Week 4 Tagul wordclouds

This week we worked on some bullyfree activities to support our learning after the pink shirt mufti day that we had last Friday.

We talked about different emotions we might feel and we watched some videos that talk about how we can deal with bullying situations. One thing that we talked about as a class was that it is really important to be able to share how we are feeling (good or bad) because it means we can reach out for help if we need it.

The learn part of our challenge was to individually come up with at least one emotion for each letter of the alphabet. We listed these in an a-z activity in our language books so they were handed when we started to create.  The a-z is also available here on our syndicate site.  Then, to create we made word clouds in the shapes of emojis to present these emotions.  The site is really easy to use and you can access it here - www.tagul.com.

Below are some examples of our creations, to find out more please check out our individual blogs where people share their own understanding behind the wordclouds.

Waikowhai Intermediate Writing Buddies

Tena Koutou.

To end our exciting first week back we were lucky enough to have a visit from our Waikowhai Intermediate writing buddies.  Last term we started some online shared writing.  Our buddies at Waikowhai Intermediate gave us some feedback about our writing and since then we have also connected to write a shared piece together about a picture prompt.


It was very exciting to meet our buddies and put a face to the name and the person we had been communicating with online. It was especially great to connect with some of the students who were previous Waikowhai Primary Students.


Throughout the session we found out about the learning maps of our older colleagues and then we spent some time crafting a new piece of writing together.  At the end of our session some of the very brave students decided to share.


We look forward to working together to create stunning pieces of writing.  Keep an eye out on our individual blogs to read the things that we are creating and sharing together as we connect with other students in our community.

Please leave us some positive, thoughtful or helpful feedback and ask us any questions to connect with us too.

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!

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!