Welcome to Week 2

Kia Ora Koutou Katoa,

Week one fairly flew by, here is a heads up about the coming week.

• Speeches are on the go. Feel free to work on them at home as part of home learning. In order for you to link in with what we're doing in class, here is my example introduction and success criteria. It isn't going to work for every speech topic, and of course is possible to improve upon, but it does provide a decent framework for getting a workable introduction going.

My Example: 

Are you ready to rock? Hi I’m Mr M and I’m here to tell you all about the greatest musical instrument in the world: the electric guitar! Why would you listen to my speech you might ask? Well you like music, right? Right! So I’m going to give you lots of information about the coolest instrument in the world - that’s pretty neat. I started playing the guitar when I was about 7. That gives me 27 years experience playing the instrument. I’ve played in tons of bands and even recorded several albums, and I enjoyed every minute of it! I’m going to tell you what an electric guitar is, how to get started playing the guitar and what you can do if you get really good.

Success Criteria: 

• You have a greeting / attention getter
• You have a one sentence summary talking about what your speech is about.
• Talk about the benefit for the audience of hearing your speech.
• Establish your credibility.
• Give a brief overview of the things you’re going to cover.

In other news:

• Maths Buddy tasks are set for this week.
• Spelling notebooks back tomorrow please.
• Below is a video on fractions which will give you an idea of what we've started the term with in maths. Let me know if it's of use to you...

Rock On,
Mr M

Rainbow Jelly DLO's

As Promised, here are some photos and videos of the measurement unit we did at the end of last term making rainbow jellies. We're slowly making progress around learning how to talk about our learning and explain it in a DLO (Digital Learning Object - otherwise known as a video). Here are three DLOs that a lot of effort went into. If you have any feedback about what students did well and how they could make their DLOs BTB (Better Than Before, our class motto), please leave a comment. I liked the enthusiasm and planning that went into them all. I found the ones that used full screen video easer to understand and the ones that use humorous backgrounds and a small window showing themselves speaking harder to tell what was going on. What do you reckon?

Rock On,

Mr M

Welcome Back to Term Toru!

Kia Ora Koutou Katoa,

I hope everyone had an excellent holiday and are ready to hit it hard for another term. I had a really good break and I'm excited about getting into this term; it looks like it's going to be a cracker. Here's the start of term update:

• Speeches are in week 4 or thereabouts. That gives us very little time to get them sorted, but if we work hard it will be just enough. One thing you can do at home, which will really help, is discuss with your child what they would like to do their speech about. It needs to be something they are passionate about that really sparks their interest. If they come to school with a topic ready to go, it makes the whole process much smoother.
• I've changed my spelling / homework programme slightly and now test the spelling words on Monday. They write them into their spelling notebooks (which they've been doing all year), and can take them home to practice (if you include spelling in your home learning). Once the students have their spelling words written into their notebooks and checked off, I get them to write 5 sentences that include one or more of the words in them. After they get that sorted, I've started giving them some free writing time, which the students generally really value.
• Maths Buddy is go, and as per usual I have tasks set. 
• We're covering fractions in maths this term. Doing some baking with your child can be an excellent way of working with fractions in a fun and tasty way. Try to choose recipes that use measuring cups e.g., 1/3 of a cup of flour etc. It's also a good way of reinforcing the measurement unit we did last term.
• This term we'll be doing some science experiments and I'm hoping to get out for some other fun and practical activities to link in with our writing. 
• As always, please make contact if you have any questions, concerns or similar. Popping in to see me is fine. Email is a really good way of flicking me a quick note or setting up a time to come in.
• I have a bunch of videos and pictures from last term showing some of the things we got up to in our maths measurement unit. I'll endeavour to sort out a blog post for them in the next little while. 

Rock On,

Mr M

Final Week Update

Kia Ora All,

Just a couple of things to update everyone about this week:

• As part of measurement in maths, we'll be designing and making rainbow jellies this week. We've practiced measuring and designing using a normal shaped cup. On Tuesday, I've told the students to bring in an interesting shaped glass if possible. Nothing too special just in case it gets dropped or broken! They'll find out how much liquid it'll hold and design a jelly that will be built in that cup.
• Also, the BTB points auction will be on Friday. I'll be letting the students know about bringing stuff in to donate to the auction. Just like last time, nothing expensive or overly big. Old toys, unwanted clothes, small stationary items or similar are always popular. The more donated items we have, the more fun the auction will be.

Rock On,

Mr M