In Room 9, we often have student teachers. These people have decided to train to be teachers, and come to us on their practicums. This year we have been lucky enough to have two so far: Matua Whare and Whaea Amy. Amy finished her practicum with us today and we are very sad to see her go. She is a top quality trainee with great confidence and presence in the classroom, and she is ultra organised. We've loved having her in our class. Good luck Amy with the rest of your study!
This week on Tuesday we had our school Cross Country. The weather behaved and despite the afternoon dropping in temperature, all the children took part and it was a great success. We have some speedy runners in Room 9 and our Year 3 girls took the top 3 places, and we also had a Year 3 boy do the same. We also had some Year 4's in the top 7 places. Well done to everyone, even if you didn't place, you can be proud, our course is long and hilly and at times wet and slippery. You were all fantastic!! Pay it Forward is our topic this term, and what a great one. We are promoting kindness within and beyond our classroom, and thanks to Mrs Cochet in Rm14 we have learnt about a concept called 'Lollipop Moments' which encourages children not only to pay it forward, but to also recognise those children who do. Here's how it works in our class... Anyone within the classroom and at anytime of the day, may be the recipient of an act of kindness from anyone within the school. If this happens, they fill out a nomination form, stating who paid it forward, what they did, and how it made the recipient feel. The only rule is that they can't nominate friends, because we expect friends to show kindness all the time. They post their nomination in the letterbox in our classroom, and at the end of each day, one nomination form is pulled out and the person who paid it forward receives a lollipop. We will continue this right through the year because it's such a great idea. The idea originated from a video on Youtube. Click the link below and watch how a simple, small act of kindness can change a person's life forever. In class, we are learning how to use rich language in our writing to make it exciting for the reader. After our fabulous grandparent stories full of similes and adjectives (1A1N, 2A1N and even 3A1N), we have carried on to write another great description.This time we are writing about a special friend, and what's even better, the special friend writes a description too. This means each child gets to read a lovely description that someone in the class has written about them. Once finished we will post these stories on individual websites. They should be starting to appear later this week. Remember to use the link to children's pages above to read them.
Over the past few weeks, the Otonga children have been in training for the School Cross Country this coming Wednesday. We are lucky enough to have a course on our school doorstep that is truly a cross country course. Three days a week we have been out on it training, aiming to better our previous times. This Wednesday we race. The Year 4-6 children who place in the first 8 of their year level get to compete in the Interschool Cross Country Championships. We have some top runners in our class who are aiming for this. But Cross Country is not just for these children, it's a good opportunity for all children to build their fitness levels. Here are some photos from training last week. We are learning how photos can be manipulated with special effects. Room 9 has been introduced to the concept of blue/green screening, and how easy it is to change an existing photo by adding people. We started with adding ourselves to backgrounds using the NZ software programme UMAJIN. Our criteria is specific.. we must cut ourselves our carefully so that it is difficult to see anything behind us. We have to add ourselves to a background in a way that makes the photo look real. Our viewers should have to look very carefully to see that things are not quite as they seem. How well do you think we have done? We have been learning about the Maori values and culture. With Matua Whare our student teacher we learnt and performed a Waiata for our whanau and the rest of the school. We particularly like this waiata because it covers values that we think everyone should live their lives to. Last term all of middle school took part in a Science 'Wow' day. All the children moved amongst the seven classes taking part in a range of activities. In Room 9 we used a Science idea from the 'Science Bob' website. The children watched how to make a hoop glider, using just a straw, two strips of paper and some cellotape. They saw how well something so simple could fly. They then made their own one, and tested it. Once that was done they were able to make modifications if they felt they could create a glider that flew further than the original design. There was a prize for the best flyer, so the children were all motivated to make and trial different designs. The key word of the day was 'aerodynamic'. This meant a glider that flew straight and steady was likely to be a winner. After much experimentation and waiting... for fine weather and no wind, we finally were able to fly our gliders. We made a movie of the flight... check out our results. |
Our BlogWelcome to our Blog page. Our aim is to have regular posts on this page with photos, videos and audio, giving our global audience a view of what we are doing in our classroom. Archives
December 2013
Categories |