Class padlet - facts about New Zealand animals

Created with Padlet

Children's Learning Blogs

The children are all able to get to the middle school's learning site where they have personal access to all of their learning. Here they can make copies of presentations or documents for their own use and revisit learning we have done as a group or  a whole class. Also on one of the button links (our amazing blogs) they can access their personal blogs. These blogs are being used this year as portfolios, where learning is displayed both from end of term assessments and ongoing posts by children. Please ask your child to show you what they have on the blog and to talk to you about some of what they are learning and any improvements that could be made.
Click on this link to go to the Middle School Google Site for Learning for 2015 - Link

The children spontaneously got into the shape of a poppy while waiting to do poppy mosaics with Janet Keen for our ANZAC memorial.

Athletics Sports at JPC

 St Mary's School Athletics Sports 2014 at JPC

On Friday we had a highly successful Athletics Sport's day at the great venue of JPC. Everyone had a fun day participating or cheering on members of their own house group.








Mill Hill rocked in the house chants.

 The trees provided welcome shade from the sun.

Will Florence finishing strongly again.

Willem shows that participation counts as well.

 Lots of cheering went on during the house races.

We all know who the most awesome house is !??!

Waiting for your turn and getting the right technique are both important to success in the events.

Hailstorm

 Hailstorm

Last week Room 6s Athletics' practice was rudely interrupted by a sudden hailstorm, which dumped a large amount of hail on the ground. As you can see below the children had a whale of a time, once the hail stopped, running around in it, collecting it and of course throwing it at each other. These sorts of events are also good opportunities for further learning. The children could discuss or research how hail is formed in weather systems or write a recount or 'moment in time' description about the experience. 

Maori

Maori in Room 6 in 2014

Room 6 are a little lucky in the fact that Mr Bach is able to teach them a little French, as well as Maori, for their second language learning throughout the year. The children also received a little Maori language, culture and art teaching from our regular class relievers, Mrs Hall and Mrs Kusabs, in earlier terms. This term Mr. Bach has switched the language focus back on Maori and the children are learning greetings including a more formal greeting or introduction of yourself, called a mihi. A mihi traditionally recites who you, your family and your tribe are, where you come from and some of the things that are meaningful to you such as a nearby mountain or river. The children all completed their own mihi on a Google Doc and will be presenting them to the class. 

Click on this link to see Mr. Bach's mihi on a Google Doc -  Mihi Link.

Google Presentation

Google Presentation is one of the programmes that the children can choose to use on Drive to present learning or to prepare for an assembly or other whole school activity. Presentation is similar to power-point but is easier to use, even when installing images and videos. Like all the Google programmes everything is saved automatically as you go into The Cloud, a very useful feature when working with forgetful and impatient children.

Here is a presentation created by Joshua and Jake in Room 6 for school assembly.

Key competencies

 Key Competencies

As part of a general education, the New Zealand curriculum requires the teaching, learning and practising of five key competencies. The one Mr. Bach emphasises the most to students, as the key to all learning, is Self Management. Some students aren't learning because they struggle to focus, listen, carry out instructions, work independently for periods of time or understand the concept of time and place for different activities in life. The other four key competencies are Participating and contributing,  Relating to others, Thinking and Using Language Symbols and Texts.

Above - Room 6 show good self management skills during assembly.







Right and Below -
Room One students display the key competency of Participating and Contributing by taking part in assembly.