Again we have been working hard in Team Maunga in our reading. This week our shared book was called Bertha and the Beeman. Here are some examples of work that children have produced. They have also been busy learning about bees using our 'BEE AMAZING' site. They are also busy working on the 'create' part of our bee theme with some amazing artwork being produced as well as the creating of stop motion movies. Looking forward to being able to share all this amazing mahi with you soon.
Team Maunga was really engaged in the process of beeswax wrap making and 2 groups of children decided to make a movie to share the process on how we would make them and created storyboards to show this. They then recorded the rest of the class making their beeswax wraps. They then went back and added to their storyboard.
Once the videos and storyboards were sorted, children worked with Mrs G on editing and trimming these in iMovie. The groups worked hard on this and were able to cut movies down (Then Mrs G did cut a bit more out as well to make it a better length). The next day the groups worked on their movies again recording and typing in the words from their storyboards. Finally, the groups choose backing music and turned its volume down on this, so they could still hear their recorded words.
Here is a movie to show the shared book that we created for maths about our shape monsters. These are stories we created to share our knowledge about numbers. We hope you enjoy.
We took pictures of our work and then put them into Explain Everything. We then recorded ourselves reading our stories to share with everyone.
This week we have been learning how to login and use Sunshine Classics. For some, it was just a quick refresh and learning their new login details. For others, this was more difficult, but we are really proud of each other as everyone can now login with NO teacher support!
This is great learning for all and will be something that supports our reading learning both in class and to continue this at home. Sunshine Classics is fantastic as the teacher sets books for students to read and then students can login and complete both reading and activities based around books at their current reading level.
Today we had a very exciting maths session. We got to practice different maths activities and games around the room. We then all came back together to share what we had been learning. Some of us were practicing our counting, some of us were adding and taking away. Some of us were practicing our basic facts, and before and after numbers.
Here are a few photos of us having fun today. Enjoy.
This week as part of writing our children turned one of their favorite songs into a new version. Here are 2 that we shared with our assembly. First the children listened to different versions of 'baby shark' and then had little chats about how they could change it. We have cleaning up version to santa versions to dinosaur and kiwi version. It was fantastic.
Lets just say our writing on this day was not particularly quiet, but the children were very focused on their own versions, singing them away to themselves as they wrote.
Afterwards the some children had time to record their versions in garage band using a backing track Mrs G had already made up for them. Then this was used in iMovie to record their version. One group even used the green room to record their version.
Well done to you all. Writing songs is a great reason to write, and it is so fun too.
This week we did lots of things around gardening. We hope you enjoy this explain everything that share some of the learning that we did while we were playing. Remember to leave us comments as this helps us with our learning.
This week the Play based learning group has been focused on communication with phones and looking at how they have changed. On friday as part of their play based learning activities they went to the LEGO room to create their own phones.
Maree our amazing TA has been working with them and when I mentioned that if she got photos I would get a child to convert it into a movie for us, and she said ... "I just find, I'm so busy, I don't get time to take photos" which was a perfectly valid point ... SO ... instead of acknowledging defeat... and opting for status quo... We improvise and change what we do to make the things that are valuable even more valuable by documenting them, creating with them, and sharing them so we can reflect on our own learning, rewind our learning or help others with their learning.
PLAN B emerged.
This week we chose a year 2 student who was both confident with using an iPad, and confident at writing. Her job was to make notes while in the Lego room with the play based learning group, and take lots of photos. When they all came back to a breakout room by Team Maunga, it was her job to write alongside these writers and convert her notes into an explain everything or movie.
This had such potential to be motivating for all involved (including those students within the main class who wanted to be apart of it next time!). Sienna M did a fantastic job of recording and creating around the learning this group were doing. Well done everyone!
WAHOO... Lesson here for us all... Where there is a will, there is a way.
Here are some movies that the children in our class created based on what we have been focusing on in both writing and within our topic of keeping ourselves safe.
A small group of children work with Mrs G each morning as part of a group who are learning about how writing has a real purpose in life and on strategies that help them get their ideas down. Below are the videos they created as part of this groups focus. They asked some other children in the class to help them make their writing into a movie as they worked out this was something they would need help with.
First they came up with their instructions (morning focus and classroom writing time).
