Interest Projects - All Wrapped Up For Christmas

It has been so satisfying for many of us sharing our term four interest projects.

One way we ensure that we are taking ownership, accountability and responsibility for our learning in Room 14 is through the sharing routines we have. During our first I.P. this year, sharing in front of the class seemed a little daunting for some. However, the encouragement shown for each other and the ability to give constructive feedback has grown to such a level that sharing interest projects is a positive experience and a time for celebration. The conversation arising after the sharing of an interest project is genuinely exciting as students often realise that they are the most knowledgeable person in the room about their chosen topic, which can be so empowering when answering questions from their peers.

Those who initially found driving their own projects a challenge have made great progress. Being handed more responsibility and knowing that the teacher is only assisting as a guide was something to get their heads around at first. Of course, there are still things that all of us could have improved on this time, but our skills and attitudes for self-driven inquiry projects have grown a lot as a class.

We had a 'How Stuff Works' theme of sorts this time. It was wonderful seeing how deep some students could get into their questions and how they could communicate some very technical, jargon-filled scientific explanations in a way that we could all understand. Jacob's 'How do batteries work?', Kerryn's 'How does lightning work?' and Izyah's 'How do earphones work?' projects were nice examples of this.








Before putting together our presentations, we co-created a sharing rubric together that included what we thought would make a great presentation, as well as a couple of aspects of our last I.P. sharing days that we needed to work on. We assessed ourselves after receiving feedback from our peers and Mr K. See the completed rubrics in our digital portfolios.



Next year we will look at how the I.P. format could fit in with our learning programmes. For our Year 6s that are leaving us, we hope that these interest projects have given them a chance to further develop their 21st century learning skills and attitudes, which we hope they can utilise wherever they are heading.

Cluster Tech Challenge

We recently had our cluster technology challenge. Our class and Room 5 at Bamford School took part.

The idea was that we would be undertaking the same challenges from our own schools, but would key an eye out (digitally) about how the other teams were doing.

The first challenge was to build a free-standing tower using certain materials that could raise a flag.

The second challenge was a paper planes contest. Students could enter both a 'flight distance' and a 'flight time' competition.

These activities linked well with our Forces and Motion theme, so children were able to use some of the language and scientific terms we have been learning about.

Thanks to Wayne for coming along, giving a hand and showing us your own paper plane designs.



Check out the Linwood Connected Kids blog for some of our reflections and more info.

Term 4 Interest Projects: How Stuff Works

Our inquiry topic/theme has been split in two this term due to student demand for one last IP (Interest Project) for the year. Our class theme, which is science-based and looks at forces and motion, will be condensed to make way for the more student-directed interest inquiries that we have become familiar with this year. 

The theme for this term's interest projects is 'How stuff works', which lends itself well to our forces and motion theme for those who have chosen questions that are connected to learning about the physical world in some way.

The basic guidelines for IPs is the same as we have done before.
We need to:
1. Write up a basic plan that includes our initial driving questions and resources required.
2. Create or continue an IP blog that we update each week about our progress.
3. Share our learning journey at the end of term.

We will have at least one IP workshop each week. This is an entire morning or afternoon that we can spend on our independent inquiries. Many of us have also been finding information at home or using organisation time before school to work on our IPs.

Lots of interesting questions are driving our IPs. It will no doubt be a great learning experience for all of us as we go from novices to teachers when sharing our journeys at the end of term.

Some plan examples from our wall:

Phoebe's initial plan

Athalia's initial plan

This past week we have been making sure that we are taking action with our IPs. Some of us know from experience that time can seem to slip away if you are not thinking carefully about how you use it and reflecting on each IP workshop. Here is what we thought taking action would look like as we begin to get deeper in our projects...

Don't forget to check our interest project blogs to read about how each of us are going!

Marble Tracks

This week we have begun our Forces and Motion unit of inquiry. Gravity and friction are the key ideas we have been investigating, and have been the focus of two hands-on technology challenges in our classroom.

In the first challenge we were required to make a ramp to certain specifications. We then predicted how far a marble would roll along the ground when let go from the top of the ramp.

