Endings and beginnings

Today is the last day of the school term and the last day of R11, 12 and 13 as a team. Next year Karyn Grey (who has stayed in R11) returns to Tanekaha team. Karen Handley has moved into R17 with her class and I have moved into R18 with mine. Tanekaha becomes a 3 class team and Rimu becomes a 2 class team. I have loved having Karyn as a neighbour and team mate and her class of lively performers have added a special something to our team. We will miss you!! 

Next year R17 and 18 will have a team blog. I will link this one to it, so that 2013 in R12 stays online. 

It is now time to say goodbye and send good wishes to the Year 8s moving on - Kaitlin, Daniel, Bethany, Josh, Tallis, Jessika, Seth and Danny. Good luck too, to Devontae and Zinzan who are changing classes.

To those going and to the rest of the class who are staying - have a wonderful break and return to school refreshed next year! We will make the most of our new start and aim for an educational, fun time in 2014! 

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all, your families and extended whanau.
 

The sunflowers are blooming

Today's Pool Party

To celebrate our time together as a team and the upcoming holidays we had a pool party today. Here are a few pics.

A sad end for a beautiful tree

The golden elm in the village split one evening and sadly, it had to go. We are so grateful it waited until nobody was about before it broke, as it could have seriously hurt someone.

Cybersafety

This teacher posted a photo on Facebook and asked everyone who saw it to like it. So far it has 1,326,955 likes. Yes, that's more than a million!

What does this tell you about how many people might see your stuff on the internet? 

Most of them will be strangers. 

Think carefully about the pictures you post and the words you write because they will travel a long way and you can never take them back!

Look who I found on youtube!

Please do NOT text the number. They were in NZ's Got Talent in 2012.

You'll never look at Australia the same way again

A clever interpretation from the Facebook site "General Knowledge".

2011 to 2013 in the gardens

The Changing Gardens ( You'll see I like the rambling, sow seed where you choose, effect!)

The bee garden

A bumble bee...

A bee in flight!

and another bumble bee enjoying the garden.

One of the very few honey bees we have seen.

                                         
We have lots and lots of bumble bees, so in that way the garden is a success. Sadly there are still very few honey bees.

Learning Journal ideas

A group of us have been discussing the future of our Learning Journals and would really appreciate your ideas about them. This form is for both students and caregivers to fill in. There are only 7 questions. Please, please, please take the time to fill it in. Thank you to everyone who does!   Just click on  Survey form  and away you go!

More static images

These are the images that were handed in. Given five blocks to plan, develop and complete the images some managed their time well and completed work to a high standard. Several then showed great co-operative skills to support others to finish.
Some students managed their time poorly and completed work to a low standard, or tried so hard to do a good job they didn't finish. Others were slow to start, drifted off task a lot and didn't finish.
These days I set deadlines, regularly remind students of the time available and expect them to work to the deadlines. That's how life is, and I believe they may as well be given the opportunities to develop time management skills sooner rather than later.

Here are the last of the images. Remember the brief was to use a scene from a book, movie or game to deliver a one word message.

Daniel

Chloe

Tallis

Danny

Alexus

Titan

Rhylee

Devontae

Summer

Amanda

Brydie

Monet

Static Images

The students have been creating static images using a scene from a book/ movie or game to represent a word. These are some of the completed efforts. 

Seth

Ranui

Devon

Zinzan

 

Shakaea

Patricia

Kaitlin

 

 

 

 

Emily

Jessika

Aliyah

Movies as you've never seen them

Training Guinea Pigs

Our guinea pig, George.

During Labour weekend I went to a guinea pig training camp (4 days). We worked in teams of 3 attempting to train guinea pigs to scent gunpowder.
Two teams got as far as the double blind scent. This is a test where neither handler nor animal know which of two tins has the gunpowder in it. The guinea pig has to find the right tin and stand on it.
At the time the camp finished, we were training ours to find and mark the gunpowder tin.
The camp was an intense, tiring experience. I went along hoping to discover new things about teaching and learning and I did. I've shared some of my discoveries with the class and I hope they may put some into practice. I sure plan to do so!

Some of the many treats we used to keep him interested and working.

Intending to learn

This is a great article with information about how to learn more effectively: Intending to learn .

Are you acrophobic? Then don't look!

Living dangerously!


"The medical definition for the fear of heights is “acrophobia.” It is an abnormal and persistent fear of heights. The word “acrophobia” is derived from the Greek words “acron” (height) and “phobos” (fear). Acrophobia, the fear of heights, is a natural fear. To a certain extent, there is nothing wrong with having a fear of heights. It is a healthy defence against doing things like walking off a cliff. The problem is when the natural healthy instinct becomes a morbid (unsound or even paranoia) fear. This type of unhealthy fear, acrophobia, is usually overwhelming and debilitating (it will freeze you in your tracks)."

(Definition from this site: acrophobia ).

