Home Learning night

Hi Room 15 parents.


In our last parent email home Pouakai Syndicate asked for interest in attending a session looking at Home Learning, or Homework as some of you would know it.  The response was great with close to twenty families indicating they were keen to attend such an evening. Therefore are going ahead with the idea.

We are looking at holding the session on Wednesday 7th March (next week) at 6:30pm in the Tawa Intermediate Library.

The evening will be a low pressure night, for both parents and kids, where we can explain the Home Learning Folder, answer any questions you might have, and simply chat about what works for different families.  We can't promise your kids will start doing Basic Facts instead of watching Shortland Street, but hopefully both parents and kids can go away armed with some strategies to make home learning easier.  

We'll make sure there is some tea and coffee (just instant, not the posh stuff) and would love it if families could bring a small plate so we can have a little supper to keep us going.

We're pretty sure we will all fit in the library but it would help us if you replied to confirm if you are coming so we can make a final call on which room to use.


Hope to see you there


Stephanie

An interview with Stephen our class representative

Stephen is Room 15's class representative on Tawa Intermediate's Student Council. Yesterday Jade sat down with Stephen to ask him some questions about his role.

A big thanks to Lachy for being the cameraman.

Room 15 do you have any questions for Stephen? Leave them in the comments section.


Speaking of videos. Check out the awesome video that Ms T made of our syndicate field trip to Nagatitoa domain over on Ngaa Hau Mahana, Room 13's fabulous class blog.

What does it mean to be educated?

Hi First Fifteen I found an interesting video from some Australian students about what they think it means to be educated.


What do you think it means to be educated? Leave a comment on our wallwisher.

 Please also leave some comment.

Week 4 Reflection Questions

We've had a busy week 4 here in Room 15. I've included some photos of our week.

Highlights for me were the Strike Performance, Nikita's wonderful muffins that she made the class for her home learning, learning our first words of Korean, having some Zumba fun in our class on Wednesday and your videos of the school norms.

Your enlargements are starting to look spectacular and I'm hoping to hang some of our Pouakais up on our wall over the weekend.

I was also impressed by the students who decided to take initiative with their Basic Facts by asking for the next level's sheets to help them pass the next test.

How has week 4 gone for you? Please leave a comment using our Quality Commenting Checklist.

• Have you had some learning WINS? 
• Did you have any First Attempts In Learning? What will change next week?
• What did you find tricky this week?
• What are you looking to improve on your learning for next week?

Looking forward to week 5. Can you believe we are already half way through our term?

Stephanie


Created with flickr slideshow.

Our first Global Project - Collaboreyes

Our syndicate's first home learning task was to submit an entry for the Collaboreyes project. This is a global project where children from around the world take pictures of themselves wearing sunglasses in places that are significant to them. I couldn't pick one as there are so many awesome pictures and accompanying stories. I learned so much not just about Tawa and Wellington but also so much about the students who submitted stories to this project. I've included all your descriptions over on our flickr set.

But here's a slideshow of some of the stars of the First Fifteen.

 

Fantastic work class.

How did you feel taking part in a global project. Do you have any favourite pictures?

Wacky words of the week

Hi Room 15

One of our learning goals for the year is learn new words. By learning new words you will be able to add more and interesting descriptions to your writing. Here are some words to start us off:

Emphasized
Emerging
Mantra
Radical
Numb

We decided in class that we could show how we knew the meanings and spellings of these words by:

1. Write down the definition of each word.
2. Use the word in your own sentences.
3. Draw a picture to show the meaning of the word.
4. Use the words in different ways in class.
5. Act the meanings of the words out and video them!

One of your writing tasks for the week is to write a sentence or that use all five our wacky words of the week before Friday Fun!

Our new fish!

Hi Room 15
I hope you had a great weekend. I went to Animates over the weekend and the good news is that our class now has two black goldfish. We need to decide on their names.

What do you think we should call our fish?

A great day out in Ngatitoa

Hi Room 15
I hope you had a fantastic day yesterday for syndicate trip to Ngatitoa domain. We were very lucky with the weather. Perhaps the weather was too nice as I got a little sunburned. Thanks to our class snappers who took some great shots. I've uploaded the photos onto our class flickr account.

How was the day for you? Were the some highlights that you would like to share?

Please leave a comment in the post remembering to think about making a quality comment.

Quality Commenting

Hi Room 15
It's been great to see students making comments on our blog. Commenting really brings a blog to life its away to keep a conversation about a post going. Our next learning step is to think about making a quality comment.

What do you think makes a quality comment on a blog?

What do you think a commentator should think about before hitting publish?

Stephanie

Love is in the air @ TIS

We had some love angels visit TIS today selling chocolate love hearts for just $1 a bag. The chocolates were very tasty and the salespeople looked fantastic.

Did you buy any chocolates? Who did you buy them for?

(photo by Sarah)

Why have a school treaty?

After PE our class spent time deciding why we needed a school treaty and what would happen if we didn't.



Where do you think the class treaty might fit on our Gradual Release of Responsibility Wall?

Third week a go!

Hey Room 15
It's hard to believe we are already into our third week of term 1! Where did the time go?

A huge thanks to the students who submitted their collaboreyes projects. We've had some wonderful submissions. I'll be uploading the submissions to our class flickr account soon.

Last week our class choose our class representatives. What really impressed me was how you were able to identify the qualities of good leaders and use those values to help guide your decision-making. I would like to thank all the students who put themselves forward it's a really brave thing to do.

