Room 7's publishing log

Last week I was fortunate enough to participate in a 2 day professional development 'bus tour' around four very different Auckland schools. One school I visited, Pt England School, impressed me very much. The philosophy of this school is that students should be 'creators of information' as much as they are 'consumers of information'. All learning undertaken at Pt England had an end goal- to produce information content for the www.

This week, Room 7 has taken a step towards emulating Pt England, with the creation of our 'publishing blog' (see Hot Links- to the right). Here you will find the latest learning your child has been involved with, published as 'information content' for the www. We hope to expand this as the year progresses- podcasting, digital learning objects, who knows where we may end up? In the meantime, feel free to leave a comment on the childrens work.

"Storm over Muritai"

For art over the next couple of weeks we are learning how to add shade and tint to our painiting. Shade is where the colour is darkened, tint is where the colour is lightened.

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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".

Making our super healthy sandwiches!

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After we planned our sandwiches (see previous post) we made them. Take a look....

ANZAC Day

Over the next few weeks, between now and the start of the holidays, Room 7 will be inquiring into the origins of ANZAC Day, and the ways that people remember events that have happened in the past.

Around Eastbourne are a number of war memorials. We plan to visit some and reflect on why they are there.

We will also learn more about the ANZAC legend. What is ANZAC Day all about? Why to we commemorate an event that happened over 90 years ago?

Check out the Brainways ANZAC Day day website. It can be found in the Year 3-4 section of the school intranet.

Super Sandwich Day

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Super Sandwich Day (Friday 4th April) is the culmination of our inquiry into why it is important to eat a balanced, healthy diet.

Students are presently designing a sandwich that will show their understanding of the ‘eat most, eat moderately, eat least’ pyramid. Of course, they get to be a little creative with how the sandwich will look!

The photos above show some Room 7 students planning what their sandwiches will look like.

Literacy

Over the last couple of weeks, some of the students in Room 7 have been learning how to argue a proposition, by taking different sides in an argument. We have learned that it is OK to agree or disagree with a statement, as long as we have evidence to support what we are arguing.


During Reading time, we have been exploring the proposition that “Sharks are very mis-understood animals”. Our inquiry has focused on choosing a side of the proposition to argue, then finding, recording and using information to support our position.

Welcome back to a new school year!

The days are long and sunny.... but it's time to head back to school for another year of learning and fun!

Check back here for regular updates on what we are doing in class. Please feel free to leave a comment about our learning.