Information Literacy

Information literacy is an important skill for students to learn. In a world that is absolutely swimming in facts and figures, students need to learn the skills of how to sort, process and use information, so they can best understand it, ultimately improving their learning. Lots has been written about ‘information literacy’ and why it is important for student to be information literate. Jamie McKenzie has been thinking about how students develop information literate behaviours for a long time. You can learn more about his ideas here.

This term, the children in Room 7 have been using graphic organisers to help record and use the information readily available through print and electronic media. This week we have explored how using a mind-map, one of the simplest types of graphic organisers, can encourage the development of sound information literacy skills. Mind-maps can be used to note-take without plagiarising, if used to record key words rather than whole sentences. Later, students use the key word notes on the mind-map to reconstruct understanding and write in sentences what they have understood.

This week, feel free to ask your child to bring home their draft book and explain how their mind-map has helped them write a factual report.

Busy week!

Wow! What a really busy week we've had this week. We took a walk down to the beach to look at the different 'levels' on the sea shore. We also collected sea water to use in an upcoming science experiment, and brought back to school a 'mystery object' from the sea shore. We've conducted an investigation into this object, hypothesising what it might once have been, and how it came to be on the sea shore.

We've started our inquiry kidspiration mindmaps this week. We will use these to help us decide what to focus on when choosing an inquiry topic. We will share these with you in our portfolios.


As part of our cross-country preparation, we walked to Williams Park and, while there, walked the cross country course. This allowed us to visualise the course, so we know where to run next Tuesday.

All of this, as well as our normal learning programme in Reading, Writing, Maths, Handwriting, ICT and Spelling….. whew!

What causes 'tides'?

Today we used this digital learning object
to help us understand how the moon influences the tides here on Earth.

It really helped to see the 'bulge' of water, which we call 'the tide', as it is pulled around the surface of the earth by the moon's gravity.

Trip to Island Bay Marine Education Centre

Our recent visit to the Marine Education Centre was fantastic!

Judy and Victor, the marine biologists who run the centre, taught our year 3 and 4 children many, many things about the creatures that live in, on and around Wellington's rocky shore coastline. Our children were fascinated as Judy and Victor talked about penguins, sharks, sea cucumbers (which apparently vomit up their guts when threatened!)... the amount of different creatures was huge!

We all had a chance to explore the rockpools around the education centre, under the expert eye of Victor, who hopped from rockpool to rockpool, pointing out many interesting things to the children as they explored. We then went into the marine lab, where Judy showed off the extensive collection of marine animal 'guests' the centre currently has. The 'touch pool' was a highlight!

A fantastic day- an ideal way to begin our term-long research and action inquiry into "The Rocky Shore".