After measuring the actual distance rolled and comparing with our estimates, we had some great discussions around our understanding of gravity and friction. It was most interesting hearing what everyone thought was in the centre of the Earth. Answers included "special stones", "rocks" and "black stuff". Some ideas there for further investigation.


The second challenge features in the video below.



As predicted by some of us, it certainly was a challenge working in groups of 4 or 5. Many people often have different ideas on what will work best in situations like this, so the designated 'team managers' had a busy job.

We agreed that some of the construction work wasn't pretty. But it was good to see everyone searching hard for materials that could serve a purpose (you may have noticed all of the random maths equipment and stationery items being used!).

A couple of groups managed to complete the task and others came very close. The most common challenge was the marble losing too much speed by crashing into walls. All groups realised that they needed to do what they could to maintain the marble's speed (provided by gravity), while keeping it on track to cross each piece of masking tape.

We will be reflecting on what we noticed during this challenge, while exploring more of the physical world around us over the coming weeks.

We View A Great Learner As...

'Organisation Time' is the name we give to the 8.30am - 8.55am period before school starts. We are conscious in Room 14 of the importance of being organised, and having the time to get organised, and the positive effect this has on getting us in the right space for learning.

When we arrive in the classroom each morning, there may be a short task (often optional) for us to complete before school begins, along with the expectation that we use this time to organise our stationery, make sure our devices are charged, check in on our weekly goals, etc.

Last Friday during organisation time we had a task to complete. We were each asked to write down what we believe are the 3 most important traits of a great learner in Room 14. All of the words have been collated and are displayed in the word cloud below. Those that were mentioned more often appear larger.

It's interesting to think about what we see as important.

Is this is good set of traits? Are we missing anything really important? 

Our Window Bottle Garden

We are excited to finally have our window bottle garden planted. This has been a side project to our Consumerism unit from last term, when we watched a TED Talk about people growing their own vegetables in high-rise apartments. We liked the idea so much we started searching for ideas on how we could make simple planting systems in our classroom.

Take a look at how our finished garden is looking...



We would like to say a special thanks to Yvonne and Emily for the plants and seeds, Wayne for his handy work with a drill, and Sheryl for her gardening tips and support mucking in.

Along with the team in Room 14, this was a real team effort.

Linwood Connected Kids Blog

Check out this new blog that we are a part of... 

At this stage, the blog is a partnership between three Year 5/6 classes, one from Bamford School, one from Linwood Ave School, and us!

The idea behind this is for our students to be posting content they have created and giving and receiving feedback on their own and others’ learning. There will also be some literacy challenges posted by teachers for children from all 3 schools to be engaged in. 

We look forward to seeing how this pans out, as we can see a lot of potential there for development with the inclusion of more schools and classes. Let us know what you think!

Consumerism - Sharing Our Thoughts and Ideas

We have had a busy last couple of weeks preparing to share our individual learning about our Consumerism theme. These are the projects that were outlined in this previous post.

One of the challenges we faced when having our own Interest Projects in Term 2 was managing our time. So, when we were given the presentation date for our Consumerism projects, Mr K also shared an individual timeline with each of us via Google Docs. We had to complete an outline of how we would be using our independent learning time at school in order to be ready to present on the sharing day. In a sense, we had to 'plan backwards', having an end product in mind, then deciding what steps were needed to get there and how much time would be required to complete each of these steps.

We developed project assessment rubrics for each of the project mediums we chose (animation/screen-casting, TED style speech, or posters). These rubrics were also shared with us via Google Drive, where Mr K wrote his feedback on our projects while we were sharing to the class, and we completed a self-reflection section on the same document after. Over the coming weeks, we will be adding footage of ourselves sharing and/or other images from our presentations. This could be a very effective way for teachers and students to co-construct learning documentation going forward.

It was great to see the differences in the projects that were shared. The animations all had a different 'feel' to them and a range of filming methods were used. The TED-style talks were very successful as many children surprised us at how confident they could be in front of an audience. It was also exciting to see these students giving each other constructive feedback and researching presenting tips as part of their journey. They really thought about what an effective talk would look and sound like. The group that were creating posters carrying environmental messages had less time available to them (as they were also in our gardening group), but still communicated some thoughtful ideas.

