End of Term Highlights

Check out this awesome movie made by Thomas, Salah, Josiah and Aimen.  2013 has been the best year ever!!!

Learning a musical Instrument

I wonder if you have heard the noise coming from Room 9 lately? We have 10 guitars, 10 ukuleles, 1 bass, and 1 keyboard set up! We are learning a whole bunch of songs to perform somewhere (yet to be confirmed where!). After a guitar lesson Alex and Arlo created this video tutorial to demonstrate their learning! Awesome work boys! Looking forward to hearing the whole song!

Successful Speeches

WALHT Write and perform a speech:

Successful Speeches

The key thing about speeches is that the audience's  brain has to keep up with your ideas. If you keep giving them too many ideas in a row their brain doesn't have time to process what you are saying so that they can understand it.

Think about when your teachers are teaching you something new and you just need us to slow down or stop because we are giving you too much information at once. When you give a speech you have to stretch out your idea to give your audience's brain time to 'catch up.'

One way to do this in a speech is to follow a 'recipe' with each new idea:
1. Your introduction hooks the audience in and describes your analogy choice eg planting seeds

2. this is your first sentence and gives the audience a clue what you idea is about eg learning is like a growing seed.

3. the next 1-2 sentences elaborate on your idea by giving more detail (this part allows the audience's brain to think about what you said in the first sentence).

4. These 1-2 sentences give an example so the audience can understand your idea in different situations. You might give more than one example eg what teachers, learning tasks, other experiences relate to this analogy?

5. Add any evidence; like specific words that can support your analogy. This helps the audience to believe what you are telling them and makes your speech more convincing eg. fertilise,

6. Finish your speech by 'tying up' all these parts with your main idea by summarising your main points. This reminds your audience of your analogy and helps them to remember about your learning journey at RSS.

7. Your last sentence will be particularly powerful and relate to your anaology in a way that connects your analogy choice to learning eg. tomato sauce is the product of a successful tomato plant.

If you follow this 'recipe' with each of your main ideas of your speech it will be really powerful and more memorable.

As for performance look at Caitlin's speech from 2012. What do you notice about her stance, voice, eyes, manner etc? How does she perform her speech?

Save the Orangutans

Hey, it is Save the Orangutans Week and a student at my school has created this movie to inform the people about his quest to save Orangutans. I have just been hanging out with Liam this morning, in a monkey suit, while he spoke to the school, and then to the Manawatu Standard. His goal is to get 1000 views on youtube, let's help him get 10, 000!! Please share and check your chocolate for traces of Palm Oil. http://youtu.be/wdtQLf8M7GQ

Awesome Movie

Hey - I was astounded by the quality of learning going on in e9.  People are stepping up and rising to the challenge of making their learning amazing! Awesome role models - Josiah and Aimen!

Key Competencies Self-Assessment

I am beginning the process of compiling all of our results to write our reports.  I am interested to see where you would assess yourself. These are the questions that are in your reports: Remember to answer honestly.

STAR Results

I am very proud of our efforts e9!  We have been working so hard with our learning this year and it has paid off.  We completed our STAR (Reading Assessment) last week and have, collectively, made some great progress!

Here is the Year 5 from Term One:

Here is the Year 5 from Term Four:

Here is the Year 6 from Term One:

Here is the Year 6 from Term Four:

Well done TEAM!  I am so proud! Kia kaha!

Persuasive Writing

This week we had a Writer's Club focus on persuasive language.  Georgia chose to present hers as a movie. I love the song!

Writer's Club Focus: Personification

Snowflake

A fragile winter butterfly
Flutters from the sky
So soft and yet her heart
Is cold and made of ice
But if I warm it
She will melt and die

                      ~~~

Author:  Elaine George

Today, we used this example of personification to help us understand how it works.  Personification is when you take something that is not alive (like a snowflake) and give it life-like qualities (flutters, heart, die).  How have you used personification before?  Where have you seen it?  

Learning Specials

Here is a screenshot of a Learning Conference with Sophie, Malachi and James.  They have written a 'proposal' to show how they want to share their learning.  Great proposal guys! You are really showing that you are in control of your learning.  I am looking forward to seeing the end product.

Mid-Week Check

Here are the Learning Priorities for Literacy (Reading/Writing) and Maths.  We are halfway through the week.  How are you getting on? These are our learning priorities to be completed by Friday.

"e9" Learner centered: Learning centered

Kia ora whanau! Welcome back to Term 4.  I hope you have had a great break. Term 4 is going to be amazing! I am really looking forward to tackling all of your challenges with you.

Today we implemented a 'Mi Plan' - a self directed learning plan that empowers the learners in e9 to chose their learning pathway.  It was a great success!  I am stoked!  I enjoyed working with all of the children who chose to come to the mat for their learning.  I would love to here any feedback about how you found it?

