Time to Reflect on Term 1!

Hi Room 32,

We are in Week 9 and we now have four more days until the end of term. I thought this was a good time to reflect on our term.

1. What did you enjoy most in the term? Why?

2. What did you enjoy doing most in the classroom? Why?

3. What have you found hard in your learning this term? Explain.

4. What are you most pleased with in your learning? Why?

5. Tell us one thing you would like to learn about in Term 2.

Blog Buddies

In Room 32 we are learning about writing good comments. We decided that it would be a good idea to get some blog buddies. That way we have other people commenting on our work as well.

Here is the list of our blog buddy groups:

Fabulosos: Roman, Taylor, Lachlan, Olivia, Sivan

Awesomes: Madison, Beth, Arjun, Oscar, Donovan

Spectaculars: Elizabeth, Eve, Emily, Mustafa, Tishaan

Bestest: Archie, Sean, Zachary, Lexy, Izzy

Incredibles: Hannah, Livi, Maire, Ella, Sora

Fantastics: Jax, Tony, Freya, Charlotte, Jacob

I am looking forward to reading what you guys have to say to each other, Room 32. Remember we start a conversation with people. Go back and look at the blog commenting/netiquette post.

Don't forget that you can still go and comment on other people's blogs as well. 

A glimpse of EOTC week

Hi everyone,

I am sorry Room 32 didn't have too much to post in the last two weeks. We have been so busy with our amazing EOTC (Education outside the Classroom) week. We are all still pretty tired but we are coming up with some amazing writing about our trips. I am looking forward to reading what my students have to say.

Here is a photo slideshow of the great time we had.

Rangitoto by Hannah

Hi everyone, 

I am always so impressed when someone from my class starts writing in their blog independently. Here is a great post by Hannah about our day at Rangitoto. Well done! 

You can find Hannah's blog here: http://room32hannah.blogspot.co.nz/

Up Rangitoto ......... TIRING!!!!

Today it was our big first day of EOTC Week!!! Do you remember what we were going to do? Well, if you got it right then you will have said or thought "Let's go up Rangitoto." At the end of today, I'm just saying that it is well worth the effort but really tiring!!!!!!! When I say 'well worth the effort', I mean the beautiful views of the Hauraki Gulf (the ocean), the awesome mysterious volcanic landscape and dark and gloomy caves in which when you talked, it echoed like mad! Even though the hike to the top of Rangitoto was a challenge in perceverence, if you have done the even more challenging Tongariro Crossing (National Park) of 6 and a half hours then it will not have been too bad.

I have learnt a few things at Rangitoto. I will tell you about them now. Did you know that Rangitoto last erupted 600 years ago? It was caused by some dramatic explosions and Rangitoto slowly but steadily started making it's way up until it transformed into a huge mountain right in the middle of the sea. This makes it one of New Zealand's youngest mountains!!

Here I have another fact. In New Zealand, Pohutakawas are very special and looked after because it is a New Zealand native tree and it is also sometimes called a Christmas Tree, because they bloom in December which make them look very pretty! Rangitoto carries New Zealands largest Pohutakawa forest! The final fact is that in the 20th century there was a small community living in baches which were scattered along the shoreline. Permanent living has now been forbidden though.

On our walk, we spotted thousands (OK maybe I'm exaggerating just a bit) of traps! In some of them we saw dead rats or mice. The traps are there to keep the island pest free and protect native birds and plants like the kiwi and takahe.

Overall it was an amazing day and I am already looking forward to day two of the EOTC Week!

EOTC Reflection

Hi everyone,

Please copy and paste this reflection into your blog and answer the questions about our sublime EOTC week.

1. How are you feeling after EOTC week? Explain.

2. What did you enjoy most during EOTC week? Explain.

3. What was your least favourite thing about EOTC week? Explain.

4. Tell us about something new that you learned.

Citizenship by Miss Cooper

Last week I had to make an extremely hard decision - who would win the citizenship cup for Room 32. The reason this was so hard to decide was because my students are all awesome, though some of them forget this sometimes - there are many of them who are just awesome all the time.

So I decided to ask my students what makes a good citizen. We had many words pop up such as being courteous, having courage, staying on task, persisting and so much more. After this my students had to think about who their citizen was and we had a paper vote. Students were allowed to put two names on a sheet of paper - they were not meant to put their name down.

After a tally, I got to make the final decision - but honestly the tally made it for me as well (though there were other students who had many votes as well).

On Friday we tricked our lucky citizen, Hannah, by sending her and a few other students to the library on time while the rest of us wrote down all the things that made Hannah our class citizen winner. Here are some of the words that my students had to describe Hannah.

