End of Year Survey 08

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Out of the Box! 3 'Five Photo Story'

Your mission is to create a story using just 5 photos. No captions or saound allowed. You must use the toys you've brought from home, stay within sight of our room and email to five pics in order to my gmail address BEFORE 2.50pm!

REWARD for the winning team! (It's a surprise!)

Congratulations, Shaun, Erin, Caitlyn, Samuel and Elise for the winning entry. You showed some imagination, creativity and good use of a natural setting for your story.

BubbleShare: Share photos - Easy Photo Sharing

Last Market Day!

We combined with Room 5 today and had our very last market day. It was great to see our buddies open up some cool shops and sell lots of product.

Here are some photos of the excitement.

Room 12 Highlights by Vote!

These are the things we liked the best about school this year. We voted for the things that were fun and exciting to do. The class's favourite things were Camp, Quiddage and our Chapter Challenge blog.
Camp was fun because we learnt how to believe in ourselves and not always be scared of your fears. We had new experiences like abseiling, horse riding and kayaking.
In quiddage we learnt the importance of money and how to sell and buy things with a certain amount of money. You actually had to put effort into the marketing of your business.
Our chapter challenge helped us to see how good a book can actually be by doing activities that helped us thinking and digging deeper into our selected book.
This year's been cool mostly because the people in our class are cool and we've enjoyed being self directed!
(Written by Room 12)

School Website

Have you stopped by our new school website? www.riverdale.school.nz

Room 12 Rules the Speech Comp!

Congratulations, Ruby, for winning the Senior Team Speech Competition! She'll be presenting her speech at the final assembly. Click here for the link to our school website post about her triumph!

Sunflower Art

Here's the inspiration for our art work this week -

Room 12 Speech Results

Chapter Challenge - Latest Scores

Top Scorer - Liam - 225 points for team 1! =) Next Marking - Wednesday 10th December

Out of the Box - Twitter Challenge

Five teams faced off today to complete tasks (from twitter) that gave clues to a maths algorithm. Well done, winners - Diana, Duncan and Shaun!
BubbleShare: Share photos - Play some Online Games.

Geometry Map

This will record what we're learning for transformation of objects.

Chapter Challenge - Latest Scores

Top Scorer - Shaun - 95 points for team 2! =) Next Marking - Friday 5th December

Hauora Mindmeister Map

We want to create a HUGE list of the things we do that help us stay well rounded and balanced as people - the things that make us happy and whole.

Amazing Speech

We've looked at what made this speech so awesome. See if you can use these techniques to make your speech awesome too!

Diana's Flow Map

Here's an example of a great flow map. Diana explained the main events in the book, 'The Naughtiest Girl Helps a Friend' by Enid Blyton.

Chapter Challenge - Latest Scores

WALT: Use the reading skills we've learnt during the year to think and reflect on a book!
Top Scorer - Diana 170 points for Team 3! Next Marking - Tuesday, 2 Dec.

Winning Animal Antics Vid - Out of the Box 2!

Congratulations, Alex, Callum, Ruby A, Mitchell, Caitlyn, Rebecca and Elise! Your Lion entry won for creativity, videoing skills (very still, nicely balanced in the frame) and lions facial expression!

Out of the Box! 2 'Animal Antics' Lion from mark herring on Vimeo.

Out of the Box entries - Animal Antics

Out of the Box! 2 'Animal Antics' Elephant from mark herring on Vimeo.


Out of the Box! 2 'Animal Antics' Zebra from mark herring on Vimeo.


Out of the Box! 2 'Animal Antics' - Giraffe from mark herring on Vimeo.

Highly Commended!

Out of the Box! 2 'Animal Antics'

Your challenge is to create a moving safari animal with your bodies that lasts for 3 seconds. Take a short video on the cameras, starting with you all standing in a line, create your animal and then back into the line - all within 10 seconds.

Be as creative as you can, use your green thinking hats and work well as a team. - S100 for the winning video, posted this afternoon.

Think outside the box!

Grumpy Bug

Our favourite book of the year!

Out of the Box

Out of the Box

Here's a clue for today 'Out of the Box'. Have a guess.

Inspirational Speech

Mindmeister for speech ideas

Use our mindmeister map to start writing your speech. Don't forget to add things if you have more ideas - click on above link and use our class password to get access.

Speech Ideas - class research

These are are our thoughts for our speeches - 'Me in the 21st Century'.

Speech Ideas Change - schools

Speech Ideas - Global Warming

Speech Ideas 2 - Technology

Speech Ideas

Hamburger Technique

Use this process to help you plan your speech. Thanks Rm13 for this!

1. The creative idea. (The planning and preparation of the hamburger.)

* Decide and know your topic well.
* Choose a subject that appeals to your audience's mind, emotions, and senses.
* Write down the conclusion you want to reach.
* Once you have all this, you are ready to prepare your speech.

2. The introduction. (Top hamburger bun - appetising introduction)

* Catch immediate attention. Open with a question, some startling statement, or a fact that will catch your audience's attention.
* Tell them the purpose of your speech. Many times inexperienced speakers ramble on and the audience doesn't know where the speaker is going with the speech.
* Let them know early the purpose of your speech and the audience will follow you just like they would follow the ball players in a rugby, netball or hockey game.

