3D Model Of Aotearoa

This week many of us have taken on the challenge of sculpting a 3D map of New Zealand out of clay. We began by watching some fly-over videos of planes travelling around our coastlines. We then researched many of the land features that we would need to have visible in our sculptures (mountain ranges, major lakes, rivers, etc). These were all highlighted on a blank map, which we used as our design plan.

















Today we organised our workspaces and started sculpting. We will try to tweet some pictures as we finish, as well as uploading pictures to our digital portfolios.

CanSail Trip

This morning we had an exciting adventure on Lyttelton Harbour. Our Year 5s went sailing aboard STV Fox II, a 54' gaff-rigged ketch. The boat was first launched in 1922 and is one of the oldest sailing vessels in New Zealand.

We enjoyed the thrill of crewing a small ship. Fox II required several of us on each line, needing coordinated crew-power to haul on the sheets and raise six sails. This was a great activity for raising awareness of leadership skills and responsibilities in a team, which are key understandings we are looking to develop in our Year 6 students for next year.

Another highlight was being humoured by the hard-case instructors!

Our trip took us on a return voyage from Naval Point Yacht Club (Lyttelton) to Diamond Harbour.

Woodend Camp 2014

What an amazing time we had at Woodend last week.

We spent three days challenging ourselves, developing new skills, working together and creating great experiences we may never forget.

This week we will be putting together a collaborative camp journal and reflecting on our experiences for our portfolios ahead of our 3-way conferences in Week 4.

We would like to say a special thanks to our Room 14 parents, Bryan, Shane and Tobi, who accompanied us.

Exploring Our Passions

Running alongside our syndicate inquiry rotation this term, our in-class focus has been centred around passions.

Last week we spent much of our time exploring how our passions can open up a world of possibilities and interests for us. We decided that when we are learning around our passions we often feel like we are not 'working' at all. This linked well with our recent understandings of how a 'Growth Mindset' is so important for us to possess if we are to develop to our full potential.

Our investigations into others' passions and where they have taken them was eye-opening. This video in particular stood out as an example of someone who has truly found what it is that motivates and excites them.

The next stage for us was to do some inward reflection and engage in open discussions about our interests. We've done this sort of thing right through our school lives, but this time our objective was to decide on a topic or area of interest that could provide a spark for us to begin an inquiry journey.

We grouped our passions into five broad topic areas. Each of these areas were given a 'conversation zone' around our classroom, a place where we could go to speak to others informally about our passions and look to potentially form smaller inquiry groups with like-minded people.

The process for project creation has required considerable scaffolding from Mr K, as the deep understandings from our theme this term need to be central to what we do. The enterprise, innovation and creativity aspect of this theme provides us with a huge scope for exploration. The big question we are considering is - 'How can I improve?'. Each of us have now developed a plan for a project that we will be working on, already outlining the research, design and initial creation aspects of what we are doing. Most of us are working in groups, although a couple of us have decided to pursue an independent project.

Over the course of the term we will be documenting what all of our groups are up to via Twitter, but here is a sneak peak at what a few of us have planned:

• Jessica and Lily are taking a out a small financial loan from our school Enterprise Group (which Lily is a part of). They have started in discussions with Barb, our school support worker, to begin contacting local food suppliers to put together a product (or products) that they could use for a whole-school lunch day that they are planning.
• Julie, Ellee, Chloe and Maia are using their individual strengths to design and create a school magazine, with some very exciting features, that they are planning to release fortnightly for the rest of the year.  

Failing Forward

Our main inquiry theme this term is called 'Innovation, Enterprise and Creativity'.

As well as investigating technological design and processes, we will also be making links between this theme and the traits that great learners possess. Many of the world's most successful entrepreneurs and creative individuals have failed many times before developing an idea or concept that positively changed their life and that of others. The fact that these people were able to pick themselves up in the face of adversity and find new possibilities may well have been their most powerful trait. Some people refer to this as 'failing-forward'.

Take a look at this clip about Alex Zanardi...


TOUCH THE SKY from tim hahne on Vimeo.

Can we pinpoint exactly what it was inside of him that made him find a new passion, even after being through an horrific accident? Why would he possibly be happier now?

Could this be a common theme with many successful people? How many other people can we find out about whose ability to fail-forward was a key part of their success? And finally... So what? What does this mean for us and what connections can we make?

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?

Art - Charcoal New Zealand Landscapes

Aotearoa has some amazing scenery. This has been a centre-point of our artwork.

As well as this, we have been investigating what artists do, how they approach their work and where they might get their inspiration.

We studied work by New Zealand artists like Grahame Sydney, who captures the beauty of our environment and the people who live here. We have also watched videos of artists talking about how they prepare their workspace and their mental state before working on their art.

We haven't just jumped in to creating our own work. We have tried to get to know our medium, charcoal, and how we can create contrast by experimenting and thinking carefully about how we are using it.

Take a look...