We hear the word 'self-manage' used a lot, but we know that everything that is involved in that (managing our time, resources, decisions, emotions, etc) takes ongoing development and practice. As evident in our most recent projects, it has been great to see the progress of individuals and the honest reflections everyone has made about successes, challenges, and the cause and effects of these.

Here are a few snippets from some presentations. See our individual portfolios and media galleries for more footage.

Our Ski Trip

Yesterday was a great day.
We're so lucky in New Zealand to have access to experiences like this!

Thank you again to all of the parents who came along.
We hope you enjoyed it as much as we did!

Consumerism - What Needs To Change?

This term we have read, heard and viewed a lot of interesting stories and documentaries about our basic consumer cycle. By this, we mean the 'work, get paid, buy stuff' cycle we blogged about several weeks ago.

The more we have learned, the more we have come to accept that we all play an active part in this system, and in many ways we are dependent on it. As kids, we have fewer choices than adults, but we know that one day we will be the leaders in our communities and will have more of an influence over the people and places we interact with.

Last week we watched a documentary called The Story of Stuff. It explains how our materials economy works and the negative impacts it has on our planet right through the system, from the extraction of raw materials from the Earth, to when we dispose of the products consumed.

We have learned a lot about note taking. Through taking both written and visual notes, we have been able to pull out what we believe are the most important pieces of information from the videos/texts we have been using to gain a broader understanding of this topic. Some of the notes taken about The Story of Stuff truly were hives of information that we could call upon later. We have examples on display in our classroom.

Many of us have been talking about how we need to change the way we live in order for us to have a more sustainable future. But would anyone listen to us? Aren't kids too young to know what's best? We watched a TED Talk by Adora Svitak called 'What adults can learn from kids'. The consensus we made from this is that kids do come up with great ideas. If we are to be adults one day, surely we should have a voice about the world that is waiting for us.

This week Mr K put a question our TV - 'What needs to change?'. It was great to see the responses. Through our statements, we can see a deep understanding of this topic being developed and how far we have come from the first Chalk Talk routine. From Jacob's quote about how if consumers stop buying certain things, companies that negatively affect our environment will go out of business, to Jen's statement about how Boxing Day sales and other huge consumer 'field days' can be chaotic and leave people possibly feeling like they need to buy lots of things they don't really need.

(We have put our names to our individual quotes on our classroom walls)

So where to now? Well, we have all decided on one of three project ideas to pursue...

1. Create and present detailed explanations about how our materials economy works
2. Create and present a TED Talk of our own, sharing some of the ideas we have to fix the consumer system.
3. Create visual displays that carry strong messages from us about how we can make positive changes to our school environment.

The animations/screen-casting group have begun learning about storyboarding, with some already drafting their creations on large displays.

The TED Talks group have started investigating what makes a good speech, as well as how using Google Slides for a presentation allows them to read their own speaker notes while projecting the slide imagery through a screen using Apple TV.

The visual displays groups have been brainstorming things we do at our school that have negative environmental effects.

Over the past two days, we have been discussing a lot about what success will look like for these projects. We are all striving for excellence, which is in our learner licence criteria, and are trying to become 'learning leaders' by shifting the thinking of others. We look forward to sharing our presentations with you.

Room 14 Student Survey Results

In Room 14 we try to make ongoing reflection a regular part of our learning programme.

Today we have compiled some of the results of a class survey we have completed. This idea has been adapted from another class blog. We have also added some of our own questions.

It was interesting for us to discuss these pie graphs this afternoon. Some of the questions had other options for children to choose from, but because none were picked, only chosen options are shown on the graph legends.

We thought that the results overall were very positive. Some of us have created some new goals as a result of today's discussions.

Healthy Body, Healthy Mind?

The more we have learned about being mindful, and our mental and emotional health this year, the more we have discovered that exercise and healthy choices play a key role in improving our well-being. Taha tinana (physical well-being and health) is one of the four key aspects of Hauora, which we will soon be investigating further.

Last week we asked "How can we improve our level of fitness?" We came up with lots of ideas, many of which included getting our bodies moving and our hearts pumping.

After learning about simple tally charts, we went to the hall and did a beep test. In pairs, we kept a tally of our partner's score, then swapped over and they recorded our results while we did the physical test. Maia set up a station outside the hall where students who had just completed their test could go and immediately test their heart rate.

