Our 21st Century digital classroom!!

Although we have 3 i-pads in our class everyday and we use them everyday, we still rely on our books for reading, writing and doing our maths a lot of the time.

For the last week of term I thought it would be a good challenge for me (and great fun and learning for the kids!!) to see how close we can get to a full 'digital classroom', where our learning is done on digital devices as much as possible!!

To do this I have used the STUDYLADDER site to allocate e-books and literacy activities (as well as the usual maths games) for each child. Please log in at home to do your child's reading online each night!! You may learn a thing or two with your child!

I have also juggled our daily schedule to get the laptops for our reading time and borrowed 4 more i-pads from Room 4. Thanks Miss McPhee!!! Thanks to the co-operation of other staff we are all able to read on the laptops and i-pads and also use them for writing and maths!!

The kids have also found that they have to problem solve as the devices sometimes don't work as we want them to... they have learnt to ask each other for help and share the little 'tricks' and 'fixes' that they have learnt with each other

Great work Room 3, you are all truly 21st century learners!!!

Homework Challenge winner "L"

This weeks Homework Challenge winner was Jai, for his lovely presentation on his little 1 year old brother. He won because of the great last line of his writing, "I think my little brother is the man".

Well done, Jai!!

Homework Challenge: "Chain Story"

Many years ago, in a small village at the foot of the Ruahine Ranges, lived a brave warrior named Rangi. One day Rangi went hunting with his dog Paru for some wild pig. They hunted long and hard all day but could not track a single wild pig. Rangi and his dog Paru were getting tired, hungry, cold and wet as the grey clouds sat over the ranges and started to cry with rain.

Our Animations

Below are the finished animations, well done everyone for your hard work, teamwork and problem solving over the week!!!

Our movie making week!!

This week we are integrating a range of curriculum areas into 3 large group projects. They are:

1) Hickory Dickory Dock animation movie

2) Incy Wincy Spider animation movie

3) The Hare & the Tortoise animation movie (transformers version)

In three groups, the kids will have to plan, write, film and edit a stop motion animation movie based on their Nursery Rhyme or Tale.

How do we integrate the school curriculum?

- Reading is integrated by watching, reading, understanding and responding to the texts
- Writing is integrated by planning, brainstorming language and using written and/or oral language to present their movies to their audience
- Maths is integrated by using their learning around position & orientation to 'direct' their characters through the setting (a clock, a water spout, a race track)
- Visual Art / Technology are integrated as the medium for communicating, creating and presenting their learning

Here are some 'behind the scenes' shots of our learning!!!

The Homework Challenge winner "K"

This week we did the letter "K" for our homework challenge.

As expected we saw a lot of presentations on Kiwi, Kangaroos and Kittens.

The winner was our new student, Alexis, who told us all about her kitten. Well done Alexis!!

Learning about "Position & Orientation" (We love maths!!!)

At the moment we are learning about direction, position and orientation. Today for fun we directed our classmates through a maze in the classroom (after first practicing on paper mazes!!).

It was great fun and we got from one seat to the other without any injuries!!

We are learning a lot of new vocabulary and language to describe direction such as left, right, quarter-turn, half-turn, forward, backwards, reverse, between, in front of, behind, inside, outside  etc...

Maybe you could play this kind of game at home? In the park? Anywhere!!? You could pretend to be a robot, or even a zombie (Like Jai in his clip below!!)

Enjoy, and thanks for watching!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Homework Challenge winner "J"

Congratulations (Omedetou Gozaimasu) to Chimari for her excellent Homework Challenge on "J'. She did Japan, the country her parents are from.

We all loved to hear about the places you have been in Japan, we can all learn about the wider world from each others experiences. Thank you Chimari!!

Elmo's Weekend with Ava 1st and 2nd June 2014

It looks like Elmo had a very busy weekend! Below are some photos of a disco that Elmo went to with Ava!!  I hope you practiced some of your Hip Hop moves Ava!!