Homework Photo Challenge - perfect timing!

Here are the entries to this week's homework challenge.  Remember to send them to me by 9am Friday morning to be in with a chance to win $100 snidges - the votes will be cast over the weekend and the winner revealed on Monday.

Thomas - "Rugby Dog"

Sophie - "Jumper"

Sophie S - "Gemma going really fast."

Aleisha - "Bindi the jungle girl."

Rebbeca - "Digging for Gold (in the snow)"

Ben W - "Cat Yawn"

Per(uuuuur)fect Timing

Do you like this photo?  It was taken by Ben W on his ipad at home and he emailed it to me this morning.  This is his cat taking some time out on their couch.

It got me thinking - are you great at taking pictures?  The secret to this photo (I think) by Ben is that the head is in focus and the timing is fantastic.

Let's have a photo challenge for the week!  The best photo, emailed to me by Friday, 9am and posted on our blog, as voted by us, will win $100 snidges!  The theme will be perfect timing (you don't have to have a cat theme...I think the internet has plenty of cat photos) and you'll do well if it captures people's attention in some way.

So - get snapping and have fun!

Young Leaders Reflections

Have you read what we've written about the Young Leaders Trip?  There are some great reflections on our kidblogs and here are some links to two that showed the impact it has had.

It's great to see parents commenting our posts, too.  What a great way to join in the learning that's happening with your student!

Is learning cool?

Today we used a stem chart to dig into what learning means for us.  We started by using a word association game for the word 'tree'.  We had to write three words that came to mind, and then words about those words and so on.

Once we had the 'knack' we did the same with the word, 'learning.'  Then we associated words with those words until our stems were quite chock-a-block.  Here are some of our stem charts...

Next we looked at our stem charts and made a summary statement starting with, 'Learning to me means...'  It was really interesting to hear the different responses and how differently we all see learning.  Some of us really liked learning and achieved great success while a few others had quite negative things to say about learning.

Then we talked about why some liked it and some didn't - why are there happy learners and unhappy learners.  It all came down to us!  This chart we made below showed us that our attitude and choices determine how much we achieve and succeed at school - no matter how smart we are.

 The last discussion we had, which got quite philosophical, was about whether we thought the happy learner was 'cool' or not and many of us thought that they were not!  It's interesting that for a lot of our class (mostly boys), the coolest person was the unhappy learner.  "It's cool to not like school."  "I don;t want to be a geek!"  I thought this was pretty sad that some of us thought that way and we'll be looking at ways we can change this thinking over the next few weeks.

I finished the session with something to think about.  I shared with everyone that when we leave school this perception of who is cool changes.  People who learn and try their best are the ones who have the most opportunities and can do what they want in life.  They get to achieve their goals and live their passion.  This gives them opportunities and life long learners have the world at their finger tips - now THAT'S cool!

What do you think?  This would make a GREAT discussion at the dinner table...  Please comment below or on our recorded message service on the right hand side of the blog.

Why did Maori and the British sign a treaty?

We're going to watch this series from the TVNZ about how Te Tiriti came about over the next few days.  Watch closely and use your 'synthesizing' skills to pice together answers to our questions;

 - why did the British create a treaty?
 - why did the Maori sign it?
 - what did it mean for maori?
 - what did it mean for the British and everyone else?

Synthesizing!

We're still learning how to 'synthesize' when we read - this helps us make conclusions about what we're learning about NZ history and the different cultures we have here.

This poster gives us a visual reminder of how we synthesize.  We'll use this link to dig a little deeper and even further in our small groups.

Ta Moko

The Year 5s made these amazing Ta Moko while the rest of us were at the Young Leaders Conference.  Ms Duncan helped them understand what the Moko represent and the significance of them for Maori, both in the past and today.  Great job, Year 5s!

BYOD Trial - so far so great!

Our BYOD trial for the term has ended for the first week. Below you can see the 'stem chart' of some issues as potential solutions we came up with on Wednesday. Two new ideas came from our discussion -

1.  It will be important for every family bringing a device to ensure that their contents insurance covers the protection of that device at school.  Most insurance policies do but it is worth noting.

2.  We discussed what 'personal use' means.  Does this include having another student helping me on my device count?  We thought it would as it's hard to work collaboratively and not share a device.  This will ONLY be under supervision by the owner, though.

Some other reflections by the class have been frustrations with the wireless connection - it's been very slow this week (due to a number of factors) and we're looking at solutions to speed things up.  We also think it's great having a device there, ready to use when ever we need one - even if you don't have your own.  The ratio of students to devices in our class today was 1:2 (compared with 1:4).  It made is super easy to get access to our blogs!

If you have any thoughts, suggestions or questions that may come up over the next few weeks, please talk, email or comment on this post.  This trial is our chance to discover the 'tweaks' and work ons.  We'll keep you posted over the next few weeks!

Bulletin!

What happened to the land?

The land ownership in NZ changed dramatically when Europeans started arriving.  Watch this video and see the changes over the years.

Create a skit, drama, poster, oral story of the main points from this video.