Welcome back to Term 3

Welcome back to Term 3 for 2013. Hopefully children are all rested from their break and ready for some learning. Opposite is a small selection of some of the creations of several children - Charis, Veronica, Vincent, Mele, Malia and Misty - on the 'Book Creator' app on the iPads. I could only choose the ones which were named, so I am able give credit to the authors. There are a few more  exceptional ones I could put up at some later date if the authors can find the creation, name it and then tell me it is ready to go up. Some creations could also do with a bit of editing. 

  

 These creations were developed as part of last terms concept of sustainability. This term our concept is enterprise. We will be looking at what enterprise and enterprising mean and what makes an enterprising person. Perhaps we could see some Book Creator creations on this topic soon!?

Children's author - Terri Rose Baynton

 Children's author - Terri Rose Baynton

A couple of weeks ago Room 6 children were lucky enough to go to the hall to see visiting children's author Terri Rose Baynton. She talked to us a little about how she became an author and about the latest book she has just had published. Terri then gave an interesting lesson on how to get ideas for your story writing and drew some very funny illustrations on the whiteboard. Thank you Terri.

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.

Communities - Term One Concept

 Communities Concept

The Term One Concept at St Mary's School in 2013 is Communities. The children looked at different types and sizes of human communities and how they function. The children also looked at the roles and responsibilities of everyone living in various communities. They learned that the word  'interdependence' means everybody relies on everybody else in any community.

The children then learned about ant communities and how they work and compared them to bee communities.

The children completed a compare and contrast map to plan their writing assessment and then wrote about the similarities and differences between ant and bee communities.

Some children are also preparing information boards using the Comic Life app on the i-Pads.

 The children helped research information about bee and ant communities and this information was displayed in posters.






 One interesting thing that we learned is that ants are very strong for their size. They can lift up to ten times their own weight. That is like Mr Bach lifting ten adults above his head. Actually he can only lift nine!!!!!!?

 Ants can farm aphids for the honeydew (liquid food) that oozes out of the aphids backs. In return the ants protect the aphids from predators, including fighting off larger ladybirds.The aphids are free to drink sap from the plant to eat themselves and provide more honeydew for hungry ants. The ants and aphids rely on each other.

 Bees are also interesting insects that live in large communities like ants. Unlike ants, all bees fly and when a worker bee finds a special pollen or nectar source she performs a dance to tell other bees. The type of dance tells the other bees in what direction and how far away to fly to find the pollen.

We also learned that the Maori for communities is He Hapori and that the various levels in the Maori community are very important to the health and the flow of life in the Maori world.

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.

Writing Time in Room 6

Writing Time in Room 6  

Most writing in Room 6 takes place over two days. The children are learning that writing is a process that takes time and careful thought. 

Writing begins on the first day with a whole class lesson on the mat, where the rules and structures of writing and the techniques of various genres (types) of writing are discussed and modelled. On the mat we also talk about vocabulary, punctuation, spelling and the importance of writing in clear sentences so the reader can understand our writing.

Children are taught that the key to learning in writing is self management - children managing their own behaviour during writing time and taking responsibility for their own learning.

After the lesson on the mat children return to their desks to begin planning their writing, and then writing the first sentences of their piece of writing.
Mr Bach and Miss James circulate among the children helping them with their plan and writing clear sentences from their plan. Children may also need reminding of today's particular learning intention.


On the first day children continue writing until the end of the session being constantly encouraged to read back over their work for sense and clear sentences with capital letters and fullstops. Mr Bach and Miss James continue to give assistance throughout. Some children are beginning to type up their writing on the computer and these will be shown in later blog posts.

On the second day the children finish their piece of writing, read over it for sense, capital letters and fullstops and anything else that the writing should have.

The children follow this by self assessing against the solo rubric on the interactive whiteboard, for whichever type of writing they have been doing. This self assessment allows them to see how they could improve their writing this time or next, and it also increases self management.





Children strive to become 'Relational' writers who structure and link their ideas, use punctuation and check their work rather than 'Multistructural' writers who are able to just write several ideas and give their book to the teacher.

 Our children look mighty proud that they are using the writing process of plan - write - check and self assess. They are using the solo rubric to check their own writing and finding what to do next to get better at their writing.

Koby






Angelina







Veronica

Patrick

Ryan

Josh

Naina

Mele

Vincent

Joseph