We have been looking closely at our goals in reading, writing and maths.  I used this TV commercial to help inspire us about making goals for our learning.

If these people were learners, it's like they have come across a problem with their learning.  They're stuck.  What is their goal?  To get off the escalator.  How are they going to action it? With one step at a time (to walk).  Us in e9, need to become e(xtreme) problem solvers to overcome blocks in the road. 

So this week, you should see our learning goals have 'action steps'.  Please help your child develop learning goals within reading, writing and maths.  And talk to them about what they could do to solve a problem.  If we, as learners, don't know what our goals in learning are, then we will end up like the people unable to walk off the escalator.  Let's be amazing!

Class Dojo:

Here is a screenshot of our class dojo points. When you get 20 points, you get 10 minutes free time.  Keep it up team and remember to find your hat by the end of the week!

Using commas when writing big numbers

A Message from Nic

The Science of art

I am so proud of our efforts to put together our exhibition today.  Each person has 3 pieces to their section plus a written explanation. Here is Kaleb's explanation he wrote using the plan.  It is obvious Kaleb has thought about how he could engage his audience through his choice of language. Chur Kaleb, great job!  You'll find our exhibition outside Room 3 in the main block.

In our class we had an idea to make watercolor if you don’t know how to make watercolor read on. The w.a.l.t for us is to observe like a scientist.

We painted and crayoned all on one page and then we observed it. You wouldn’t believe how many patterns there was on the peace of paper. none of the patterns were the same not even the textures where the same. Here’s something cool when I aimed the magnifying glass on the crayon it looked like the sky with heaps of clouds.

You know how the watercolor is liquid yeah well it isn’t all the time because sooner or later the watercolor dry’s up and it evaporates into solid. then we broke up these peaces of white solid watercolor and it looked like a meringue.

first  we thought of what we would put in our watercolor to make it that color. Then we had to research a recipe to actually make it. And then we had to record it down on a peace of paper we made a list of all the ingredients and who would bring what. The scariest part was predicting what would happen because it could go terribly wrong but they all turned out great. The weird part is that one of the ingredients were cornstarch flour and we replaced it with honey or maple syrup. We made it with maple syrup vinegar eggs  food coloring baking soda bowl & spoon jars.

Then we shaded the painting so their would be dark bits and bright bits it looked awsome when we compered it with our original painting they didn’t look the same at all the one with our own color looked heaps better.

I recommend that you use the ingredients that I told you about and search up how to make the watercolor. If it doesn't work the first time try it again because scientists don’t always get it right the first time do they.

WALT Explain - using maps to plan for writing

Going through our writing samples and assessments, I have noticed that we need to do better at planning our ideas into paragraphs:

The sentences in a paragraph should all have the same idea; they should be connected.  If your paragraphs only have 2 sentences in them, you probably need to add a couple more.  Remember, all sentences don't need to be long and detailed. You can keep some of them short and sweet.

Here is an example of a fishbone map that we are using this week.  Each big bone is the "main idea" of the paragraph.  Each little bone is a sentence that connects to the main idea. We planned this together, as a class, so now you just need to follow the words around.  Each word needs a sentence or two, to explain it.

*Sorry for the typo; 'SCIENCE'

William's Writing

William has been making some great progress with his writing!  I am very proud of his progress!  Here is one of his latest stories... It is scary and funny at the same time!  Well done William :)

Grasshopper Tennis Assessment

Check out Olly's grasshopper tennis assessment.  Please use this WALT and focus questions to complete your PE portfolio sample.

What was your favourite part about Grasshopper tennis?

What was the hardest part?

Where to now? What could you do with your new skills?

Writing Assessments

Kia ora whanau, if you have checked you emails recently, you may have noticed an email from me telling you that you have been "shared into" a document called 'Writing L3' or something like that. 

These are the Russell Street School writing goals we have developed over the year.  The example below is from the Level 3 writing standard.  Over the next 2-3 months we will be using these documents to help track our writing progress.

What we are going to do is make a tally every time we complete one of the criteria.  When we reach 10 tallies next to one criteria then we can highlight the criteria 'Go for Gold!' It would be great if you could help with this, giving your child feedback about what they can do really well, and feedforward what their next goals are. 

Let's make this achievable so take only one step at a time!!  If you are unsure of any of the terms below, Dr Google can help!

e9 Does Gym!

I love how at Russell Street School, instead of asking to watch a video for a class prize, we ask to do Gymnastics!  OK!  Let's do gymnastics! Thanks Alex for putting this together!!

Digital Photography with Kendall

The Guitar

Book Trailers

Focus - Persuasive writing

Purpose (Why are we writing)- to persuade people to read my book.

W.A.L.T make a book trailer -

Think of a book trailer as something like a movie trailer. It is a short preview designed to get people excited about your book. When designing a book trailer, you should consider the following.

