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!