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.

Holidays are over

Spring Holiday Fun

Mr Bach thoroughly enjoyed his break and despite the strong winds was able to catch a few trout, including the 10lb monster on the left from the Ohau Channel. The fishing season opened on October 1st for many spots around Rotorua and the weather has at least been warmer. Mr Bach is all refreshed and ready to attack a last term for 2014. Hopefully children are also rested and ready to learn some more. There are some children who are so close to achieving at the national standard and one more term's concerted effort could be all they need to get there.

Relating to others

Relating to Others

One of the Key Competencies in the NZ curriculum is Relating to Others. This can be in a social sense but also includes relating to their classmates appropriately during learning. In Room 6 we have found that Google apps has been very helpful in giving children the opportunity to collaborate on documents in real time, with each child on their own device. Children have been discussing how to make a document or presentation with their collaborators and deciding who does what on a particular project. This is great experience in real life collaborating and relating to others on a more professional or formal level. Problems need to be resolved, including conflicts between collaborators.

 

Library Time Room 6

 Room 6 - Library

Room 6 has its library time on Tuesdays from 11:45-12:30. As you can see there are lots of different choices made by students as to what they do at the library. The only condition is that it must involve books and children must read their own book for at least some of the time while they are there.

Room 6 Assembly

 Assembly

Room 6 was on assembly duty again a couple of weeks ago and a number of children got the chance to read in front of the school. This is always a great opportunity for children to get experience of talking in front of an audience and gain in confidence as a result. Unfortunately, in his excitement, Mr Bach forgot to take any photos, so I have included a few snaps of Room 14's wonderful performance that was part of their assembly a while ago.