Food in schools

This week there has been a lot of coverage around the government providing breakfast to kids in low-income schools. One newspaper printed a cartoon suggesting that if kids got given free meals at school, their parents would spend the savings on beer and gambling. 

The cost of food, accommodation and electricity in New Zealand are very expensive for some families and tough choices are being made especially during winter.

In a lot of countries it is seen as the government's responsibility to provide lunch for students in schools. 

When I worked in Korea I was surprised to see each school has a kitchen that provides lunch. Some families pay for lunch, but if the family can't afford to pay then the government paid the bill. You can see the lunch on the left. There's rice, kimchi, soup, some vegetables and some meat.

I really love when we have shared lunches as it's a great way for students to bond.

What do you think?

Should schools have kitchens to provide hot lunches for kids?

What might be some of the costs?

What would be benefits?

Huia Cross country

Huia kids had an awesome effort at cross-country effort today. It was fantastic to see so many of our syndicate really pushing themselves. You can see more of our photos here.

How did you go during Cross Country?

What was the trickiest part of Cross Country?

What was the best part of Cross Country?

Social Media in schools

Have a read of this article about a school in Wellington that has been asking students to log into social media sites like Facbook and ask.fm for teachers to check.

What do you think of this?

Should schools control what happens online on sites like Facebook after school hours?

Should students be giving passwords to social media sites to teachers?

How could parents find out more about what their children are doing online?

Highlights from the week

This week has been a busy week for Room 15. Assembly, running, tech challenge, and more running

 What was your highlight for the week?

How have you used determination this week?

What do you want to improve on next week?

 

A pep talk - Assembly

Earlier in the year, Room 15 watched Pep talk. We decided that the message was one we wanted to share at our assembly so we had a go at making it. Thanks to Room 13 and Room 14 for joining in our pep talk. What was your favourite scene in the peo talk? What is something we could improve on for later?

Quadblogging

As part of our unit of inquiry on Globalisation, I've signed Room 15 up to do Quadblogging.  

Quadblogging is a cool way for us to learn more about different countries and get our work featured overseas. Each week we visit a different week and leave quality comments on different class's blog. 

Last week we had visitors from the United Kingdom.

This week it is our turn to visit new blogs. 

Please visit 7Y Skills for Learning and leave a quality comment. Remember that you aren't just representing our school but also New Zealand so please make sure you use the quality commenting check list.

Getting Ready for Assembly

Classes at Tawa Intermediate each take turns hosting our weekly assembly. Huia syndicate missed out in the first term due to a meeting. However Room 15 was pretty excited to hear that  our class was on assembly this week.

As you can see from the video, Room 15 takes hosting very seriously.

I was amazed to see how focused and on task every student in the class was. We've got some cool things planned but we still need to practice before the big event on Wednesday.

The power of concentration

We all know that we need to practice a skill in order to get better. However it is important to remember that practice isn't just doing something again and again, it requires you to focus on the task at hand. To be concentrating on getting better.

Have a look at this video.

What does it teach you about the power of concentration?

How has your concentration been in school this week?

Can you think of the last time you concentrated? When was it? What were you doing? What did it feel like?

Writing test using computers

Room 15 is amongst the first students at Tawa Intermediate to do their once-a-term writing assessment via computer. Our teacher used a google doc script to send out assessments and is now busy marking the assessments.

What did you think think about doing your writing assessment online?

What were some things you found easier?

What were some things you found trickier?

Would you recommend other classes start using google docs for writing assessments? If so why?

Welcome to Room 15

This term Room 15 is taking part in Quadblogging. We would like to welcome students from Rhyddings Business and Enterprise School and Shireland Collegiate Academy from the UK to our blog. Here's our welcome back to school video to give you an idea about our class and what we like to get up to at school. 

We are looking forward to visiting your class blogs as part of the class journey.

In the mean time, perhaps you could leave a comment letting us know where in the UK you are from and some questions about New Zealand for Room 15's students to answer.

Assembly Time again

Hi Room 15 Our class is on assembly again. Our class doesn't just host an assembly, we host the assembly. To give Year 7s an idea of the things our class has done in the past, check out this video.

Has anyone got any ideas for assembly? What theme could we have? Are the any ideas from activities in class we could showcase at assembly. Who do you think would be a good host?

Huia syndicate - I am eleven

Our class was very lucky to go the first screening of I Am Eleven at Wellington's documentary festival. We had a bit of time early in the morning so went to Te Papa before the movie. 

Next, we went to see the movie. The reason we went to see I am eleven is because the movie follows the story of 11 year olds from different countries around the world. Our syndicate was the first group to see the film and were excited to have our picture taken for the directors of the movie.

 Our trip home was a bit of a rush as we had to make the train. Unfortunately our train was cancelled so we had to take the bus.

What was your highlight of our trip into Wellington?

If money and time wasn't a problem, which child from the movie would you like to meet and why?

Did any of the kids from the movie remind you of kids from the class? Who were they and why?

Room 15's teacher goes to Google!

I was very luck to be selected to go the Google Teacher Academy in Sydney. The first thing I did when I arrived was to have a pie from Harry's Cafe du Wheels. Harry's has been making pies since 1938 and the tiger pie is a speciality. It's got gravy, mushy peas and potato on top of a meat pie. Why do you think it's called the tiger pie?

One of the highlights of going to the academy was meeting teachers from around the world. Here I am with a group of teachers who teach in Singapore and America at Bronte Beach. One of the teachers lives a long way from the ocean so he was amazed at all the surf. Sometimes we forget how lucky we are in New Zealand to live close to the beach!

The google offices were pretty cool.  A personal favourite was the library. What do you think? Do you think Tawa Intermediate kids might like our new library to look like this? 

Most of the time I spent learning about google products but here I am playing a minute to win it game called the chocolate unicorn. Can you guess what I had to do? Do you think I won? Would you like to have a go at some of these games in Room 15?

Welcome back to term 2

Hi Room 15

I hope you all had a splendid holiday. I’ve spent a fair bit of time on planes this holiday. First I flew up to Auckland to go to a conference and see my parents. They are building a house in Mangawhai, which is about 90 minutes drive north of Auckland. 

My parents' new house!

Next, I flew back to Wellington to do some marking and school work before going on another plane this time to Australia. This plane ride was really bumpy because of the strong winds. We were almost 30 minutes late into Melbourne.

Leaving Wellington for Australia

First I went to Melbourne where I visited a lovely Year 7 class. I learned some things about teaching inquiry and then I talked to the class about our passion projects as this class is doing the same thing. I really loved the old buildings in Melbourne. The trams were lots of fun to ride as well. 

Royal Exhibition Building, Melbourne

Then it was on yet another plane... can you guess what city I am in now?

Where is your teacher?

How was your holiday?

What did you do?

What are you looking forward to this term?