain things others used charades and some even tried to dance the explanation.
Here is an innovative one using cue cards and pictures.

SPLAT

Yesterday and today we worked on some creative writing as a break from the explanations our class has been working on. Here is Tyrin's. I really love the ending to it and the sense of urgency from the main character with all of the short sentences..

SPLAT

I OPENED THE DOOR AND THERE IT WAS...

“AHHHHHH.  Fresh air at last”  I was looking down from the sky.  “How high are we pilot?”  I ask.  “About 1500 meters Brodie.  On Green”  said pilot Frank.  I see two light bulbs above the door.  One of them is red.  all of a sudden the lights switch from red to green so then I leap out of the plane and do a big summer salt and then I lie on my tummy as the wind blows into me and my face.

BEEP, BEEP, BEEP.  I hear my watch go off which means that I need to pull my parachute.  I pull the string but nothing happens.  I try again but I pull harder this time, but  nothing happens.  I'm falling a lot faster now and I'm at 100 meters.   my parachute stills isn't coming out.  I look at my watch and its going down fast!  79, 78, 77, 76.  I'm starting to freak out!  32,31,29,28,26. I feel like I'm going to faint...

Splat!!!!

Journey through the stars - Alan Bagnall

Today we did a whole class reading activity on Visualisation. The class read and listened to a poem called "Journey through the stars" by Alan Bagnall. They then analysed the information and created a picture of what they were seeing in their mind's eye. We put all of the pictures together to display on our wall.

Here is the Poem:
On this gently pulsing deck I lie,
gazing down into
the infinite depths
of a night sky.
For every star in our galazy
is reflected on a polished sea.
Stars above
stars below
all sense of Earth disappearing.
Life is a space journey -
anyone steering?


Here are some pictures of a few of them and the whole lot.

Carys's Visualisation

Regan's Visualisation

The natural way to learn.

It was such a nice sunny day today we decided to go outside to do some research. Some of the class decided to do their work on the new playground. Others did theirs under the trees. 

We then started to make some poems about some unexplained creatures. These incorporated elements of the research the class is doing for their explanations.

Te Reo Maori

On a Thursday afternoon we combine with Room 7 to work on Te Reo Maori. Usually we work on the language but today we changed things and had a look at Matariki. Here are a couple of students working on a Matariki task on the computer.


The class also worked on the school song. Considering we had non of our Kapa Haka members present to lead us they perfromed well. Ka pai.

SOCIAL NIGHT

Two weeks ago we had our school social. I was lucky enough to host it for the children (although I pretended it wasn't me and obviously had all the children fooled) The children put into practice all of the dances they had learned over the previous term and earlier this term as well. It was a great night enjoyed by all.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? No... just Sea Turtles.

The writing we are focussing on this term is about explanation. We are learning to explain objects, processes and phenomena. Currently the class is looking at explaining about Sea Turtles.

Here is a list of some of their prior knowledge.

And here is a short video that they are going to use to help them explain about Sea Turtles in their own words.

Maths Work

In class We are working on Transformation. The class will need to access the class wiki to see what they wish to work on with a few different workshops set at different levels.
The class will need to do some frontloading (research before beginning) so that they can take part in the sessions.
http://room8hni.wikispaces.com/Maths+Main

TERM 4

This term we are focussing on the unexplained. Our current class project is on the mummies curse. This is a whole class project. Soon the class will be individually researching their own topics. I can't wait to see what people come up with.

TRANSFORMATION!!!!

Yes after a long weekend we are right back into it.
We are working on transformation in maths. Here was a quick activity we did with lines of symmetry. The class had to predict what the end result shape would look like. They folded a circle in half three times and made a few snips, predicted the end result, then unfolded.

21st Century classrooms

Here is some of the work some of the students have been doing in class reflecting on their work for 21st century classrooms

Charlottes Prezi



Augusta, Chloe, Natasha and Erin's news item.


Sam's Prezi

Charliot's Powtoon (Just a small part of many presentations she made)




Plus man many more things by other members of the class. Check them all out on their own blogs!! Links to the right hand side!

Thanks for viewing

Classroom Sharing Time!!!

Today we had an awesome time sharing all of our amazing work with the other 2 classes. We focussed on creating 21st century learning environments and I have been so happy to see the amount of work that has gone into this from the students. Here's a quick snippet of the children setting everything up this morning.


The class all produced their own designs for the 21st Century classroom.
Here are a few of the projects we created as well.

