Discovery Time #2

Today we had our second Discovery Time. The children were really looking forward to it. We had a few different activities this time.

The robotic group managed to carry on from last week and make the base unit turn a square. Well done boys. Sean showed leadership which was valued.

Sean, having needed to change activities left Harriet on her own but she enjoyed having a go with the construction.
Jack and Marshall had another go with the bubbles. We decided that two weeks on one activity is the limit and next time they would have to try something different.
Grace and Keegan used Allanah's carpentry gear to construct wall hangings.
Sheryl came in to help us with the Appleby Playcentres best playdough recipe. Santana liked creating and re-creating with the playdough.

Just For Fun

We had another really busy day with Discovery Time, homework sharing and soccer coaching. At the very end of the day we just had time for a minutes worth of play on the Virtual Keyboard. Last night a friend and I played a duet on the keyboard via Skype. It was geeky fun!

School Councillor

This week we decided who are school councillors for the next couple of terms. Summer made a great job of making a speech to encourage her classmates to vote for her. She took the Easi-speak home and after a few practice goes managed to record her speech. Well done, Summer.

This is also a podcast on our podcast channel in iTunes. Search for Allanah and subscribe for your iPod!

50,000 Views

We have just clocked up 50,000 views of our class blog. That's a pretty impressive number. It shows that more people are looking at and finding our blog fun and educational. Our blog visitors come from all over New Zealand and overseas.

We would like to thank all of those wonderful people who click on the comment button to share their views and to give us encouragement to keep on sharing.

Mrs B from St Claire in Dunedin was our 50,000 viewer and sent us this screengrab as proof.

Something Interesting

For homework this week I made some plasticine and made some rock pool creatures because our topic is Rocky Shore. My mum helped me with sending it to Allanah. It took me three days and a half to make. It was very hard to get it just right. My favourite part was making the plasticine creatures because they were a challenge.

ANZAC Dawn Parade

On Sunday we went to the ANZAC Dawn Parade to remember soldiers who have died or been wounded in all wars.
We saw Harriet and Angus. The soldiers did a gun salute, some people did speeches about ANZAC Day, they laid wreaths and poppies around the memorial, they played the Last Post on the bugle, we sung the National Anthem.
People took poppies and wreaths to put on the memorial. Four people were dressed like soldiers. They were real soldiers.
We had one poppy each except for Jack who had six and Keegan had two. We thought it was a memorable experience for us. Thank you for taking us Allanah.

St John's First Aid

On Friday we had a somebody from St Johns came to Appleby School. We learnt how to bandage a minor wound. We were also asked to say our address and phone number so we would know what to say if we had to ring for an ambulance.

United Arab Emirates

Allanah's friend Jocelyn who is teaching in United Arab Emirates has made a wiki for sharing our audio with her students and she has also made a page telling us more about life in UAE.

Discovery Time Photos

Keegan had a lot of success blowing huge bubbles with just his hands.
The ferris wheel team worked really well as a team and every single piece of the construction kit was accounted for at the end.
The group making ANZAC biscuits with Simone had a bit of a disaster with spilt rolled oats but they kept their cool and cleaned it up without a fuss.
Jack became quite expert at what he needed to do to get the bubble mixture just right.
Taking turns was needed as the bubble blowers had one mixture to share.
The photographers had to take, upload and use the photos to make a comic in Comic Life.
You had to blow with just the right amount of puff- too little and you wouldn't get a bubble- too much and it would pop.
The bakers made a great job of the ANZAC biscuits- enough for everyone to enjoy.
Angie lent a hand to the robotics kit group. They had to be sure that they followed the instructions carefully, programmed it on the computer correctly or the robot would not connect and move.
Shona had a deep time following links on our blog and leaving comments for people. Look how fast her fingers are moving.
Each member of the construction team had a specific job to do- that system worked quite well and they got the ferris wheel finished on time.

Discovery Time

Today we tried something new that we had never tried before- Discovery Time. At the conference that I went to in the holidays there was a workshop all about Discovery Time. In Discovery Time children get to focus on one key competency- this term it is Managing Self- children managing their own relationships and managing equipment that we need. Children are able to choose a number of learning activities and more fully develop those in depth.

I was really impressed with the way the children accepted and responded to the challenges. I took some really good photos and will share those on the weekend. In the meantime here are a couple of videos of some of the things we can see.

