Ever wondered why having a 39°C fever makes you feel completely drained, or why marathon runners struggle so much when they overheat? At the cellular level, your body relies on enzymes to keep you alive and moving. How does changing the temperature—whether it’s getting too cold or overheating—impact the rate of these vital biochemical reactions in your cells?

Today’s mahi has all been about deliberately designing opportunities for learners to respond creatively to the texts they are reading.

I think this is something that I am very closely drawn to. Both for the fact that I love being creative myself, but also for the fact that it is in this stage that our tamariki can fully express themselves in a way that suits their strengths and also allows them to work in a way that they are most comfortable.

I really like the quote used –

You don’t empower people by just being consumers. Teaching people to read and not write, teaching people to play and not design is the way to make customers and consumers and not producers and creative thinkers”

It is a great reminder to me that the tamariki we work with are not just there to regurgitate information for us, rather the most impactful thing they can do is create and design in their own way, shape and form.

It’s no surprise as well that, obviously those that are strong in their ability to create, are also those that achieve the highest. And also the fact that our more creative students are also those that demonstrate a higher creative thinking ability as well (if creative thinking ability is even the right term ).

A few different AI tools were covered. Some of which are familiar with, and others which I was not. I’ll try and set some time aside to explore these.

One of the first activities we did was to create a AI image that reflected a poem, and the meaning behind said poem. I really enjoyed the activity for how I could see it being easily used within my class. Taking it one step further though I think it would be even better without the AI side of things and just have students draw their own. But I also understand that for some student students this isn’t a strong side and so having it there as a resource for something to use could be really beneficial.

There were some great reminders about the variety of different ways to be creative. And also how these support the reading pillars of practice. I think the side of it that I struggle with is now we have so much choice in terms of different programs or tools that are available to students that finding suitable ones or trusting them to find something that is suitable and will show their learning in an effective way sometimes becomes the thing that takes up the most time. Because of this I think I need to be very careful in the way that I structure my learning activities and also with the learning intention intentions that I set for my kids so they don’t end up going down a infinite rabbit hole before even attempting the task.

The highlight of my day was definitely doing the example activity of a one minute book trailer. I have linked that here. Come at me Fox and socks!

I think this activity is something that would be really cool to work with our school librarian and collaborate on. It could be a great way of advertising to kids any new materials that are coming into the library and also to highlight good texts across a range of different genres in a medium which they engage with very easily. So there is some more homework for me right there!

Overall I enjoyed the day and thought it was very positively challenging. It’s given me a few ideas on potential creative pathways I can hopefully try heading into the end of term.

TLDR – make kids create more stuff = better achievers and better readers. + Sam keeps making more work for himself.

– Learn how assessment systems can support learning progress and reporting
– Identify high-quality assessment and how to use data effectively
– Reflect on current systems and identify areas for improvement

What is assessment? Gathering and analysing evidence of student learning
The is the purpose of assessment?
Guide instruction – provide feedback – evaluate growth

What are some principles of effective assessment?
Validity: It actually measures the specific learning objective you set out to test.

Reliability: It yields consistent, accurate results about student performance.

Fairness: Every student has an equal opportunity to demonstrate their understanding (e.g., providing accommodations when needed).

Transparency: Students know the success criteria and expectations ahead of time.

Actionability: The results generate useful feedback that both you and the student can act on immediately.

Difference between progress and achievement?
Progress = How much a student has grown over time from their individual starting point.

Assessment = How well a student measures up against a fixed benchmark or grade-level standard.

– Assessment within the New Zealand Curriculum | Te Mātaiaho is defined as ‘on-going assessment for learning’ and at timed intervals.

– Assessment for learning happens during the learning process, in the moment, and ongoing. It can range from informal to more formal assessment opportunities, and should guide adaptions to teaching practice and inform next learning moves.

– Timed assessment provides a snap-shot of ability at a point in time, and may support reporting. We often call this Assessment of Learning.

Assessment for learning should follow the ‘Notice, Recognise, Respond’ process. Teachers notice and recognise student development and give them timely, targeted feedback/forward.