 It has been so great to see all of their hard work showcased. Everyone was very impressed. Room 13 students came and viewed them as well, so did Mrs Field. We will be putting something together to show the work off to the whole school at the end of the term as well.
The children had to explain what their designs were and why they chose the different things for their classroom. The main theme was for enhancing their learning rather than going for things that looked flashy and cool (although if it was flashy and cool and enhanced their learning what a bonus)
The children actually inspired me to change the classroom around as well. I have changed my desk to a collaborative work station so that the children can use the desk with myself at the centre which will be great for groups work. My desk gear is now in my office (which never really got used except to store stuff) and my desk in class is the size of a students desk with my lockable cabinet as well.
YOU have been change makers for me.
Well done Room 8!!!

Science Roadshow

The children saw some really great things at the science roadshow last week. They showed a huge amount of enthusiasm for the exhibits and were also challenged into showing some of their understanding to win a prize and the children worked really hard to show that understanding as well.
I managed to get shrink-wrapped (it feels rather uncomfortable if you were wondering) and we also saw some cool experiments on pH and Air Pressure.
Here is a couple of shots of the day.

Mila's fun with fizzy!

Social Dance

SOCIAL DANCE

After last weeks great achievements with social dance we carried it on today with a couple of sessions. Our class, along with Room 7, learned a new line dance today and the students grasped it pretty quick after having it broken down for them.

Here's a few photos and a short video of what we did today. Yes I joined in as well, unfortunately I had to do the filming so you don't get to see my slick dance moves.

Wonderful happenings

EEK!!

It's been a few weeks since the last blog post. Time to post more!

Something the students have feared.

Social dance began this morning. A huge amount of the students were extremely apprehensive about this but after giving them a huge surprise this morning of having social dance written up on the agenda for today the majority seemed to enjoy it. After social dance I had many students coming up and asking when the next session was going to be and the disappointment of hearing next Monday was audible from many of the students (mostly because they wanted it sooner rather than not at all). It was the boys turn to choose first today and I was extremely happy to see the maturity of most Room 8 boys in choosing partners. Regan and Tyrin were the first to politely ask for partners paving the way for the rest. Well done you two!! The class learnt a Gay Gordon today. Unfortunately I didn't take any photos or videos. Next time though...

Spectacular science

Two of our students entered into the science fair from our class and both received highly commended at our school science fair. Congratulations Grace and Zoe! These students then went on to represent our school at the Hawkes Bay Science Fair. Zoe received a special prize from the judges for her science fair and Grace won a prize from a quiz given out on the day. 

Grace with her science fair project on dirty retainers

Cross Country

After a huge amount of training over the last few weeks we had our Cross Country. A great amount of our class competed in this event and many students preformed very well competing against their peers.

Here are some of the placings in our class (other were to shy to have their's shown)

Year 7 boys

Regan 2nd

Robert 5th

Sam 14th

Year 7 Girls

Charlotte 7th

Mikayla 19th

Megan 20th

Here's hoping we keep our flag on top and win the event.

Here are some pictures for your enjoyment. They were running so quickly past me I couldn't get snaps of them all

Ka kite ano.

Challenges

I've been a bit slack on the posting this week! EEK!

THE CHALLENGE

2 days ago the class was given a task of making my life easier by inventing something that would help me. As we are looking at innovation this term the class was very innovative and came up with various ideas for making my life easier (They weren't allowed to give me ear muffs and a blindfold though)

Here is a couple of examples of what the groups came up with:

Two completely different designs here but they both incorporated different elements that would make my life easier. They only had 1 hour to do this so the results were very good. THe one on the right is a life sized clone of me with gadgets attached to the body and the one on the left is a comfy couch with everything you would need at your fingertips.

FUTURE FOCUS

After this we had a discussion about what process they should have gone through to make sure they fulfilled the design brief in the best possible way. The groups cooperated well together assigning different tasks according to people strengths which was great to see, the only down side was that only a couple of groups actually did the research for the design asking me what it was I needed. Hopefully with the next task they will research a bit more fully.

