Today I have been learning to use curve and poly lines. It really hard at the beginning because we had to not click it or else it would just be a line. I think my work is pretty good.

Axl’s Blog

Here is my writing challenge this week in room 12

The Weird World 

As you were walking down the street, the clouds hovering over you, the moon gliding through the sky. you walk but then all of a sudden you faint, no one sees you all alone in the street just laying there until… You wake up and find yourself tied to a chair in a dark room with balloons floating around you.

You shout out, “Hello is anyone there? How did I get here?”. After you say that you see someone lurking in the distance. You keep on looking around and see scissors. You then try to grab them but they’re too far away so start to move the chair closer. Finally when you were close enough you grabbed the scissors and started to cut the rope

You finish cutting the last bit and then you eventually get up and see the person still lurking in the distance. You started to walk around. All of a sudden everything started to float red, blue and green light starting to surround you  shout out again “Hello is anybody there?” but still there was no answer. 

You  start to walk around still yelling out “Hello can any one hear me?” but every time there was no answer. Then you feel a bang on your head. Your vision then goes blurry and then more blurry until you pass out. 

Confused you wake up and find yourself inside of a dark cold room. You get up and see dark mist floating around. You can’t see. Then you see a light switch so you run over and turn it on. The light flickers. You look around and see the door. On the door it says “Now you have to try and find the key”. So you look around and see a cabinet sitting there. You walk over 

and open it and see the key inside of it. You quickly grab it and run over to the door to unlock it. When you unlock the door you rush outside and everything is now normal, no red, blue and green lights. You look and see the figure standing there. You then hear something in the distance. You quickly walk over and see a portal. 

You walk in and see your finally home and not in that weird world any more.The End.

What would you do if this happened to you at night if you were on a walk?

Zoey’s blog

I used poly-lines on google draw to make this picture. It was very hard at first.  Then I figured it out. I made many pictures with it. I was proud of myself.

This is my favourite one that I added a background to.

Ryan’s Blog

I made a cat out of poly-line and curves on Google draw. I found it really fun and interesting. I also named him Jeff . Jeff hates fish. I did find it a bit hard to  do. Over all I found it cool.

Jasmine’s Blog

Ko wai au?

My name is Anahera. I am 10 years old.

Three words that describe me best are: kind, sporty, creative

When I’m not at school you’ll probably find me: practising soccer with my dad,  or building a world in minecraft,or playing with my little sister

At home I live with: my mum,dad,little sister,brother and my big sister

My family’s favorite thing to do together is: going on walks to the beach and the park

The pet report: no pets

If you don’t have a pet what is your dream animal: cat, puppy

My favorite subject is: Art

A learning goal I have for this term is: my teacher tells me to keep up my Excellent learning

How I plan to reach this goal: 

Life aspirations: when I grow up I want to be an actor in movies

A place I want to visit one day: raratonga,auckland

A skill I want to learn before I finish primary school is: public speaking

A person I truly admire is: my mum because she is kind, funny and she supports us all of the time.

One thing I can learn from them is: to never give up even when things are difficult. 

One thing I want my teacher and classmates to know about me this year is I am absolutely gorgeous, I am kind and I support other people.

 Anahera’s blog

Today I have been learning to use poly lines and curves. It was REALLY HARD hard at the beginning because my fingers always wanted to double tap but I only needed to single tap to get the curve in the line. After doing it for a while I got better. I made a caterpillar with a blue brain (not really… it looks like a lung) then I made a poly line dog eating a worm and a sub-pixel-sized rhombus. I joined both of them. It was super fun because I got to use my imagination.

