In pursuit of all things green and shiny ...

Amazing leprechaun trap by Jacob.  Wowsers!

The purpose of this collaborative learning task was to help the children to see how by combining the individual strengths of the individuals in a team great outcomes can be achieved.

All the groups have worked on scripts, detailing their interactions with a wily leprechaun, and designed their own menus, offering Gaelic fare, in order to charm the leprechaun out of his gold.
The kids have also designed traps, researched the history of leprechauns, and created a spreadsheet showing how they would spend the pot of gold should they secure it.

All of these activities were designed to promote critical and creative thinking skills.   Those children who excel at maths worked out the capacity of the pot and then worked out how many gold coins it was likely to contain.  They researched the weight of an average gold coin and then worked out the current value of gold in order to calculate how much money they would have to spend.

The menus are beautifully crafted.  The creative children experimented with a variety of fonts and formatting when finishing the carefully researched dietary needs of an Irish faerie.  The history of the leprechaun has been presented in Google Slides and the traps were designed in Google Draw but constructed using hard materials.

Because of the range of activities, and the varying skills required for successful task completion, there was something for every type of learner.



Jared, Karthiga and Samuel presenting their leprechaun script. The audience loved it and it was laughter all round.  Well done guys.

Welcome to our first eco-friendly island ....

Wow! Our first island is complete.  Samuel and Joseph have impressed me and produced something beyond my wildest expectations.   I'm so proud of you boys.  Your information is great, your island looks fantastic and I love the research you did on inventions designed to address pollution problems.

Awesome stuff!  I can't wait to see more of the islands up on the classroom walls as they are completed.   

Island Progression

Nessa, Ishika and Caitlin are using windmills to power their resort.  They will be growing their own food.  This means that they will not need to bring in supplies from off shore. 

Nicholas is using solar panels.  The energy will be converted into electricity

Ruby is providing a natural salt water pool.  Water will be replenished when there's a high tide.
Joseph and Samuel are collecting rainwater runoff from the roofs of their units.  This will be used as drinking water at their resort

Nadia has decided it is more responsible to have her guests stay in tents.
"I don't want people to stay in something that used stuff (resources) from the natural environment."

It was a game of two halves but, at the end of the day, research was the winner

What a day!

As the kids dug up the soil in the name of science, no-one could have anticipated that the estuary beach would bite back, but it did!

Marine Metre2 is a longitudinal survey of the health of our foreshore.  The kids had to take core samples and record the animal life they found.  Ruby, Samuel, Brayden and Nicholas found mud crabs, turret shells, large horn snails, clams and even a polychaete worm.  This information will be put into a database that will be used by the University of Otago.

Most of us felt the weather was the main threat (as we recorded our observations), but we were wrong.  No one was prepared for the battle (and hilarity) that ensued when the Sunnyhills Kids and Parents ended up versing the Gloopy Mud in the match up of the decade.

Nicholas did the hard yards when he took on the mud. Sadly the mud won.  Poor Ruby came up short when she tried to tackle a seemingly innocuous seawater puddle.  Tandia had to go to plan B when she ended up sitting in the mud. BaiLin backed himself but also came up short against the mighty power of the mud bath.  Mrs Foster really put her body of the line, but, alas, also ended up with a wet bottom. Man of the match went to Mr Raman, who, in his attempt to do the heroic thing and save a mud swamped group member, very nearly ended up needing some saving himself.

A big shout out to all the parents who helped today; I am very grateful.
It was a game of two halves but, at the end of the day, research was the winner.
Mrs Nicole Wallace

Which 5 items should Room 2 take to a deserted island?

There were 4 points of position set up around the room (at north, south, east and west).  The four positions were Agree, Disagree, Maybe agree and Maybe disagree. Mrs Wallace explained the rules of the debate (not debate in the purist sense of the word), and the kids moved to that position that reflected their point of view.  The kids changed position as their views were shifted as a consequence of compelling arguments.

   

Jacob asserted that water purifying tablets were a must.

Jake refuted the claim, explaining that water could be boiled, but the class sided with Jacob.

Cailan was certain that a fishing net was an essential item; eating is essential in your bid to stay alive he explained.  Nadia agreed that a fishing net was important but also felt that it didn't deserve a top five position.  In the end, the fishing net didn't make the grade. 

A steel bucket was an absolute must.  As Jake pointed out, it has multiple uses; like carrying things, boiling water, cooking food and, that fact upped its value.  Who could argue with such strong reasoning? The whole class agreed.

Samuel wanted to bring medical bandages, but Ruby pointed out that there were natural alternatives for bandages, and that many plants also had additional medicinal purposes. The bandages didn't make the cut. (The cut. Get it?)

Karthiga wanted to see insect repellent take the final place on the top five list. Brayden didn't believe that insect repellent deserved such a high ranking.  He argued that Bear Grylls didn't use it, instead preferring to opt for long sleeves and tramping pants.  Fiona retorted that you were likely to end up with heat stroke if you wore that in the tropics.   Kees added that mosquitoes were mostly likely to feast on you at night, and that the smoke from the fire (you'd started using your steel and flint) would keep them away.  The kids who didn't believe insect repellent was essential put up a strong fight, but in the end it was decided by the majority that repellent had to be there.  

