Thursday 27 February 2014

Swimming Sports: A Great Success

Well done to everybody who got involved at today's swimming sports! What an amazing day of healthy competition, panekiretanga (striving for excellence) and kotahitanga (togetherness). Cheers to Ebony for her great leadership and organisation of the day and also the parents who jumped up to help out. Another great reason why Russell Street in an amazing place to be involved in! I hope you all have something that challenged you and something you were proud of from our experience.

Nga Mihi




Wednesday 26 February 2014

WALT: keep a beat together.


I was fortunate to catch the end of the performances during music time yesterday. How did this group go at keeping the beat? What could they do better to improve their performance?

Tuesday 25 February 2014

WALT edit

Today in class, we watched a video about a boy in 1st Grade.  He had to draw a scientific drawing of a butterfly.  He did a first draft.  He got some specific feedback that helped him to improve his first draft.  He ended up completing 6 drafts before he was happy with his finished product.  This video helped me to realise that if I get some specific feedback, I can improve my 'first draft.'  This helps me strive for excellence.  You might want to watch the video too.

Our task today is to show excellence in our priorities and specials.  We are doing this by improving a blog post.  We came up with some criteria to help us.


I have decided to work on one of my maths priorities.  This is what it looked like the first time I did it.


I noticed that I didn't show any evidence of my learning.  I just showed the finished product.  I focused on this when I tried to improve my blog.  

I was going to put a screen shot here of my edited blog post, but it is too long.  So here is a link to it instead.  I am proud of the perseverance I showed today.  I think that you can really see the maths thinking that I have been doing.



WALT add


One of our priorities this week is this $100 Word Challenge!
Here is how I found out the value of my name.


I knew that the $100 word is tricky (from what other people have said!), so I decided to find an expensive country first.  I can't believe it!  The first country I tried - Afghanistan - was worth $100!  What a fluke!!  Check out my working here.


The most expensive country I found was Luxembourg which is worth $138.

The least expensive country I found was Chad.


This was a great challenge for me.  I have always found it difficult to add when there are lots of numbers together that all need to be added up.  This was great practise for me!  I am a lot more confident at adding numbers in my head than I used to be.

Monday 24 February 2014

Friday 21 February 2014

Where does the magic happen?

What does this picture mean to you? What is a 'comfort zone'? Share an experience where you have 'taken a risk' and some amazing has happened. Adults, we would love to hear some of your experiences too!


Wednesday 19 February 2014

Ukuleles a Go!

The uke group is starting off with a strum this morning with Jenny! Such beautiful sounds coming from Room 1.

Tuesday 18 February 2014

The Hub


Thanks Rebecca!  We had a great time in The Hub today learning about the different classifications of the chapter books.  We were all excited to explore these books afterwards.

Important camp notices should have gone home today

If none of these turned up in the bottom of your kids bags, please pop in to Poutama and pick one up!  Every student received 3 notices, and those who offered to come as a Camp Parent received 4 notices.

Maths Workshop 9

Hey this is Nic - this week we are working on knowing how many 1s, 10s and 100s there are in numbers helps us to solve problems like 482 + ? = 800.  I know! It's a bit of a mouthful! However, it's almost like learning how to give change. 



How are you getting on when using this strategy?

Monday 17 February 2014

House Leaders

Congratulations to our fantastic house leaders who were announced today at team assembly! Well done to Ben I and Georgia O for Kiwi, Anna E and Ollie F for Kea, Cam W and Aroha N for Tui and finally Tom W and Emma D for Kereru. We look forward to working with you.

What advice do you have for your leaders?

Friday 14 February 2014

Seed 2 Table - Rotation 1

6 students from each whanau class were lucky to start Seed 2 Table today.  We had a great time exploring the garden and learning some fundamental skills in the kitchen.  Check out this collage of our day...


And my favourite photo...


For me, this sums up our time in the garden well - collecting and being fascinated about the different parts of a plant - especially seeds and flowers.  I can't wait to slice them in half next week to see what is inside!

What new learning was there for you today?

What next?  What would you be interested to find out about over the next couple of weeks?

What dish was your favouite?  Will you make it at home for your family?


Buddy Challenge Day

What an amazing day yesterday!? I feel so proud to be working at Russell Street School because we are really good at taking care of each other and having lots of fun! I met a lot of new people and I look forward to learning lots more about you.



What was your highlight?

What was the most challenging for you?

Who did you notice being a great role model? 

Who did you notice showing perseverance in a task?

Wednesday 12 February 2014

Buddy time

We had a blast meeting our buddies today from room 8! Check out Nic's whanau class links down the side to see our introduction posters. We were learning to show kotahitanga, which is working together in unity. 

Tuesday 11 February 2014

Snappers!

Here is an example of a 'snapper' (a how to video) in how to do something. Snappers can use viewed over and over again so that you can learn or re-learn how to do a task or skill. Watch this space for more snappers!

CMIYC Lesson 1

For our first unit this year in Catch Me If You Can, we are learning how to develop our skills in 'Attack'.  Below is the task and success criteria.  Write a comment about how you are getting along with these.



Friday 7 February 2014

The Amazing Race


Today we put some of our class agreements to the test. We explored working together on our strengths and weaknesses. We saw a lot of positive TEAM work with groups showing determination to complete the tasks quickly and to a high standard. Warm fuzzies all round! 

Wednesday 5 February 2014

How we can protect people's rights to learn


After an exciting day of learning about our past, Poutama applied some of the Treaty of Waitangi concepts to creating a Y chart about what learning should look like, sound like and feel like.  We then used these attributes to create a set of 'agreements' (not rules!) that we can strive to follow.

Do you think these are fair agreements? Did we forget anything? What do you think will be the hardest one for you to follow? Mums and dads, which ones do you find challenging and how do you overcome it?

Tuesday 4 February 2014

Trust Walk

Today Ebs and Nic's whanau classes were learning about building trust. I was very proud of how you gave instructions clearly and safely. It was lots of fun! Even Ebony had a go at challenging herself! 


How does trusting someone help with your learning? 

How does being trustworthy help with your learning?