Mr Rickard has let me know that the Year 7s google apps accounts are now up and running. This means you now have a school email address and you will also be able to comment here on our class blog using your google account. We'll be learning how to sign into the school network this week and we will also learn a lot about quality commenting over the next few weeks.

Your task for Monday is to think of a good password to sign in with. Good passwords contain both letter and numbers that you can remember but other people can't easily guess. We'll have a talk about what makes a good password in class.

Who is looking forward to the Ngatitoa trip on Thursday? I know I am. Let's keep our fingers and toes for some great weather.

Hope you have a great week!

What did you do this weekend? I spotted Jade and her mum when I went to the library and the gym on Saturday.

Choosing our student councilors

Hi Room 15
Mr Skipworth emailed me asking Room 15 to choose our nominees for student council. Student council helps keep TIS running smoothly and makes your voices as students are heard at school.

Student council is a great place to show off your great communication skills. You need to get the buzz from room 15 students about important issues and represent those to student council. So you need to be a great listener and speaker.

Being on student council means helping making events at TIS happen so you need to be organized.

We want someone to represent our class well so the person should be some we can rely on to show up to meetings and we should trust that they will always do the right thing for the students of our class and TIS.

Think you might be our class's next John Key or Helen Clark?

Put your name forward for election. We need two nominees, a main and a back-up.

Kapa Haka with Miss T!

Phew.

Another busy day at TIS! Students were busy auditioning for places in the TIS Academies and Sports Council. We've got our fingers and toes crossed for the students auditioning to academies.

Good luck!

Today our class spent the morning with Pouakai and Kakapo syndicate having a taster of Kapa Haka with Miss T, the teacher from Room 13 and another member of team Pouakai. Miss T has a real passion for Te Reo and we had fun learning different waita.

For students looking to develop their performance skills I would recommend putting yourself forward for Kapahaka. Alongside singing and learning Te Reo, you'll gain confidence, team work and valuable performance skills. So have a go!

Great to see so many Room 15 parents in for the community get together tonight. I hope you enjoyed looking around our classroom and hope to see you again soon.

Some great collaboreyes submissions coming in. Remember the due date is Friday.

The mighty Pouakai

Lachlan found a great clip about the Pouakai on youtube that he submitted in his home learning task.



Wow!

That's a really scary bird.

If there was a sorting hat at TIS, what kind of qualities do you think the hat would look for when selecting students for Pouakai syndicate?

Let's get started for the second week

Hi Room 15

I hope you've had a great long weekend. I went to Noarebang with my friends and had lots fun singing some Japanese and Korean songs. I've also marked most of your first week home learning tasks.

This week we need to nominate a Student Councillor and a deputy. The Councillor represents our class on the student council. We need to think about the qualities of a good Councillor and decide who we think might be a good people to represent our class. Council will meet at the same time as sports committee.

A couple of reminders.

Academy applications close TUESDAY. Please submit your applications to students services ASAP.

Tomorrow is the TIS community Get Together. This is your chance to show off the school and our class to your parents. The get together starts at six and I hope to meet your families.

Your money and permissions slips for our Ngatitoa trip need to be in on Friday. We also need some parent helpers to make this trip happen. Check in with your parents see if they are available.

Your next home learning tasks, the Collaboreyes project is due on Friday. For this task you need to find a place that you feel safe and get someone to take a picture of you with sunglasses on.

I've had some great submissions from Helen, Brittany and Sarah but I hope to see more in the next few days. My email address is on the board at school or you can print out your submission and put it in the home learning folder this week.

Be sure to have a look at some of the great submissions on the Collaboreyes project website if you are in need of inspiration.

Here's to a great second week @ TIS

Sports Committee wants YOU!

Pssst Room 15!

Ms Goldfinch has just emailed me asking for our class's nominations for sports committee. We have two slots up for grabs and I'm sure there are bound to be some stand-out students to select for a spot on the committee.

For those not in the know, sports committee members help organize and run our inter-class competition here at Tawa Intermediate.

Our nominees will need to have a bit of mana with other students and they also need to have a sound basic knowledge of sport. You don't have to be Dan Carter to put your name forward, but you do need to be a capable sports person.

Interested?

Let me know in person or via email fast. I need to make a decision about our class before the end of school on Tuesday.

I'll be talking with Mr Rickard, who takes our class for PE, to help make the decision of who to select to put forward for this exciting opportunity.

The selection trials will take place in the normal sports committee slot on Wednesday (11.35 in the hall). We should have at least one successful nominee from our class.

(Image by @dino used under Creative Commons licence)

Pouakai Power!

Brrr.

Our second day at TIS was a bit cold but boy was it busy!

In the morning we learned a special kind of clap called a Dexterity Check. We will need to practice the clap a few more times before we can get it just right.

We also found our buddies.

Buddies are people who we will be working together with when we need to work in pairs. Hopefully by the end of the term every student in Room 15 will have worked together.

A highlight of Room 15's day was our first syndicate PE session lead by the outrageous Mr O.C from Room 14. We took part in a special race where we moved our entire class from one end of the hall to the other while staying on two small mats. Our class came a close second to Room 14. A special thanks to Brad and Fraser for showing leadership during the syndicate challenge and also for the members of our team who cheered for Room 13 as they crossed the finish line.

During our first Assembly we learned more about the academies at Tawa Intermediate.

A reminder applications for academies are due in by Tuesday February 7.

Do you remember what the word Dexterity means?
Are you planning to audition for any academies?