3. The body. (The fillings of your hamburger - Each layer of filling = tasty aspect of your topic. )

* Contains supporting ideas for the conclusion you want the audience to understand. Present your first key point and have your supporting information following-usually 1-2 supporting ideas under each key point. Do this with every point and you will not get lost. Just remember that you are working on the "meat (middle) of the hamburger."

* Include stories, personal experiences, examples and anecdotes when appropriate.

* Include facts, proof, or examples.

4. The powerful close/conclusion (Bottom of the bun = conclusion - holds your burger together)

* Tie in the ending with your opening. Take a look at your opening again and here is where you will tie it in to the ending. Your audience will remember this. Make it a well-remembered ending.

* Finish forcefully and confidently. That doesn't mean shout. It means get your point across with confidence. That you know it and believe it.

* This may be the only thing the audience remembers. That's right. After hours of planning and preparing your speech and honing it down to a 1 -3 minutes presentation, your conclusion/close/climax may be the only thing the audience remembers so make it memorable.

Athletics Day pics

Winning Air Motion Picture!

Congratulations to Robert, Shaun, Ella and Sarah for winning the challenge with this entry! The judge rated it for it's wow factor, level of difficulty and it's balance in the frame.

Air Motion Pictures

Here are the pictures from our 'Out of the Box' challenge. Great effort, teams!

By Rebecca, Mitchell, Caitlyn, Stephanie

By Taylor, Liam, Erin, Elise

By Kris, Andre, Lexus, Diana

By Ruby, Samuel, Dominic, Zain

By Callum, Riccardo, Alex, Ruby

Out of the Box! 1 'Air Motion'

Your challenge is to take a photo under the theme of 'Motion in the Air'. The winning entrant will be awarded $200 snidges and be famous on our blog for the world to see.

You will need to work as a team and have your entry to Me by 2.45pm. See me before you go outside with your initial idea.

Good luck!

Motion Pictures

What do you think of these pictures? They were taken while people were in mid air. Do you think you could take pics like these? Look for this afternoons activity on the timetable - this will give you a clue.

Mr H's climbing Baby!

Spider baby from mark herring on Vimeo.

Chapter Challenge Link

Have fun! There will be a prize for the winning team!

Teddy Bear Scare

Here's another FUNNY video. Watch this and not laugh, we DARE you. Does this give Rm 12'ers some ideas for your P.I Youtube challenge?

(Courtesy of Ruby A - Thanks Ruby)

The Bull Ring!

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The Bull Ring is an outer circle that asks questions and an inner circle that answers them in a debate fashion. No teacher input into questions or answers is allowed!
(Sorry about the microphone noise...)

Laughter chain

We have talked about video conferencing and using skype in the future (I sometimes skype with my family at lunchtimes, much to everyone's amusement).

This video was also an example of a chain of videos put together by Skype - as well as being pretty funny!

What makes a good argument?

Normally I wouldn't encourage our class to become better at arguing - ha ha. Here is a voice thread that helped us dig into the things that make persuasive writing 'GREAT'.

Camp David Photos

Here is a link to some of the many photos from Camp David - 2008!

You can download these pics for yourself at home. There are over 400 to browse through so take your time!

Our New Efolio 2008

Here's a link to our 2008 Efolio we have started.

The first things I've added are our video's of the latest qnews for our 'Time and Temperature' topics.

Games for the Bus!

Copy ONE of these games (or both if you're really keen) into your camp book to play on the bus!

Travel Alphabet: Travel Alphabet is a simple, cooperative car game in which everyone works together to find an object outside that starts with each letter of the alphabet (difficult letters like Q, X, and Z can be omitted). For example, for A, “air,” “aeroplane,” or “animals” are some possibilities. I like that this game encourages the children to look out of the window and to see the scenery (of course this game doesn’t work at night, but by dark, hopefully, the kids are asleep).

Silly Licence Sentences: This is a funny game where players challenge each other to come up with a sentence using the letters on a licence plate. The game starts with the first player challenging the next player to come up with a sentence using the words that start with the letters on a licence plate -- in order! So if the licence plate was AKPA 569, you might come up with, “All kangaroos play around.” The sentences can be extremely silly but must be grammatically correct.

Car Cricket
How to play
There is a Batsperson. Only this person can score runs.
The rest of the people in the car, field, these are the people looking to get a batsperson out.
Scoring
One(1)run is scored for any "Red" color car
Two(2)runs are scored for every green car
Four(4)runs are scored for every truck .
Six(6)runs for every motor bike.
If you see an animal in the car you score 6 but you are also "OUT".
You are also "OUT" and someone else has a turn if you see a bus.
The majority of the group have to agree that a run has been score
The winner is the person with the highest score after everyone has had two goes.

Literacy Interactives - Rimu

Use this link for this week's interactive.  We'll be practising our spelling skills and how to read certain blends.