Tuesday the 30th of July

Pronumerals was the focus of maths today. We looked at some strange machines (drawn on the whiteboard) that changed the values of numbers. Each numeral that went into the machine was changed each time. We represented the numbers going into and out of the machine by pro-numerals, letters that stand in for the number.
We also began on our procedural writing today. The class developed some ingredients list for some interesting smoothies or milkshakes that they would like to make in class. From these ingredients we then came up with titles that would catch the reader's attention and inform them about what the recipe is creating. One group finished the work a little early and came up with a theme song for their milkshake idea. The last section of the day was taken up with innovation. We looked at what innovation is and the class performed a small activity to show their innovation. They had to pass the ball between them in the quickest time. Some groups were innovative and modified their ideas as they were testing them.

Term 3 begins

Monday 29th of July

We started off term 3 today and all of the class looked fresh faced, many sporting new haircuts ready for the new term.
Today the class learned how to shrink a head. This was a starter for our procedural writing. The children analysed a piece of writing from a book to see how well it fitted with our success criteria for procedural writing.
We also walked through the cross country circuit today so the class knows how we will be running the cross country during week 4 this term.
The media studies group for technology started filming for the movie they are making and the wood and plastics group began construction of their pens.
I also forgot my glasses of all things (luckily I'm not as blind as everyone thinks I am)

10-7-13

Wednesday the 10th of July

Today we began on some procedural writing in preparation for next term. The class had to, without any help, develop some instructions for me to put up my chair. I did take some things a bit literally at times but the class had a load of fun putting them into practice.
Here's a video of a lot of different class members giving me some instructions.
It's a little embarrassing.

3rd of July 2013

3-7-2013

Today in class we worked again on learning the properties of triangles. We also learnt how to create equilateral triangles using a compass. Each vertex of an equailateral triangle has a 60 degree angle.

For reading we continued looking at inference with the story of Hurry up, Tim. Some students made some excellent inferences such as the teacher in the story really knowing that Tim cheated through the sly smile on her face.

The class has been extremely busy catching up on any blogposts that need doing at the moment as well. We seem to be in a mad rush now for the end of the term.

We also practiced talking about our blog to each other.

Tuesday the 2nd of July

Tuesday the 2nd of July

Today in maths one of the groups learnt how to find the inner angles of a triangle using protractors. They also learnt that all of these inside angles add up to 180 degrees.
With our writing today the majority of us finished our expositions. We then began to use this writing to turn it into a speech. Some students even began timing these and practicing them to see if they are long enough for sharing at the assembly next week.
For our inquiry work, our waste water game-shows, the majority of the class again finished off their scripts for the game-show. Soon we will be practicing these and then filming them for our blogs. Props are also well underway for some groups, these gameshows will look amazing!

Monday 1st July

Monday the 1st of July

Today at Technology the Media studies group learnt how to put pictures onto a storyboard.
The group in wood and plastics started learning how to make pens and they also began to design their own pens.
With mathematics today we learnt some new vocabulary for geometry, line segments, parallel, perpendicular, chords, and more, even some tricky things like what a hypotenuse is.
We also learnt the basics of fair testing today as we prepare for the school science fair.

Wednesday 26-6-2013

Wednesday Week 8

Today the class was working hard at enlarging and reducing some images for maths. They were using good old worksheets for this activity so had to pay attention to detail when completing this activity.

Here are a couple of the finished tasks by Mikayla and Chloe.

During writing, those children that have finished their persuasive writing are helping the class out by determining success criteria for our next writing genre; procedural writing. Over the last couple of days we have studied recipes to see common features among them all and what makes the good ones good and what makes the bad ones bad.

Some students have also finished their chapter summaries. Here is an example from Zoe about Sadako and the thousand paper cranes.

sadako chapter summarys - slideshow

25-6-2013

We learned how to do scale drawings in maths. We learned how to use scale factors. When you enlarge by a scale factor of 2 you double each dimension.

Tuesday 25-6

Today is the first day of the Masterton exchange so we have been without 5 of our regular class members and gained a new student for 2 days.

We also worked on our game-shows today. Most of us managed to finish our scripts and have been working on props. This is going to help tell us more about our inquiry topic of waste-water. This is how we are going to show our learning and also to teach other people about our learning.

Monday 24-6-13

Today at school the Wood and Plastics group learned about scroll saws and that holding your fingers on the sides of the blade doesn't cut them,we also learnt about the different files: the half circular one the circular one and the triangular one. At media studies we learnt about different camera angles: Tilts, wide shots, close ups, pocket shots, medium shots, extreme close ups and a long shot.

In reading we read a story about the precious liquid and the sky stones and we focused on questioning and were using question cards to prompt us for developing questions. This is useful because it helps us find out more about the story.