Later in the day, we again got into our pairs and recorded the number of push-ups and sit-ups we could do in 30 seconds. For each of the tests, we also wrote comments about how our bodies felt afterwards.


























This week we have been discussing what we could do with this data. We have decided that we could do more regular class fitness activities and test ourselves using the same tests as before every few weeks. Then we could look for ways to display the information and see if our fitness improves, as well as noticing how our comments may change. The comments will give us information about how we feel our bodies are responding to ongoing exercise.

Today we used our beep test data to create some simple visual displays to show our results. We have discussed line graphs, and we know that these will be more suitable to use when we have done the beep test a couple more times, then we can track our own performance better. But today we created some simple bar charts using Pages on our iPads.

We entered our personal data into a form in the app, as well as some of our peers' data who we chose to also appear on our own graph. Some of us chose to compare ourselves with a certain group, for example, 'Boys who play rugby league' and 'Year 6 girls' were some of the target groups students chose.

After sharing the results with our peers, we uploaded the displays to our digital portfolios and added descriptions to explain what the charts were. Over the next week we will be using the strategies we learned in term one, when we analysed our school class size data, to find the average, median, mode and range of our beep test results.

We are trying to gain a wide spread of data about our own personal fitness, so as well as all of the data we have collected already, we have begun noting down the number of laps of the field we are completing during each 20 minute session we have for cross-country training. We will use this information to learn how to create line graphs, using them to look for trends, which will hopefully allow us to independently complete this process with our own beep test data over the next two terms.

More Bikes, Less Cars: What Would The People Say?

Before school this morning, two of our early arrivers, Phoebe and Reuben, went with Mr K to take some photographs of the car wreckers yard behind our school.

When school began we started by discussing 'sustainability' as a class. We also added two new words to our vocabulary - 'renewable' and 'nonrenewable'. We identified examples of things that we use which fell into both of these categories.

Phoebe and Reuben shared their photos and we watched a video about the life cycle of a car. We found that a lot of the reusable parts of a car are recycled. However, we also found out that the leftovers went to landfill (the dump). Apparently, people own 9 cars on average in their lifetimes. We discussed what happens to these after we finish with them, as well as the fuel used to run each car while it is in use. Our conclusion was that petrol-powered cars are not really sustainable.

We made lists of modes of transport that we thought were more sustainable than cars. Many of us came up with decent-sized lists. Some things included skateboards, sail boats, bicycles, rollerblades, electric trains, handcars (thanks Jacob) and walking.

When asked which of these things could be used more by a large number of people, through a voting system we thought that bicycles were the smartest choice. But would the community be willing to use bicycles more? We found this video about how people are reusing bicycles in Havana.

Next, we were split into groups for a circle of viewpoints routine. Each group was asked to discuss how they felt about the possibility of new laws being introduced that meant more bicycles and less cars on the road. Our thoughts were displayed on the wall.

The groups were:

• Car salespeople who sell new vehicles
• Adults who drive cars and use them everyday
• People who work in car wreckers yards
• Us (children)

Now it was role-play time. Mr K announced that he was the mayor and would like to hold a town meeting. We went out to the netball courts, mixed ourselves up so we weren't beside all of the people who we had been working with and gathered together. 

The mayor said that he was thinking of creating some new laws and wanted the community's opinions. A microphone was passed around when someone had something to say. We mentioned some of the points we wrote down in our groups beforehand and also responded to what others were saying. This was a lot of fun because many of us had created make-believe identities and put on different voices!

After the meeting we got together (as ourselves) and discussed the arguments people put forward, while also putting the spotlight on those who we thought were great contributors to the activity. Quaylen's performance, as Professor Jones from Lincoln who didn't want to bike for two hours to work, was a highlight for many. 

The next stage was to do some shared writing with a buddy, on a Google Docs template, about whether we think more should be done to increase the number of bicycle users, while decreasing the number of cars on the road.

We will soon be sharing our writing with the class. The pieces that we believe are fantastic examples will be on display in our classroom. 

We have also started designing our own modern bicycles and making models of them with construction wire. Although, this is proving a lot harder than we imagined! Keep an eye on Twitter for updates.