I even had 7 kids who all wanted to speak and say something about Hannah at assembly. In the end, we worked it out where these students all said one line of an acrostic poem that they made.

Well done, Hannah! You truly deserved our citizenship award.

I can't wait until next time. Who in Room 32 is going to have it then? I'm looking forward to finding out.

Swimming competition by Freya

On Monday it was swimming sports, I signed up for butterfly, freestyle 50m, I also did breaststroke.

My favourite thing at swimming sports was breaststroke.
I got into the zone, I'm  going to do breaststroke for the zones.

Swimming is a fun cool sport.

This year I was surprised  how many people did 50m freestyle.

Everyone came home tired, I guess, because we had a hot day in Sacred Heart school. It was an inside school pool. Even I was complaining about how hot it was in there. Well, not really complaining, but I did it in my head, I had to take my cape off a few times.

SPLASH! Over came a wave, well, that's one way to cool yourself down.

(Half an hour later) YAY, it's my turn! I can tell you something - that watching people swim tired me out and I wasn't even in those races.

I just can't wait until the zones. 

Week 5 by Maire

Things that I enjoyed  in week 5

1 I loved reading because you get to choose two things that are based on reading.
2. I enjoyed art because I got to draw a picture on a flag with everyone else.
3. I got to make a LOT of comics and it was awesome.

EOTC Week Reflection

Hi Room 32,

I wonder if you could copy and paste these questions and answer them in your blog. I wonder if you remember the shortcuts to get there.


1. How are you feeling about EOTC week? Explain?


2. What are you looking forward to most in EOTC week? Explain.


3. What are you not so excited about in EOTC week? Explain.


4. Is there any activity that has you feeling a bit anxious/worried? Explain why.


5. In Room 32 we are working on managing ourselves - that means being responsible and making good decisions. Tell us how you could make good decisions and be responsible during EOTC week.


6. Make 3 goals for EOTC week. They could be simple goals like I will listen to my team leader or they could be something like I will take care of my belongings.

Monday Swimming by Hannah

Miss Cooper would like to apologise to Hannah - she was meant to post this last week but Room 32 had no wireless. Here is Hannah's post from last week.

--------------------------

Swimming is coming up!!!

On Thursday everyone in the class got to choose what strokes we wanted to do but we had to choose two or more of them. I chose 50m freestyle and 25m backstroke. I find that some of the people in my class are a little crazy doing all of them.

On Monday the Year 5's and 6's go to Sacred Heart College to swim more races. I am little nervous but Mum, Dad and my sister keep on trying to reassure me. Quite a lot of people are excited a little like me. I myself like getting wet but something I do not like swimming (it depends on what I feel like that day).

Overall I do think and know that we need to know how to swim because we might fall out of a boat or a disaster might happen in the sea.

Maths Problem Solving for Week 5

In Room 32 we strive to be thinkers. We have started using the RUCSAC strategy in class.

Can anyone tell us what RUCSAC means?

This week our problem solving related to logical thinking. We found it at the Mathematics Shed but it was taken from another teacher's amazing blog.

I am very excited to see how you guys solve these problems - and the problems that you come up with as well.

Maths Week 5 Problem Solving Activity - from The Mathematics Shed

Can you create your own logic problem like this as well?

Blog Commenting

I thought we should talk some more about what a good comment is.

For those of you who don't know what the word etiquette means, it basically is a set of rules of good manners.

I found these great ideas for blog etiquette from Silvia Tolisano. She recommends:.

COMMENTING ETIQUETTE

• Acknowledge the author of the blog post - make it like a letter/email.
• Let the author know if you agree with him/her and why.
• It is also okay to disagree with something, just let the author know why you feel that way.
• One word comments are not very useful. Writing just “cool” or “nice” are not very helpful and don’t let the author of the blog post really know what you are thinking
• Always make sure you follow “netiquette”. Think if it is appropriate BEFORE you hit the submit button.
• Always be polite . It does not matter if you agree or disagree with what you are reading in a blog. Don’t write anything you would be ashamed of saying to someone’s face. Don’t hurt somebody’s feelings.

Here is the solo rubric we made in class. What do you think your comments are: Prestructural, Unistructural, Multistructural, Relational, or Extended Abstract?

20 things we should say more often

I love Kid President. He says the most awesome things.

Here is a video about 20 things we should say more often.



1. Out of these, which do you think is the best thing to say most? Explain your thinking.

2. What would your list be for "things we should say more often' in our class?

3. I wonder if you could make your own video about something like this. Share a little awesome with our class.