Anson’s Blog

We made flowers in Room 6 my one is so cool.  I love the Room 6 flowers.  My one is spikey and has lots of details.  By Raika

We will put them at the front of the class.  So everyone will see them and they will be more kind.  So we spread kindness around the school.  By Addicus

On Wednesday we had Athletics Day.  We did shot put, discus, long jump, high jump and sprints.  By Nate

The best part about it was we all had fun and in the end at least we all tried! By Tyler

On Thursday  I went in the pool at big play because the Year 6’s were at camp.  Me, Tyler and Raika were playing tag.  It was fun but we had to hop out of the pool.  By Ezra

Day two of the Manaikalani RPI and we have been given the opportunity to explore the use of student data to inform our teaching practice and help develop meaningful learning intentions with our tamariki.

This stuff is all completely foreign to me and I’m appreciative of having that time to be able to explore PAT results, be provided explanation of how to utilise this data and also to be given some resources and ideas on how to smush it all together in to something useful in my little BPL class.
I found it really helpful being provided with a template ‘Teacher Workbook” as a means of having all of my tamariki’s reading data in one place and in a format which shows change over time along with specific teaching sequences from the NZC all in one place. From the ignorant stereotypical PE trained Kaiako this has been mega helpful.

From the small look I have been able to take, I (like every other class ever I am sure) have a wide range of ability levels and needs in regards to reading.
Having a group of both Y9 and 10 students I’ve had to juggle data sets and hop between answers and if I have been looking at things correctly it seems that, generally speaking, my beautiful little crew could do with the significant support in respects to their local inference skills.

My next steps and key focus towards the end of term is to make sure that I am intentionally building in as many different activities as possible that help my kiddos practice their inference skills(?).

The other thing that I need to make sure I do is sit down with my class and walk through the data of our reading survey with them. It will be interesting to hear their thought on their own personal reading preferences and whether seeing everyone else’s data will potentially change their own thoughts about reading.

My final whakaaro is that I also want to find a way to convey with info to our whānau. Explaining where the ‘gaps’ are for our kids and also simple ways that they can help at home could be a massive positive shift. Over the last couple of weeks the thought my mind keeps rolling back to is that one of the biggest changes I can make is through being seen as a proactive reader myself. I mentioned this morning in our rōpū that I have intentionally been in to the library more over the past two weeks because I want students to subliminally see me as valuing reading. This could be equally shown at home.

With a lot going on and more homework to do I’ll leave it with the wise words of Viv White from Big Picture Learning.. “We have so much to do – we must go very slow”.

As part of my RPI training through Manaiakalani I have been blessed with HOMEWORK!

With my Big Picture Learning (BPL) crew I was asked to collect some data through the use of a Reader Profile Survey (link).
With my beautiful crew I had 12 responses and I also completed the survey myself. I try as much as possible to work from the adage ‘Don’t ask something of someone you wouldn’t do yourself’. I was hoping that through them seeing me also complete the survey , they would also give more genuine answers to all the questions.

There were a couple of students who had also completed the survey in another class but I don’t think this ended up being an issue with their answers.

My key findings showed that:
– only 46% enjoy reading at school and the same percentage for reading for enjoyment at home.
– this then drops to 30% enjoying ‘digital texts’ in own time

What follows is a bit of a paradox to me. 30% are currently reading a book for enjoyment yet over double that amount believe that reading is beneficial.

Sadly the majority don’t borrow books from the library. I would be interested to see if they just thought of this as meaning the public library and didn’t consider our school library. (Note* since the survey was done the whole class have issued a pukapuka that they will be reading til the end of term)

What was they sad to read was the students own comments about reading and what students wanted their teacher to know about how they feel about reading. A couple of comments saying they love/enjoy reading but the majority were very negative. ‘I don’t like it’, ‘I can’t read’, ‘I can’t focus when I read’. These show that I have a big job to do in order to chance student perception of themselves as readers, find suitable texts and help them change the narrative that either they can’t read or that reading is something negative.

The rest of the survey outlines student perception of themselves as readers and their thoughts about why reading is important. Students overwhelmingly rated themselves negatively in terms of their reading skills/ability but also all acknowledged that reading is an important skill to develop moving in to adult life.