One group was making bubbles- I found it really hard to get a photo of a bubble!

50,000 Views

Tonight as I was checking out some other great blogs around New Zealand I visited my friend, Michael's class blog in Hamilton. He later tweeted me and told me that he had just had his 50,000th visitor to his blog and that person was from Nelson, was using Firefox browser on an Apple laptop. Here is proof that I was indeed the 50,000th visitor!

Allanah

ANZAC Day

Allanah is taking some of the kids in Moturoa to the Dawn Parade in Nelson on ANZAC Day morning. We are learning about the ANZACs and why we have a special remembrance day. If you would like to join us a little before 6:30am at ANZAC Park in Nelson it would be great to see you there.

Here are some of the links we will be using in our learning about ANZAC Day.

Gallipoli- the First Day

An ANZAC Acrostic poem

Our podcast from a past ANZAC Dawn Service

Can You Hear Our Soldiers Marching Video

Audio of the Last Post and then Audio of Reveille

RSA Website

My Kitten

My Kitten

Hi Allanah. As you know Milkshakes my cat had a little ginger kitten.
Well she has just opened her eyes properly. So when I got home I decided to take a photo of my kitten and I. Isn't she cute?
She is two or three weeks old but Mum and I don't remember

P.S. At first we thought she was a boy but she is a girl.

Keeley made this story and photo on Google Docs over the holidays. Isn't she a clever girl.

Allanah

The Big Kahawai

This is Ruby and I with the huge kahawhai that we got in the set line. We also got two gunard, 1 snapper and then we found out that we had caught an eagle ray. So Dad suggested that we shouldn't've bought it in the boat because it was trying to sting him. Then he cut off the hook that the eagle ray was hooked up with and it got away.

If you want to look and see what it looks like under the water click here. Watch out for the shark.

Under Attack- The Movie Trailer

Last year we made a movie called Under Attack. It took a day to make it. We took tons of photos and put them all together on the computer. Then we Googled sound affects and we put them with the movie. We put it on a disc and brought it to school and we put it on the blog. It was great fun.

Our New Topic

Elliott gave me this idea. Here is a clue to what our new topic is this term. Can you guess???

Click on the photo of the underwater life to be surprised.

Connections Voicethread from Tammy

Tammy from Canada has made us another Voicethread about the ways we can connect and communicate. Here is a copy of the email that she sent...

Hello Allanah,
I hope that all is well with you. I am sending you the link to the last voicethread that I have made for your class. I also want to thank you for allowing me into your classroom. I have never used voice thread before and I have found it to be a great experience. I know that I will use it as a tool in my classroom.
It was great hearing the comments from your students on the threads, they all sounded so cute :) I am following you on Twitter and I check out your blog quite often and I plan to continue to do so. I hope that we can still stay connected and collaborate in the future. I found this to be a really valuable experience. Thank you so much.

Sincerely,
Tammy

Thank you so much Tammy for all of your work in creating these Voicethreads for us. You have done a great job.

To see the full screen version click here.

Mini-Dylan Meets Nigel Latta

The final speaker at the conference was Nigel Latta. He is the guy that is on the television telling parents about sensible ways to bring up kids.

He said teachers should have a passion for what they do, have fun with learning and still be a little bit scary!

He said that he didn't like the idea of kids calling their teachers by their first name.

What do YOU think?

Cutting Edge Conference

For Thursday and Friday this week Allanah is in Wellington speaking at The Cutting Edge Teachers' Conference. I have heard some great speakers and am keen to give a few new things a go this term.

On Friday I am speaking at two workshops called 'The World Is My Classroom'. I will be talking about some of the exciting things we do in our classroom that connect us with other people around the world.

And then I am asking a heap of those teachers from classes all around New Zealand to join in a really big video session.

Holiday News

Hope you are all having a wonderful holiday and enjoying the last of the summer. I am so pleased to see see some children continuing to write and share using our Google Docs- great work Summer and Marshall. I paid a house call on Nathaniel and was pleased to see he was keeping his bedroom fairly tidy. I saw Caitlin out and about riding her bike which was nice.

How are you getting on with your basic facts learning. I am looking forward to seeing you all going up a couple of levels after the holiday learning. We have been able to add some more games to the wiki so check it out.

I see that we are soon to reach 49,000 views of our blog. We will have a big class party when it reaches 50,000 views.

What have you been up to in the holidays?

Allanah