Top debaters in Room 2?

Jacob, Fiona and Jake - all passionate, logical and articulate.

Well done!

Items in our Top 5 (as decided by members of Room 2)

Machete

Metal bucket

Flint and steel

Water purifying tablets

Insect repellent

Have you heard the one about the kids who got to design their own camp?

What collaboration looks like in Room 2

Well, the kids had a great time, got the opportunity to get their creative juices flowing and worked effectively in teams.

Bad joke ... but seriously good learning experience.  

At face value the level of thinking for this project might not seem very complicated, but consider these questions ...

What kind of activities should school camps provide?

How much space does a horse arena require?  

Where would you put the camp toilets, and how close should these facilities be to the sleeping area?

How do you most effectively show a lot of information on a single map?

How do you show the physical space between zones?

How do you best negotiate in a group environment to ensure your ideas are included in plans?

How do you market your camp to schools?

More thinking than you first thought, right?

In Room 2 we are not intimidated by these kinds of thinking tasks. We take it all in our stride because that's just the way we roll.  

A big thank you to Mrs Turner who supported Mrs Wallace in the development of this idea.  You rock, Mrs Turner.

Thinking Skills - The Hat Challenge

What would you wear if you met someone really important?

Our milliners (Year 5 students) were commissioned to design a hat (or fascinator) that would be suitable for an audience with the Queen.  It had to look good and fit well.

Well, that should've been easy, right?
Think again.

The only materials our milliners had access to were sheets of newspaper and Cellotape.
The biggest problem?
They had LESS THAN AN HOUR to design and construct their creations for this most auspicious event. They had to co-operate, be innovative, and adapt their designs as they encountered technical and design-based obstacles.


Well, so how did they go?

Naturally, they smashed it.  Check out Jasmine, Nessa  (with Nadia) and Samuel.
You guys are too too awesome!

Is there a doctor on board?

Yes, there's 27!   Sadly, they're not medical doctors.

Samuel is now Dr. Samuel.
Allie is now Dr. Allie.
Jake is now Dr. Jake.

The kids in Room 2 have all been awarded (imaginary) doctorates in the field of Zoology - with first class honours, I suspect.

The Brief: As zoologists with a global conscience, we are focused on developing captive breeding programmes to help identified threatened species.  We need to choose five animals that are vulnerable; research their breeding habits (recording the number of babies they are likely to have with each pregnancy), and then create a spreadsheet that shows the projected number of births (and therefore benefit of the programme) after seven, twelve and thirty three years.

This learning experience incorporates many skills and is complex in its demands.  Mrs Wallace calls this sort of learning Thinking Skills.  Mrs Wallace loves Thinking Skills.  Mrs Wallace loves pizza, but loves Thinking Skills more.

So what are the kids learning?

1. The kids are being encouraged to see that can be agents of change in the world.
2. The kids are learning to think critically, e.g. that some animals are endangered as a consequence of their sluggish breeding habits. This fact will affect the success of their breeding programme.  Another threatened animal could be significantly boosted by human intervention because the birth rate is affected by conditions that can be altered and controlled.  The children need to think carefully about the animals they include in their breeding programme.
3.  The children are being asked to use mathematical reasoning, e.g. BaiLin asked how to record data on an animal that has between 1 - 4 babies per breeding season.  Mrs Wallace suggested BaiLin (strong in mathematics) put 2.5 per year, and then asked him to consider how this was possible.  Mrs Wallace talked to BaiLin about using the average, calculated over a two year period.  BaiLin loved the fact Mrs Wallace challenged his existing belief that it's impossible to have a half baby.
4.  The children are learning to use technology; more importantly they are learning that they can tell computers how to think, and that they can do work for us, e.g. when inputting formulas into Google Sheets.  The kids loved it when Mrs Wallace changed one number on her sheet, and then by simply pushing 'enter' the spreadsheet data completely changed.  Mrs Wallace pointed out she was not a magician, but had simply made the computer her slave.


Here is Mrs Wallace's spreadsheet.  As you can see it's incomplete.  Can anyone remind me about the formula I need to use?!  Email me your answer.

Btw, the dictzy dog is SERIOUSLY on the brink of extinction! ;-)

Who am I?

I am considered the greatest poet of all time.  I was born a long time ago (well before anyone even conceived of the idea of a camera), in a place called Stratford-upon-Avon.  I wrote the plays Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth and King Lear.  They call me The Bard because, seriously, I am that good at writing.  Just sayin'.

If you think you know who I am, please email your answers through to Mrs Wallace by Monday morning.

By the way, we are going to be working on writing good poetry this term.  We will learn about tone and tension.  We will also practise using simile and metaphor effectively.

Here is a poem I wrote to help people understand about poetry and poets.

About the Poet

she had an artist's mind

but not an artist's hand,

and as a consequence,

it's true,

she often
wrote

but never drew.

(Yes, the lower case 's' is on purpose!)  (Yes, I know it's not that good, but it only took a couple of minutes!)