Geometry - Position and Orientation

We have a focus on geometry this term. If you've been following our Twitter, you would have noticed the work we have been doing with shapes.

This week we've been looking at position and orientation. Today we discussed times in our lives when we have used maps. When talking about travel maps in particular, we highlighted the grid patterns we often see and how these help us to pinpoint specific locations.

Our challenge today was to set up a scene (using toy animals from the junior school, maths equipment and other items we could find) and write a description so that others could try and recreate our scene.

We needed to use the co-ordinates as well as compass directions in our descriptions. This video has a few snippets of our work this morning.


What would happen if we wrote instructions for the reader to rearrange the pieces? Would that change the language we might use? What new knowledge might we need?

Kites Inquiry - Part Three

Is it just a Christchurch thing that we won't get a lot of wind in Winter time?

We've only been able to get outside once or twice with suitable kite flying conditions. Most of us have finished our kites, but we just need to collect flight evidence and finish our documentation.

Despite some weather frustrations, it has been a great inquiry. We've learned a lot, not only about physical forces and change, but also about planning, managing and documenting a personal investigation.

Here's some footage we've collected so far. We'll post more media when we can...

Time - Filling In The Gaps

This term we've looked at several types of measurement. In many ways, improving our knowledge of measurement has helped us to gain a better understanding of our inquiry investigations.

One thing we know we can measure is 'time'. However, with some honest discussion we've found that some of us really struggle to tell the time, while a large number of children have no problem with it at all. This is before we've undertaken many specifically 'time-related' maths investigations this year.

While we had a multi-strand problem solving challenge set up this morning for most children, we also had a couple of special groups running. These groups were run by individual children who considered themselves 'time experts'. Any children who felt they needed to fill in some knowledge gaps and had some questions they wanted answering were able to 'drop-in' to these special groups.

Judging by our conversations afterwards, the groups were valuable to those children who opted in to them. Some interesting questions were raised that could lead into great inquiries alone (e.g. "Why don't we just have ten hour days?" - It would make things easier, wouldn't it?).

Learner response: How does being able to tell the time enable you as a learner?

Kites Inquiry - Part Two

Kites Inquiry - Part One

Simple Machines

Check out our video from Friday's assembly. We've been investigating simple machines. How could what we have learned help us to make predictions about a machine many of us know very well?

Learner Licences

These play an important part in developing a culture of learning in our classroom. They allow us to identify learning role models, as well as giving us a clear vision of what great learners do.

Learner licences are not necessarily for 'high-achieving' children. They recognise those who always display a love of learning and attitudes that we truly value. Their peers have identified them as having these characteristics. An achievement to take great pride in.

Writing Process - Information Reports

We are well underway with our report writing focus.

How will we know when we have written an information report that ticks all the boxes?

This week we've been developing a better understanding of the process required. Beginning with asking the right questions and developing an understanding of the topic, through to the editing and sharing stages, we've been working our way through a step-by-step process.

This pyramid has been a guide to our learning this week. The reflective questions at each stage have provided a point for daily discussion...

In taking ownership of our learning, we have been using our general class writing process to keep track of the stage we are at. This emphasises editing routines, something we are working hard on, where we self-edit, peer-edit, then communicate that we are ready for a teacher conference (in green).

We are looking forward to sharing more of our writing in a range of mediums. 

Technology Challenge: Aircraft

With our cricket team away and various other activities happening on Friday afternoon, a small group of us undertook a technology challenge.

The focus for this was around teamwork. Before we started, we discussed questions like, "What happens if you have different ideas to your peers?", "How do I get people to listen to my ideas?" and "What is the difference between showing leadership and being bossy?"

Although we would have liked more time to work on our designs (as the time limit was a bit short), we thought we worked well in our teams, as you can see in some footage of the task. Excuse the sound of workmen and their chainsaws cutting back some trees in the background...

Traits Of A Great Learner - What Do We Think?

We often speak about the characteristics of great learners. Especially as we evaluate and reflect on each week, recording our weekly highlights and challenges, as well as determining how well we managed our learning on a self-management scale. But what are we working towards? Do we really know the skills and attitudes we require to be great learners? This activity gave us a clearer perspective on the traits we collectively value.

First, we had a think-pair-share about the positive traits we believe great learners have. After sharing our ideas, we looked back on our blog to see what Room 14's class of 2013 said in a similar activity. Then we each wrote down 3 of the traits that we thought were most valuable to a learner and put our lists in a box.

Here is a word cloud showing the results. Traits appear larger the more times they were written in the box...

This graphic will be on display in our classroom and will help with our weekly goal setting and evaluations.

Steps To Success - Term One

Each term, we will be identifying one skill and one attitude that we will be looking to master in order to make some big steps to success as learners.

These are different to our weekly goals, which are more 'baby steps' you could say, as they have a short-term focus and can be evaluated every Friday. The goals we came up with today are more significant. We had time to think carefully and then discuss ideas with our peers, making sure that our goals are appropriate and challenging.

Here are some of the goals we have come up with this morning...