Assessment for learning can be split in to two parts. Ongoing assessment for learning (organic and responsive) or as standardised assessment (snapshot in time).
Assessment Practices that support learning might include:

 – Clear use of Learning Intentions and Success Criteria

 – Questioning and discussion

 – Observation

 – Feedback

 – Student self and peer assessment

Types of assessment evidence:
Photos / Videos

Writing Samples

Modelling book observations of tasks

Bookwork / DLO’s

Self / Peer assessment (including blog commenting)

Results from quizzes, basic facts, spelling…

Notes from group work

Reading fluency / DIBELS

Tasks from Maths resources / ARB’s

PAT / SMART testing

What’s currently happening in my subject area:
Jnr PE: lots of korero, questioning, discussion but struggling to work out how to ‘collect’ this.
Snr PE: NCEA assessment based largely. Learning tasks and quizzes etc for theory content.
BPL: Collecting work samples, korero, questioning, discussion. Student conferencing at end of each term.

**We need to clearly tell our students what we are expecting of them**
This is all about appropriate success criteria. Only when students know what you are asking of them, then they can appropriately complete your assessment.

My  Holiday:

In the first week of the school holidays, on Friday I went to my friend Isla’s house with my brother, because Isla’s brother was my brother’s best friend.

 First when I got there, my dad stayed there for half an hour so my dad could chat to their parents. First, when my dad left, me and Isla went into her room and played a two player game on her ipad. Interestingly, I won most of them. After playing a game,  we tried to call Sibobhan on messenger  but she didn’t pick up. We tried once more, but again but once again she didn’t pick up. Before  we all had lunch we walked outside to the small forest out the back of their house and played on the swing.

 Next, Me, Isla, Addicus, and Nate were called in to have lunch. Quickly, we all ran inside. My family brang the lunch for Megan and Danyel to cook, It was a packet of small pies. Once we had lunch, me and Isla had a turn on the play station because Nate and Addius were on it the whole time. We played Isla’s favourite game, an F1 racing car game. Hoping I would win, I almost passed her in the last bit but Isla won all the rounds. After that, for about half an hour we watched something on her ipad.

Finally, my dad came cto pick me and my brother up and went home. I had so much fun at Isla’s place! My favourite part was when we were playing on the play station.

this weeks national day is about fishing and it was fun to research fishing.what do you think about my slide show. yayyyy

Today in my class I have made a slideshow about the symbols of hearts. It’s very interesting how hearts originated. I enjoyed adding pictures it was hard finding the words I missed. Have you ever taken some time in your life just to think about where they were from or how they originated if so tell me what you thought? and also make sure to get good at maths.

Today I made a fact of the day research about crabs, A fact of the day research is when you make a slide and then you get to my Room 3 Morning Routines and pick one, I picked one about crabs. We do this because we can expand our knowledge in all sorts of things. I find it pretty cool to do, Do you like crabs?

Hello, today I am going to show you a slide show on Pakistan—which is a very fascinating country.

We learnt this because we needed to choose a country from the common wealth games and study it, we also had to pick one we have never heard of before—which for me was Pakistan.

I found it challenging to find the right images for some of the slides.

Do you know any facts about the common wealth games? What are they?

All of the Year 4s went to Ōtaki College on Tuesday.  We watched a play about Matariki.  They were singing about Matariki.  They had stars on them and the Principal was yelling at the big kids in the play.  I thought it was fun because there was an explosion.  We got back to school safely. By Kaizah

In Room 6 we are learning about rounding in Maths, it was  on Wednesday in my class.

Numbers that go down the slide are 1 2 3 4 and the numbers that go up the branch are 5, 6 ,7, 8 and 9. So if you have 44 it would be 40 and if you have 56 it goes to 60.

I found this learning fun because I like learn something new.

By James

Yesterday, Waitohu School went to the Haruatai Park, to do a soccer tournament. First, we walked down to  Haruatai Park. It was my team’s turn to play first, we versed WRM boys. We lost  by 1 point and  they got 3 points. Next, we played against WRM Girls. After that, we had a break. I bought some lollies. Next, we versed Manakau School. They were very good players and we got 3 points and they got 2. Next we played against Waitohu School Girls (us)! Then we played against WRM boys again! Then we won we all got so excited. I bought a sausage sizzle and a lollipop to celebrate! Then we walked back to school.

Anders’ Blog

Hi, I made a a research of the day about chickens. This one wasn’t that hard, and it was one of my favorites. I hope you now know more about chickens like I do, BYE!



In room 3, we got to make a free choice, writing here’s mine.  We were supposed to focus on writing paragraphs and adding rich language.  What part do you think I did well?

Hi everyone!  This week, I have made an audio slide of 3 aliens trying to steal candy and it was fun making it.  There was no bad parts and it has 3 chapter.  We were practising using rich language in our stories.  What is your favourite line that you heard?

In Room 4 we’ve been doing pixel art. We chose our animal and copied it by doing pixels. It was so fun! This is my animal – it is a cheetah.

Alex’s Blog