Monday Maths Madness

Our week started with a mathematical bang!  We spent our morning block immersed in a range of different math problems.  We split into groups across the senior syndicate and got our brains into gear while we tried to solve a variety of different problems.  Best of all we had loads of equipment to use to investigate and work out these problems.  Here are a few of the action shots from the day.

Graphic scores and musical storytelling

This afternoon Room 8 were very lucky to have Miss McGrath in to help with music.  The focus of the lesson was on sequencing and retelling a common story.  In small groups students designed a graphic score to help represent the sounds that they created with music.  This is shown below in the photo.

With the help of a conductor they then retold the story.  You can watch it in the video below.  Be sure to leave us some positive, thoughtful and helpful feedback.

Ako Hiko - student led toolkits

The second annual Ako Hiko student led toolkits were held today at Hay Park School.  12 eager students from our Year 5/6 syndicate joined representatives from the other 7 Ako Hiko schools for a day of fun, learning and collaboration.

Students had the chance to sign up to three different sessions last week to experience some of the amazing skills, hits, tips and tricks other students were willing to share. From Tinker-Cad to Makey-makeys to coding to storybird to google drawings there was something for everyone! Our students thoroughly enjoyed their new learning as well as connecting with other students in the cluster.
Ricky and Lily from Room 8 presented "Code studio in the class Room" in the first round of toolkits, then Safa from Room 8 and Izzy from Room 9 shared "Creating shared books and yearbooks using google drawings". The third and final session was a chance for all 12 participants to enjoy some more learning.  We had an amazing day and had the chance to learn lots of new things and about ourselves as well.  Thank you to Hay Park School, Mrs Archer and everybody else involved in the organisation of this day!

Sharing our Sharing

Week Four was an exciting and extremely busy week for Room 8!

 On Monday we had our normal cybersmart session with James, then joined up with the senior syndicate for the different aspects of production rehearsal in the afternoon.  Tuesday saw a selection of us out representing Waikowhai at tackle and ripper rugby.  On Wednesday we rotated our way around the hall in Gymnastics.  Some Year 6's investigated the Waikowhai Intermediate Day while some Year 5s helped out with the Spark Volunteer day by pitching in to beautify our school.  Finally on Friday we had students participate in our local community panel.

On top of these activities we managed to compile and share our learning at our assembly on Friday.  You will see the wonderful things we have working on embedded in our Google slide. Check out what we have been doing and please leave us a comment if you want to find out about anything we have shared or any of the activities above.  We love your feedback!

What is a quality blog comment?

Room 8 were extremely excited to see James again for our regular cybersmart session.  Today we were working on creating a quality blog comment within the Learn-Create-Share cycle.  This skill is extremely valuable as we continue to grow our online presence and digital footprints.

Our first task was to 'create' by contributing to the padlet embedded below.  James challenged us to describe all the things that we might see in a quality blog comment.

Created with Padlet

We then focused on "Learn". By reading examples of quality blog comments and viewing two relevant videos we were even more knowledge about commenting.  If you would like to find out more these resources are available on our cybersmart page in the first "smart relationships" section. With new knowledge on board we revisited and reflected upon our padlet contribution to make any changes. We say proudly that we had lots of great ideas in our first attempt and only had to make minor adjustments.

Then it was time to "Share", our favourite part.  We were challenged to use the quality blog post rubric to describe and share our learning. While we are getting better at sharing, the next learning step for many of us is to give more detail on our individual blogs so our audience can gain plenty of information, enough for them to leave us a quality comment. 

If you would like to find out more about Room 8's individual thoughts please check out our individual blogs.  We love positive, thoughtful and helpful comments and feedback and we are working hard to respond to you too!