How to check maths answers.

This is what the class came up with today.

I'm looking forward to seeing lots of really accurate maths calculations because the students will be so good at thorough checking!

Fairness

Soon we will be asking the question "Is NZ Fair?" To start with, watch this and compare what you know about NZ with this teacher's discussion of how his students live in the USA.

At this link meaning of fair  you will see definitions of the word fair. Read the definitions and see which ones make sense when we are talking about how we treat people.


Critical explorers will decide what the word means, before they begin investigating if NZ is fair.

The Bully Project

11-year-old Caine Smith was choked, beaten, harassed, and was called a long list of names. Instead of staying locked away and hiding, he stood up and did something about it.

Future proofing your skills

I really liked the wisdom shared in this article http://tinyurl.com/careerwisdom

What do you think about this?

Happy holidays!

Enjoy your break. You've worked hard and deserve some time relaxing with friends and family. 

I saw this image on Facebook this morning and thought it was worth sharing!

Using rainforests to make loo paper? Unbelievable :(.

Please use GREEN toilet paper.

Vandalism

Today we arrived at school to find all our sunflower and sweet pea seedlings tipped out of their pots and lying in a pile of potting mix on the concrete. Whoever did it had arranged the pots in a smiling face on the dirt. They may have thought it was funny, but it was nothing to smile about for us. 

We work hard to keep the gardens and grounds looking good. We were growing the flowers for people to enjoy, and to feed the bees. 

Because it was a wet weekend, we hope some of the plants will survive, but they are looking broken and forlorn at the moment.

I felt really upset and still do :(.  

The girls repotting the plants in the hope they would survive.

Homework task: In the comments section, please write a letter to the person/ people who did this. 

Use some or all of these questions for ideas to write about.
What must that person be like? Would you like someone who would do that to other people's things to be your friend? Would you be able to trust them? What virtues and cornerstone qualities do you think those people need to learn? If you could tell them one thing to help them show more respect in future, what would it be? 

Natural cleaning ideas

We've been looking at acids and bases and discussed some that are common in our homes. Here are some recipes you could try.
 
Cleaning with baking soda and vinegar

Just do it!

Acids and bases

These are some of the results we got from our acid + base reactions (citric acid + baking soda + water)  and (tartaric acid + baking soda + water).

The mixture fizzed and the bag filled with a gas.

The reaction made the liquid go COLDER. This is an endothermic reaction. It uses heat from the environment rather than producing heat.

Lighting a match to see if the gas would make the flame brighter (oxygen) or put it out (carbon dioxide).

Renewable energy - citizens fighting big companies for clean energy

Talking of rubbish...

Read more about this picture here.

Our new class member, Milo. on PhotoPeach

A lovely story!

Helping others

Plant a tree anyway!

Mr Spicer's birthday

Today was the birthday of our Grounds Manager, Mr Garry Spicer. We snuck outside when he wasn't looking, lay in wait and then when he appeared, sang Happy Birthday to him. We hope you had a lovely day Mr Spicer and may your evening be full of gifts and cake!

 

Speeches

This week the students have been working hard on speech writing. 

They needed to:

• Think about the purpose (to describe/ inform/ entertain/ convince).

• Think about the focus. What is the EXACT topic? For example 'Skateboarding is fun. You should try it!' isn't just writing facts about skateboarding. It's explaining how/ why skateboarding is FUN.

• Think about the audience.Who are they writing for? Will people understand what they mean? How can they make their ideas clear? 

 
The process has been

1. Come up with 10 ideas about the topic.
2. Group the similar ideas together so they will make sensible paragraphs.
3. Begin writing. 
4. Put ONE idea into a sentence (not cram three ideas in!)
5. Follow that sentence with ONE or TWO sentences which add detail to the idea and explain how/ why it connects to the topic. (How/ why does that idea make skateboarding fun?)
6. Tick each idea off on the plan once they have written about it. 

 Difficulties have been:
1. Coming up with ideas.
2. Sorting them into groups.
3. Writing one idea per sentence.
4. Remembering the whole topic (fun) not just 'facts about skateboarding'.
5. Thinking of ways to connect ideas to the topic (why/ how does that make it fun?)
6. Writing correct sentences.

No matter how well or badly they will have written the speeches by the time we finish, I am confident every child has worked hard and learned something valuable! They can feel proud of their efforts.
 
 

Watch this space!

In order to look after bees, the class have planted sunflower seeds. Apparently sunflowers have a lot of nectar, so are popular with bees. We hope so! Watch this space for developments as the seeds hopefully begin to grow. You can be sure no spray will be going near these plants!

Some pics from today

Being creative

The kids all take a turn at drawing and we see where it ends up. This became a snail (sort of).

Danny couldn't quite decide what to do. Spot Josh photobombing!

For this one I told them they had to try to make a sea creature. It became an angry crab wielding an axe and wearing a boot! LOL