Government Spending

If we were in charge after the General Election, how would we use New Zealand's money?

As we've been taking part in the Kids Voting programme through the Electoral Commission over the last two weeks, we've had time to think about what really matters to each of us.

Today we were given ten different areas of government spending (education, health, transport, social welfare, environment, etc) to allocate a certain amount of funds. We were buddied up within our numeracy groups, with many of us being allocated different amounts of money to spread out over the ten spending areas. Groups had between $1,000 and $1,000,000,000 to use.

We decided to simply use our minds, pens and paper. Some pairs were able to agree on most decisions, however many groups had to negotiate on certain things. The sharing session we had afterwards was controversial, as Mr K deliberately tried to create counter-arguments for all of our decisions. We have learned that everyone has their own opinions and cares more deeply about different things, which has helped us make connections to the electoral process and how decisions are made that impact our communities.

Sharing Home Learning - Term Three

It was great to see the enthusiasm shown while we shared our home learning from this term. As with the previous two terms, we have had options to undertake many open-ended projects off-site. Our session this morning was our best so far, with children showing a lot of confidence in their own work, as well as support and encouragement of others.

Dodgeball

Here is the video we presented in assembly today that documents our dodgeball journey this term. It highlights the challenges we have faced around decision making in groups.

We've had to make lots of decisions that tested our ability to compromise and take instruction for our peers. As we reflect more deeply about this, we will be starting to think about decision making and governance in our wider community. The timing of this is fitting with our general election approaching. How could our classroom experiences affect how we feel about our electoral system?

Note: The boys insisted on the State of Origin style team intros!

Readers' Café: Where Are We At?

Our weekly Readers' Café is an important part of our classroom programme. It has developed over three years (initially being an extra guided reading group for low ability readers) to something that we see as beneficial to all learners.

We get together in our literacy groups every Friday morning to share the personal reading we have been enjoying.

Here's a recent snippet...



We are constantly getting feedback from each other about Readers' Café. Where might we go next?