Before starting the form I tried to remind the crew that although it may say reading books they could also think of the reading they do in terms of articles, social media content etc to see if this would change their perception of reading. Personally, I do copious amounts of reading through things like Reddit or on different sites where I access things like football or the news along with reading heaps of books with my two kids each day but I find I hardly every pick up a book for myself. If I was to answer the survey purely from a physical pukapuka standpoint, my answers would have been far lower.
Looking at this set of data then I am left wondering whether my tamariki considered the amount of reading they do as widely as I have.

It also leaves me thinking that I need to do a lot more prep in regards to arranging different text sources with my kiddos, checking things like PAT data and ensuring I am giving students mahi at the appropriate level.
I also know that other side of this that I need to keep doing is building stronger relationships with them. Because if I am going to try and push them to change their own behaviours and opinions towards reading then they need to know I’m doing so from a place of genuine care and concern.

I’m looking forward to session two of the RPI programme on Friday and hopefully it will give me all the answers I need!!

In Room 6 we have been doing art.  We made lego characters but it had to look like us.  My person looked like me. It had brown hair, blue eyes and my favourite T-shirt and pants.  I was holding a flower.  I had a smile but drawing it was hard.  By Anya

I like my Lego name.  The fun part was building because my name is pretty long.  My name is seven letters long.  I  made it because we have a Lego Challenge each week. By Addicus

In Room 6 we are reading the 13 Storey Treehouse.  So Room 6 are drawing their own tree houses.  Our treehouses can have as many stories as we want.  My one only has 4 but I am thinking about doing another storey so it has 5.  By Lilly

Me and Kaizah drew a treehouse. We did lots of details and it’s finished, but we still want to do more.  Now we’re onto vividing the outline and colouring.  We drew rooms, I mean lots of room!  We have a family room, secret rooms and aircraft.  Now we have a pool, farm plots and just about anything you can think of.  By Chevy-Lee

Me and Chevy-Lee did a good job.  We even did a pool and we have got a secret room with a family room.  By Kaizah.

There are a few things which have stuck with me today as I begin the RPI (Reading Programme Intensive) and now while I reflect on today’s information.

Before now I had never really given thought to my role in influencing student perceptions about reading. I know I have a privileged place in my community and a responsibility to embody being a positive male role model. However, I had never thought about the nuances of the position.

All day it’s left me with the question floating through my muddled, mushy brain… ‘Do I make reading seen as valuable to/for my students?’

The majority of my work day is spend in the company of teenage boys. Notoriously and stereotypically ‘bad’ readers – I now worry that I’m not doing enough to break down barriers and societal norms in this respect.

Lucky the first day hasn’t left me with anything too heavy to consider?!

Aside from my now semi-permanent existential crisis the course has been great. Although it has been a tsunami of information, links, slideshows and breakout rooms, everything has been delivered with a nice pace to it, nothing has been too tedious and all activities have been directly linked back to the sessions key focus.

I now have more of an insight in to the ways that an effective reading programme should:
– Challenge and extend students
– Celebrate success
– Allow for a selection of interest based texts and from a variety of different mediums
– Facilitate self, peer and teacher reflection
– and so much more!

One thing I have been encouraged by is that my intended plan in my class is going to support the material covered today in promoting students to be good readers. The Big Picture Learning class I am running this year requires books to be read each term, reflections to be written about these and I also already have a list of relevant texts which I am going to be reading to/with the class at various times.

Although I don’t come from a background with any literacy focus I believe that I’m confident enough to get stuck in, not scared to make mistakes and hopefully eventually chip away at that existential crisis too (if I have time ).

Looking forward to session #2 in three weeks time. Better remember to do my homework as well so I don’t get told off!

One of the first activities we did this year was to make our names using Place Value blocks.

Welcome to Room 4, where learning is an exciting journey we embark on together! We’re thrilled to have you visit our class blog to see some of the work we do.