Success Criteria:

• Persuasive phrase - Words
• Good images from the book
• Not too long - 1 - 1 1/2 minutes
• The music fits the mood of the book - Catchy
• Use the main and most interesting parts
• Persuasive question? - Will the poison work?
• Make sure we don't use the imovie ready made trailers
• We need a plan
• We need a storyboard
  
  

Concrete poetry:

We were learning to write concrete poetry. Concrete poetry means that your writing looks like the thing you are writing about. Check out James' awesome mine craft poem!

30 days of Singing for Palmy

Hey! Check out MonaJh, Ashleigh and I jamming out to "Never take that away from me" by Jamie McDell.  This is for a 30 days of singing in Palmy - a project Jen is doing.  The mayor, Jono Naylor, is also a part of this!  Great job girls!

More Integrity Movies!

Well done Team! e9, your movie making skills are amazing!    

Integrity: How to show integrity

We have been learning about integrity: what it is, how to show it and how to live a life of integrity.  In response to this learning we have made videos to demonstrate living with integrity.  Here are the first couple finished.

Writing to Inform

Here is our shared document that we have been using to plan for writing.  Down below is Lili's version of her explanation.  What makes it good writing?  What could she work on?

Bill Nye the Science Guy

This week we are writing about how evaporation works based on one of our wonderings from last week.  Check out this informative and entertaining video to see "what the matter is" - Get it?

One of our writing goals is to re-read and re-craft our writing for accuracy and I am carefully modeling how to do that.  Here is Aroha's introduction to her writing after we have re-read and re-crafted it.  Black is the first draft, Red is the second draft and purple is the third.

If you know what matter [is], means then you're AWESOME but if you don’t know what matter is then keep reading. [And you’ll become awesome!].

Matter is, well, everything. Everything you can see and touch is matter. They are so small tiny, they are practically invisible. So you can’t see them with your naked eye. (Just your eyes). [ANnaked eye is when] This means that you don’t have use any microscopes or anything like that to see look closely.  Therefore, you will need a microscope to see spot them.

Here's a Kitten meeting a Hedgehog!!

Using our 5s to solve 6 x, 7x, 8x and 9x

Here's another strategy to use when solving multiplication problems! It's pretty tricky so make sure you keep practicing at home!

Writing for Science: See, Think, Wonder

This is Kaleb and Keona's Writing sample for this week!  We are learning to observe like scientists and compare and contrast.  We used paint, dye, pastel, crayon, chalk and pencil to make marks on our page then we 'observed' closely what we could see through magnifying glasses.  We made statements about why we thought we could see the things happen and then we made wonderings about why or how about something.

Doubles and Halves Strategy

Here is a cool strategy to use in maths to solve multiplication problems: it works on 4s and 8s really well! Check out this photo that shows how to do it

Homelearning Heroes

The Science of Art

This term we are going to delve into the science of art. We are scientists and artists who have a story to tell! This afternoon we were learning to "observe like scientists" this means that you look very carefully at something. You may look at the same thing from a different angle or with different light. We were also learning to "compare and contrast". How are the different marks the same? And how are they different? 

Mayor Story!

Jono Naylor, Palmerston North Mayor, comes to visit e9 today and reads us a story! 

Editing Our Writing

Today we had a writer's workshop about how to edit our writing.  We used Aimen's first paragraph and together, re-worked it.  Check it out, I think we have re-crafted it really well!

As my cousin wakes up, his eyes go all wide and he mumbles/squeals/babbles, “my Dad went uhn uhn bye bye”.  , tThen, he crawls scurries to his mum because his bed is connected to my Aunty and Uncle’s. He is so cute.

As he wakes up his eyes go all wide and he says my dad went uhn uhn bye bye, then he crawls to his mum because his bed is connected to my auntie and uncle.

Welcome back to Term 3!

Kia ora whanau, here is the homelearning guide for Term 3.  Please ensure you have your homelearning books at school every Monday so that you can organise new spelling words and tasks.
Alternatively, you may use this link to download and print a weekly homelearning assignment.
You can find the homelearning page here.  There I will post the homelearning heroes, too.

Sketching

Check out these awesome artists in e9!!!

Holiday Book Review Task

The e9er's have achieved some "off-the-chart" results in their learning for the first half of their year! It would be great to continue this success into the next term.  Please assist your child in completing this learning task over the holidays. Kia ora!

Doodle for Google

Thanks to Stephen who put us on to this!  The Doodle for Google competition is something that is gaining popularity each year! It's where school students get a chance to design the Google Logo to match the theme.

This year the theme is: "If I was an explorer, I would..."

This is an amazing and intriguing theme and it has sparked the imagination of the learners in e9!  Click the image below to get some inspiration:

There's heaps to discover and explore!  Check out the details below, just click on the image below to check out the details and history of the competition. I have registered our school so don't worry about registering.  After the holidays we will be compiling all the entries and submitting the best 30.