Next they asked buddies to help them video (or take photos) of each of these steps.
Third they asked Mrs G to help them put it into a iMovie.
Then they added their words.
Finally recording their words.
I'm sure you will agree these are fantastic examples of both writing and a real life application of writing for purpose.
How to wash your hands - By Bailey, Riah and Laylah
How to brush your teeth - By Sapphire, Brody, and Parani
Here is an example of a piece of writing a child completed over the holiday. When she arrived at school on the first Monday back she asked if she could please publish it onto an explain everything and then have it uploaded to our blog. Well done Sienna M.
Here is also an example of another piece of writing that a child created to share with the class as they were away sick. She logged onto our class site to view what it was that the class was writing about. She was lucky as she had access to a family iPad at home and did her work straight onto it and then shared it with our class. Well done Nakita.
Both pieces of writing are great examples of how writing can be an enjoyable thing to do both at school and at home. They are also great examples that we can use as rewindable learning moments to share in class as part of learning we will do in the future. Well done.
If your child does complete writing at home please help us to share it by either sending it to school with them or taking a photo of what they have done and emailing it to us directly. Our kids love seeing their work up on the blog and getting comments and questions about what they are doing and learning. This is such an important part of their learning journey.
When having a clean out of iPads I located these two examples of how children use iPads in our classroom to record events that they do and thing they are learning about.
They relate to our Measurement maths that we had at the end of Term 2. We hope you enjoy.
This video shows children using different non-standard units to measure their own shadows and learn how to compare their measurements and shadows to their peers. It was a fantastic fun way to practice these skills that will become apart of their life long learning journey.
This Explain Everything is a presentation that the children made to record the things they measured. Great work guys, it was a fantastic idea.
Yes! Here we are again. The children in our team had great fun making these and are so eager to share. We hope you enjoy. Please keep commenting and adding your ideas and thoughts. See if you can work out what these stop motions are about.
Here is the next lot of stop motion movies. Arn't they fantastic. Our children are so excited to see how their writing of story boards helps to create amazing movies.
This term we have been working hard on our Stop Motion Movies. We have created mini movies relating to nursery rhymes. Here are the first of our Stop Motion Movies see if you can guess what nursery rhyme they are about.
Recently we had our new Pou unveiling. Here is a story that Sienna M made and published using Explain Everything. The part she enjoyed most was taking and adding pictures. It was really strange because Mrs G suggested taking these pictures in Portrait rather than Landscape (but they soon worked out why).
Sienna M wanted to share this 'Recount' as it had a clear introduction, sequence and conclusion.
Recounts haven't been our classes focus for a while so Mrs G and Ms F were very proud that Sienna M had remembered to include all these parts of a recount. Mrs Craig was too.
One thing Sienna M learn't was that she needed to count 1, 2, after she and finished talking so she didn't end up cutting the end off her recording. Great effort Sienna M.
Here is a presentation that Maia and Laylah created following the visit from the Butterfly Lady.
They researched their facts.
Then decided what to write on each slide.
Next they added their pictures (and took pictures), to match what they were saying on each slide.
Finally they added their voices to each slide to make it more interesting.
They thought it was a shame that they didn't do this in the first term when there were so many caterpillars chrysalis and butterfly around our classroom.
This week we have been learning to use Stop Motion on the iPads. Our focus has been to move objects in small steps and learn tips on what makes a good movie.
So far we have found out these things:
You need to keep the iPad in the same place.
Only move objects a little bit each time.
You need lots of shots for one video.
A background looks good behind the lego.
We need to make sure our hands are not in the shot.
This first movie is by Nakita and Kaelan.
Our second movie is by Kaelan and Harvey.
Our third movie is by Waiahi and Keeara.
Our Stop Motion experts will be showing more kids how to use this app next week.
As part of our fractions rotation children have been working with a buddy to reading a recipe with lots of fractions in, and discussing what that means and finding the right measuring cups/spoons to use for each ingredient. Please feel free to remake these at home. If you can come up with some new cupcake recipes that help you and your children discuss fractions at home, please feel free to share these in the comments below so that this post becomes a resource for everyone.
Here are some photos of the kids with their finished cupcakes, just before they go into the microwave for 2 minutes.
