Our New Epals - Wonderings Using Prezi

PREZI - Click on the link and add your thoughts. I will take you through this in class. It's another tool to show our thinking and learning. While you are adding to this, think about the ways you could use this tool in your learning. (Always link the tool to your learning). :-)

TASK - How many questions can you come up with about your new epals? What do you want to know / learn about them?

Habits of Mind - Persisting

We've begun to look at Habits of Mind and the valuable place they have in our learning and our lives in general. We brainstormed what we thought a habit was for us. Come in and check out our thoughts and reflections on the wall.

The first Habit - Perisisting - was all about not giving up, trying new ways, staying on task and remaining focussed. Again, this has been explored and there are lots of fantastic thoughts on our wall. Come in and see what you would add to it - we'd love your contributions.

Please add your examples of times when you had to persist and not give up on something - add as comments. Family members are encouraged to contribute too.

This week's HOM is Managing Impulsivity

I've also added some photos of pages from the book written and illustrated by Marie Ciota with a forward by Art Costa and Bena Kallick - the developers of HOM. (If you would like to purchase this book, please let me know and I can point you in the right direction).

Christchurch Earthquake Appeal

What fantastic support we had this morning! We have raised over $900 with more to come!! The ILT will double what we have raised. Just brilliant. I will add the photos I have so far but I know there will be lots more on Monday, along with blogs from the children.

It was also fantastic to see the support for the Marshall family and their caravan which is now full of supplies needed in Christchurch.

Please also check out Room 7s blog for more photos and don't forget to comment and become a follower if you haven't already.

We are very proud of Cameron. The coin trail was his idea and got the ball rolling!

SUPPORTING CHRISTCHURCH

Hi everyone. Just a reminder to bring along any canned food, water, toilet paper and, of course coins for the coin trail tomorrow. I feel very proud that you have been so concerned for others and that you want to do something to try to help them. Don't ever change!

Habits of Mind

Today we also explored Habits of Mind. There are 16 of these and they help us to organise our thinking and learning. We will be learning about the Habits and how they can help us to become effective learners. Look out for more information here on the blog. There are also links for you to check out on the sidebar of the blog.

We can't wait to share our thinking with you!

In the meantime, you may find this information helpful in understanding what your wonderful children are learning about.

A Thought-Provoking Day!

Today Rm 8 were challenged to show their skills as questioners, thinkers and researchers.

They looked at the clues on the Wallwisher and had to identify ways to find out where their epals school is. I did not make this easy for them! I was so impressed with how they went about searching for the answers. The skill level was outstanding and it was also incredibly exciting to hear the discussions and debates.

We also talked about what great learners do - they don't always do all the talking, they are fantastically skilled at listening too.

Below is the link to our new epals' school. We are so excited about communicating with them and can't wait to come up with ideas for our collaborations. This is a great way to make learning relevant and real.

I will also be helping Room 7 set up their epals. I can't wait!! See you soon Room 7.

Mrs Kiefer's class

Andrew's thoughts about being a Kiwi

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

Andrew's thoughts about being a Kiwi

View more presentations from Myross Bush School.

Jaidene's ideas about being a Kiwi

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

Jaidene's ideas about being a Kiwi

View more presentations from Myross Bush School.

EPALS CLUES

This has moved because I've added all these great keynotes - more to come too.

The post you are looking for is further down the page - just scroll down Team.

What Makes Us Kiwis?

We've been thinking about this question and we're beginning to record our initial thoughts in many different ways.

Ruby's thoughts about being a Kiwi

View more presentations from Myross Bush School.

Jack's Kiwi Keynote

View more presentations from Myross Bush School.

Gabby's Kiwi thoughts

View more presentations from Myross Bush School.

Sophie w keynote

View more presentations from Myross Bush School.

Where In The World Are Our Epals? by cossie

Where In The World Are Our Epals? by cossie

Hi everyone! Here are your first clues about your new epals. Add your thoughts, ideas, guesses as comments to the Wallwisher and I'll let you know how close you are getting. I will also add more clues to the wall so you will need to look for them. All you need to do is click above and you can then just type straight onto the wall. (I will also share this with you on Monday). Happy thinking and hunting Team!

How will you go about investigating the clues? What skills, strategies and techniques will you use as researchers??

Room 7 and 8 Artists At Work

Rooms 7 / 8 Art Explorations

We have some amazing artists at our school! This morning Rooms 7 and 8 worked together to begin an amazing art journey. It was exciting to see the groups all mixed up and working so well together. A great blend of the two rooms.

I can't wait to follow your journey and see the final creations!!

River / Water Safety

Today a special group of kids got to learn about river safety and surf safety the fun thing about it was the big waves. Anyway that was today. We all have about 6 sessions to go.

Jaidene

What's Happening Next Week??

Hi everyone. Thanks so much for another fabulous week.
Next week's learning will involve beginning to find out more about where our epals come from - we should have a class by then.
We will also begin to learn about the Habits of Mind and explore more about our Multiple Intelligences. These tools help us to identify our strengths as learners and also to know what we need to work on and strengthen.
In maths, our focus will be on place value and number knowledge.
This is just for the start of the week!
We will also begin to explore our thinking skills and tools, including Socratic Questioning. What on earth is that you may ask. Well it's... no I cannot tell you yet. You will have to explore this with me next week!
See you on Monday. Have a fantastic weekend.

A Fantastic Group of Learners

Hi everyone! I have loved reading your comments on your learning this week and have really enjoyed commenting on your thoughts - just go back into comments to read your feedback.

You have really impressed me with your writing too and I can't wait to see them all published and up on the wall and blog.

You are already an outstanding group.

We will be working with Rm 7 on the papier mache creations so I am very excited and can't wait to see everyone's work.

Have you noticed how many followers we now have?? I think our goal of 100 followers may be met earlier and beaten!

Keep up the wonderful effort and look forward to another great week of learning. We will begin to look at our Multiple Intelligences, Habits of Mind and, of course, we may have our epals by then too! Very exciting.

I will put more information about epals on the blog and will also send some more information home for your families.

Houdini - The String Challenge!!

Another great challenge to promote thinking outside the square, co-operation, problem solving and team work.

I couldn't believe the creative thinking that went on for this challenge!! Add your comments below about how you had to communicate your ideas to the other person and work as a team.

I am still not sure how one team ended up linked to the basketball pole!! Now that could take some explaining.

The Marshmallow Challenge

Friday saw us completing two interesting challenges. Have a look at the photos of the first challenge - The Marshmallow Challenge

There is a great link for this:

http://marshmallowchallenge.com/Welcome.html

This challenge promotes team work and co-operation. Part of our homework this week is

to comment on the challenge - what the children found the hardest part, what thinking went on and what they could do next time.

A Wonderful First Day and Your Thoughts

Thank you to all the fabulous new Room 8 Stars for a wonderful day! Already I can see what talented learners you are going to be.

It will be a busy term and we will have a great deal of fun in our learning.

What are your hopes and dreams for 2011? Add your thoughts and ideas as comments. We'd love some comments from parents too.

Welcome to 2011 and to our wonderful blog!

Well here we are today we learnt about collage. We had to show our personality by cutting out all these pictures out of magazines and we had to show our personality for who we are and what we do.

There is going to be a Room 7 and 8 newsletter coming out tomorrow.

Come back soon to see what we have been up to.

Emma, Sophie S, Benjamin