Write a 50 word explanation about your d4g.  Make sure you stick to your theme.

Statistics: What group of people have the quickest reaction times?

Here are some of us trying to catch a ruler when our learning partner drops it suddenly.  This records our reaction time.  We had lots of fun!

e9 SLCs Term 2 2013

Our Amazing Assembly!

I was so proud of our assembly! Well done everybody - we did great!

Video streaming by Ustream

Breakfast Advertisements

During this term Rooms 3, 6 and 5 have been working together to produce their very own breakfast cereal. R6 are making the product, R3 are packaging it and R5 are marketing it. The ingredients we have used for the cereal are granola, puffed rice, mango, yoghurt covered raisins and sweetened with stevia and honey. If you would like to purchase our cereal we will be selling it in Week 9 at 8.30 outside the school office. The price is $6. We appreciate your support and all profits raised are going towards the school art space. Thanks, Rooms 3, 6 and 5.

Production 2013

So proud of the amazing people I get to work with everyday!  Well done team - we were excellent!

 

Jesse's Writing

Uniforms, hair and stuff!

Kaleb and Thomas' PE Sample

Matariki Day - RSS Style!

Check out this awesome video of our Kapa Haka: Te Roopu Whanau performing "Okatia" a waiata composed by our roopu to the tune of 'Broken Hearted' by Karmin.  The waiata is about the legend of Okatia, a giant totara tree who carved the Manawatu River. 

RSS 12 June Pou unveiling from Vision Media on Vimeo.

WALT Shoot Correctly

Kia ora Whanau!  We are working on some posters to show how to shoot properly: 

Here are some images of us today practicing our skills!

     

Interschool Cross Country Recount

HONNNNKKKK!!! The load horn sounded. The fastest 5 from 21 schools. 105 children are pushing and shoving as we were sprinting down the field toward the logs. We could hear the cheering crowd, as loud as the audience at a Stan Walker Concert.

Running across the road we turn towards the brown, sloppy, smelly puddle. Ooops! People fall over near us, their whole body, even their face is covered with the brown, sloppy mud. Bursting for breath we now run up the long hills and in the distance we could see another puddle…

Running down the steep stoney hills, we run faster and faster trying not to trip. The electric fence is ticking like an olden day clock, we feel worried and head for the middle of the puddle to avoid  it.

Finally we are running down the finishing straight, people are trying to pass us. We pass others. We are so tired, we can hardly pick up our legs. They feel like soggy pieces of bread. we feel as slow as a tortoise. People are encouraging us as we run. Pushing us on.

We see people on the Massive, Massey University field gasping for breath. We feel like we’re going to faint as we puff across the line. We feel proud and happy for all the other people, like Georgia who came 6th and Jocob who came 17th.

Happily we climb back on the bus with Cloverlea school, proud of our achievements on an exciting but scary day.

By Aroha, Georgia, Maia, William and Salah (Rm 9)

The Fit Film

During the Cross Country season the Teles reading group have been working towards creating a movie to show the benefits of eating a healthy breakfast before you train for an event like cross country.  We were specifically working on using a variety of camera angles and using different speeds for effect.  The story line is based on 'Groundhog Day'.  Well done guys - this looks great!

WALT Describe

Next week we are going to be focussing on how to describe in our writing. So we have looked at this excellent text by Paul Mason called "The Bull Run". As we read it together, I asked the class to highlight the language features that the author used. We colour coded the different types. When we had finished we realised how important using a range of verbs was - there were verbs everywhere! We also noticed that there weren't too many similes. Instead, there is a variety of similes, metaphors and personification. (Make sure you google any of these to help you to remember what they are!). It would be awesome if you could have a discussion with your parents about what this means and what you learnt during this activity.

Making music with Jen

WALT Explain

We have been learning to explain this week so we have been examining texts to see how to set up an explanation? We found out that an explanation begins the writing by briefly introducing the topic but does not give away too much information and this excites the reader because they want to find out more.  Check out our shared writing from yesterday!

Cross Country Training

Kia ora whanau, we are training hard for the up and coming cross country day!  I love this photo!  Click the photo to see more photos of us training.

Nau mai Haere mai Kendall

Zavier's Maths Showme

WALT: solve subtraction problems by reversing the problem and adding instead.

We it's great to use the iPads to demonstrate our learning!  Great job Zavier, you are confident in using this strategy! I wonder if you can cut any steps out to make it even more efficient?

How to add your Showme to your blog

1. Google Showme

2. Login to showme using the username and password in your email.

3. Scroll down to find your showme and click on it

4. Click the share button on the bottom right

5. Click embed

6. Copy embed code

7. Paste onto a new post in the HTML section.  Include the WALT in the title and label the post maths.  Publish.