Sustainability -Term 2 Concept

 Our concept this term at St Mary's is ‘Sustainability’. Children will learn what difference they can make to their immediate environment. We will focus on sustainable gardens and recycling will also be part of the programme. Middle School children will be using the school gardens, looking after the chickens, recycling scraps, running a worm farm and trying very hard to persuade others to do the same.

 The middle school has exclusive access to the school garden's this term and room 6's day in the garden is Wednesday. In class we will be talking about sustainable practices and why sustainability is important but on Wednesday's we are allowed to get our hands dirty weeding the gardens, getting the scraps from the chickens and keeping an eye on the worm farm.

 The children enjoyed their first afternoon in the garden and found lots of fascinating things to talk about. Tae'o and Misty in particular seem really keen to share something with Mr. Bach.







The children were not scared to get stuck in weeding the gardens and looking for insect pests on the leaves.

 Some caterpillars were found on some of the cabbage leaves but with autumn upon us there should be no more butterflies laying eggs.

 This week Poppy also shared something very interesting for news. She brought a large abandoned nest from last summer, probably made by a larger bird like a blackbird or starling. Interestingly among the twigs and leaves used to build the nest was a piece of plastic rubbish.

Koby was also lucky enough this week to receive a special prize at assembly for his holiday reading. He won one of the main prizes - a book voucher. Well done Koby.

Maths in Room 6

Maths in Room 6

Maths in Room 6 is done for usually one hour every day, bright and early in the morning during the first block, before morning tea.

In Room 6 have a rotation system in place where children are grouped according to their current needs and abilities and then go through a range of activities and exercises during the one hour of maths. These exercises and activities are to support the teaching and learning of maths knowledge and number strategies by Mr Bach.

The first stage of the rotation is learning on the mat with Mr. Bach where we practice our basic facts a little and then learn a new number strategy, or talk about one we are still learning. 

At present we are learning strategies to help us with addition and subtraction.

We use materials and the interactive whiteboard to help us learn.

 Children will then work independently in the next stage of the rotation to practise the strategy that they are learning by doing book work. Worksheets will often have the strategy explained on them, and when we are lucky Miss James is often around to assist. 

 Children in the same group will often help each other with their learning, especially when the strategy seems hard to understand the first time.

 Another stage in the rotations is practising basic facts on the computers through particular websites, especially Tutpup and Studyladder. Studyladder can also help children with their strategies.
i-Pads are also used to practice basic facts.

 Veronica concentrates hard on her book work.

 Lucille tries to practise the new strategy that she has just learned.

 Malia and her classmate use play money to help them with their maths learning.

 Naina and Veronica are practising adding strategies that use tidy tens or splitting numbers by using place value (the chainsaw strategy).

Ria shows clearly how she has used one strategy to work out the addition problems.












This term we have also been learning about statistics and how the basic statistical investigation works. Find a problem - Do a survey - Record your answers in a tally chart - Put your data into a graph - Talk about what information the graph is telling us.
Children are at various stages in being able to follow this process.

 Life Education

On Friday last week room 6 were lucky enough to have a second learning session with Bernie and Harold the Giraffe in the Life Education truck.

Children learned about the functions and locations of some of the organs in the human body and got to play doctors for the day. Bernie also talked to us about how to treat others around us and how to avoid and protect ourselves against bullying behaviour.

 The children had great fun identifying the organs in the human body and placing them on 'Suzie' in the right place and position. Everyone was keen to be chosen to play doctor. Only those on their absolute best behaviour got chosen, although as usual some children did miss out.

 Doctor Naina and Doctor Tyler try to work out what an organ is and where it goes on Suzie. If the doctors couldn't work it out then they asked the audience to put their hands up to answer.








Angelina is keen to be chosen as a doctor.

 Harold came out to talk to us at the end and to remind us of all the learning we had been doing. Harold tried to convince Bernie he had been behaving and not watching too much 'Sponge Bob Squarepants. Bernie wasn't too sure if she could believe him.









The children creep forward to get a better look at Harold.

 Bernie and Harold are amazed by all the stars on the ceiling of the truck.

Willem is lucky enough to get up close to Harold and meet him. He pats Harold and gives him a hug. Because they have been so well behaved during learning at Life Education, Harold agrees that everyone can come and greet him personally and give him a pat or a hug.

Reading in Room 6

 Reading in Room 6 

Children are told from the first day that after improving self management the most important thing they can do to help learning in all areas is to READ.