BBC Bitesize Literacy

Maths Interactives

Here are some games we'll be using to help us learn analogue and digital clocks and reading temperatures.

Telling the time game

Changing from 24h time to regular

Quiz on telling time

Temperature quiz

Have fun!  Don't forget you can also use these at home during your homework time...

Printing Your Scrapblog!

This link will take you to a video I've made on 'Jing'.  It shows you how to download your poster on scrapblog so you can print it at home. 

Have a look and watch it again if you've missed a step.

Camp David Link

Who's excited about our Camp David trip in week 3? Here's the link to our Camp Blog. Thanks Mr McCallum!

Scrapblogging!

This week we'll be making a 'scrapblog' of ourselves. It will be on a topic of your choice, as long as it's about you! It could be your holiday, your favourite sports or after school activities or even a showcase of your skills!

Go to scrapblog to begin making yours. Here's an example of one I made on a similar site, over the holidays.

Mission On

Here is a link to the 'Mission On' website. It focuses on the things that develop our physical wellbeing, one of the four parts of Hauora. Can you name the other three?

Week 7 Olympic Awards and Social Targets

It seems that our Olympic blogsite, that managed and informed the students about the tasks, was a great way for the students to access at school AND home.
We will be continuing this type of programme during the weeks of production practices. Watch this space for another Ms Currie special to do with animals!
These programmes are a great way to develop self management and we will be discussing what we can all do to improve at this 'Key Competency'.

Some of us in Room 12 have some room for improving when it comes to our social skills. We have started working on a 'social target' that may be our next step.
We first discussed (in groups) all the things we sometimes do wrong, the things we should instead and then we rated them from hard to easy to do.
This helped us group them into four levels. Each student has chosen one to work on next and will assess themselves at the end of each day.
Below is an example of one brainstorming sheet.
Here's our list of level four targets to achieve. We think these are some great high level thinking examples!

Week 6 Happenings

Thanks to all the parents and students who came to the interviews this week. It was really great to celebrate some of the progress the children have been making! I know they enjoyed sharing the Maori artwork they have been working on.

We had a 'pyjama day' at school today to fundraise money for Daffodil day - cancer society. Here's a photo of the fun. What a bunch of 'just got out of beds!'
We were also fascinated with this sculpters work - Jennifer Maestre. She uses coloured pencils and nails to create 3D art. Have a look at her portfolio.

We are working hard at completing our talking books. It has been part of our narrative work and has combined skills of oral language, digital creation, team work, art, proofreading and managing self! Here's an example of some of the pages.

Mark Treadwell Meeting

I'd like to encourage you to come to our Parent's Meeting next week with Mark Treadwell. This event is advertised in this weeks newsletter and is being held at school next Thursday, 21st August at 6.30pm.

I have had many conversations with parents about the development our schools are making towards 21st century learning and how this is affecting our classrooms. One of the obvious changes is the increasing use of computers and other technologies.

If you have ever wondered, queried, pondered or, like me, felt bemused (at times) about this- we would absolutely recommend you come to this event! Mark is VERY inspirational and exciting to listen to and very able to answer the valid questions that many parents have.

Looking forward to seeing many of you there.

Thoughts and Feelings

Our narrative writing will have more impact if we can describe the characters thoughts and feelings. Todays activity involved describing how this person was feeling and what was happening in his head.
Here are some highlights. Can you spot the similes, metaphors and 'voice' used? Ask your student what voice means - it's not so easy to explain.

Ooo, wait. He's as strong as me! Just jokes. He's as strong as a lion! Zain

I would be thinking, "I can do it! I can do it!" I would feel like I was going to get crushed like being nuder a steam roller! Dominic

I gotta get it up and get the gold, make my country proud just a bit more. I've got the gold! The crowd is staring at me like greddy magpies! Alex

The weight on each end of the bar were elephants jumping up and down, trying to make it all the harder for me. Elise

The sweat trickled down my back and forehead like maple syrup being pured onto pancakes. Rebecca

Lokk at him! Wooowzey! I can imagine him lifting up a car or two! Ruby J

Olympic Reports Blog

We are working on some Olympic Reports for reading this term. Each group has to select a sport at the Olympics, research and follow it during the events and report to the class about Nz's efforts.

This link 'Rm 12's Olympic Reports' will take you to our blogsite that records our work, shows the medal tally (each student will earn Gold, Silver or Bronze medals for each task) and has links to the blogs some groups are using for their presentations.

Week 2 Highlights

Here are to some pics from our Market Day today. It's great to see some new products after the holidays! Mitchell's spiders were a real hit today, especially as he sold out! He has applied and been successful with a patent for these little creations.

Dominic is bartering with Stephanie and Diana over some of their 'One Stop Craft Shop' products.
We've been working hard on our 'weighing machines' for maths this term. On Wednesday the groups used their machines to make some salt dough for art. They found it really challenging to use their own weights and capacity measurments to get the dough just right.

Room 12 is making some 'Talking Books' using powerpoint this term. We have been crafting some stories in writing and these stories will be illustrated using a diarama. Shaun's is coming along... can you tell what his story might be about?