Children are encouraged to read whenever they have a spare moment during the day. Room 6 have silent reading time for 5-15 minutes straight after lunch. Mr Bach always has a chapter book (usually Roald Dahl at the beginning of the year) that he is reading to the class. He also uses Big Books to read to the class and to use during group work.

 During instructional reading time the children work in their groups and go through different activites on a rotational basis. Children read with Mr Bach on the mat at least every second day and discuss different word decoding or comprehension strategies. We also look at different words to build the children's vocabulary. On some days children are expected to demonstrate independence and either read their stories to a buddy or read silently at their desks, or on the mat.

 During other parts of the rotations children will complete worksheets, do an activity or play a literacy game on the i-Pads, read from a CD-ROM  or do a literacy activity online using the computer.

 Room 6 children seem to enjoy reading to their buddies. In this way we cooperate and help each other with our learning.

 Room 6 also now has two Mac laptop computers to go with our 6 computer workstation.

 There are plenty of areas around the room to work during reading. We make use of all our space.

 Children are sometimes allowed the privilege of completing worksheets on the mat rather than at their desks.

  

 On some days children will read their stories in their heads. As children become more able readers the best and most relaxed way for them to read is silently in their heads, as this allows the children to process information without having to consider pronunciation, or worry about unknown words.

Room 6 also has 45 minutes of library time each week. Our library TIME is Tuesday from 11:45-12:30. Mrs O'Leary has a fantastic library set up for us and is always doing exciting things. Children are encouraged to take a challenging book out each week, to take home, or to read during silent reading time.

Check out Mrs O'Leary's 'cool' promotional idea.

Swimming 2013 - St Mary's School Pool

Room 6 PE for Term One -  Swimming 

 In Room 6 we have swimming on even numbered weeks. We get instruction on developing the skills necessary to be confident in the water and to perform the freestyle swimming stroke. We have had an excellent turn out of swimmers in the first couple of weeks with swimmer numbers in the 20s every day. Keep it up Room 6 children by remembering to bring your togs again this week as it is week 4 - an even numbered week.

Parents please not only remind your children but encourage them to self manage and remember by themselves to get their own togs ready.It does not matter if children can't swim yet as our school pool is shallow and we would just like to increase children's confidence in water.

After our 20-25 minutes of swimming instruction we get to have free time for 5 minutes before we have to get out. We are allowed to play with balls, flutter boards and flotation tubes, or we just play with each other.

 Tom, Ryan and Josh wrestle over a volleyball in the water.








Charis gives her best Hollywood smile for the camera

 Willem, Patrick and other children play by themselves.







Oh no! The boys have spotted the camera and decide that sharing is caring. Nice smiles boys.

Welcome Back - from David Bach - Room 6 Teacher 2013

Welcome to the Official Class Blog of Room 6, St Mary's Catholic School Rotorua. 
In 2013 I intend to make this blog the home page for communication with parents and caregivers about what is happening in Room 6 and around the school generally. With words and photos we can also celebrate the children's learning and discuss special trips and visits that we may undertake. Hopefully we can get the children blogging away with their own posts as the year progresses.

I will write a letter at some stage soon, for all parents and caregivers, introducing myself and my teaching philosophy. I will post the letter here and send a hard copy home with the children.

To get a response the same day, the best way to contact me is through my school email address, which is:
david@stmarys.rotorua.school.nz     - note no b after the David as it was once recorded.
For truly urgent matters I am happy for you to contact me through my cellphone, please come and see me to receive my mobile phone number.
And of course I have an open door policy so you can come and see me in person at any time for urgent matters, otherwise after school from Wednesday onwards are the best times to come in - or email me for a meeting time. Mornings are usually a very busy time, so please try to avoid them except for urgent or quick matters.

As you can see from the photo above I have a family of my own. Contrary to a popular myth that circulated around the school for awhile I am not French, but my wife Betty is French, my children are bilingual and  I speak (mostly) fluent French.
I have been a keen fly fisherman all my life but I have recently discovered kayak trout fishing and am now able to combine exercise with my favourite activity.

This is my second year teaching in the middle school and I can honestly say I am looking forward to returning to teach children of this age again, hopefully all keen and ready to progress with their learning in 2013.

 Room 6 had a simply awesome first day of school for 2013. The temperature wasn't too hot today.

 I must say that Room 6 are looking like a fantastic bunch of eager learners, ready to make excellent progress. I suspect that they are all keen readers too - or they will be soon with Mr. Bach's enthusiasm for reading.

Today we learnt that the best way to become a better learner is to improve our self management. We learnt that it is up to us to look after our own lives and take responsibility for our own behaviour and actions.