Weeks 6, 7 and 8, Term 2

Immersion

We have changed our timetable this term and currently have immersion workshops four mornings a week.  Over the past three weeks we have had some exciting experiences focussed on our concept of energy.

Scales, Feathers and Fur

For weeks 6 and 7 our focus was the living world of science. We were lucky enough to have living eggs in our learning common! Throughout this context our key questions were:

Do animals have energy?

How do animals get energy?

How do animals use or save their energy?

For this context, our writing was fully integrated to make it as authentic as possible.  Some of us focussed on writing full information reports and others linking emergent writing to the context where possible. 

We have also been linking our priority learning to our immersion context to make the learning authentic.  On our maths table we have been sorting animals and creating venn diagrams.  In art we have looked at different animal patterns and creating our own animals. 

PINS

PINS has been a great success over the past few week.  Ranging from visiting dogs and guinea pigs to learning about Matariki.  The children have had a range of hands on experiences working with a variety of people.  It has been wonderful to see some of our younger children and others that find leading challenging taking on a leadership role and running their own workshops too. 

Maths

In target maths workshops we have been working on the concept of doubling and halving.  Firstly some groups looked at doubling numbers.  We used the 'Doubles Rap' to help us!  You can try it at home too...

We are now working on recognising halves and quarters of shapes and some children are working on finding halves and quarters of sets. 

PE

Four mornings a week we start our day with PE.  This term we have focussed on large ball skills. We have PE in our guardian groups and learn a large ball sport for 6 workshops before changing over.  By the end of the term all children will have had football (soccer), basketball, netball and rugby workshops. We have found it a really successful way to start the day and the children have too!

Week 5, Term2

Immersion

Energy

This week we continued our immersion learning and have come to a finish of the two week immersion of 'Whizz, Bang, Pop!' (The material world of science).

Our Essential Questions were:

What is energy?

Can energy run out?

How is energy important in the everyday lives of people?

Key vocabulary:

Energy, reaction, change, liquid, solid, gas, absorb, hypothesis (predict), 
experiment, results.

Bang, Crackle and Pop!

Before we began this context, we asked the children 'What is a Reaction?' and recorded our thinking on hexagons. We then grouped our thinking. Now that we have come to the end of this context we revisited the hexagon. We asked the same question and reflected on our learning journey. We have recorded them on our learning journey wall.  

PINS

We have been having great sessions for our PINS! Thank you to all the parents who support our children during PINS. 

Explore

Our new whiteboard table has arrived! Children have been exploring with the whiteboard table and practising their alphabets, shapes, lines and their names. 

What a great week of learning and fun!

Week 4, Term 2

Immersion 

Energy

This week we began our new immersion learning!  Our concept is 'Energy' and the first context we are exploring this through is 'Whizz, Bang, Pop!' (The material world of science). 

Our Essential Questions are:

What is energy?

Can energy run out?

How is energy important in the everyday lives of people?

Bang, Crackle and Pop!

Before we began this context, we asked the children 'What is a Reaction?' and recorded our thinking on hexagons.  We then grouped our thinking.  At the end of this context we will ask the same question and reflect on our learning journey. We have recorded them on our learning journey wall.  

Experiments

We then kickstarted the learning off in style! Working in Guardian Groups, the children took part in four different experiments over the week.  We also sent home immersion reading to support the learning. Our key vocabulary was/is: energy, reaction, change, liquid, solid, gas, create, absorb, hypothesis (predict), experiment, results

Some of the key learning that we wanted the children to experience or be directly taught were/are:  

*Identifying and sorting solids, liquids and gases.  We did this during workshops but also as independent priorities.

*Predicting (coming up with a hypothesis) and recording their results

*Writing step by step instructions (procedural writing) directly linked to the experiment

*Measuring during the experiment e.g. using measuring cups and exploring measurement during priority learning. 

It has been a great week of learning! The children have been very excited.  Watch this space for more updates...

WEEK 2, TERM 2

We have had an awesome second week in our new commons.  The children are enjoying the extra space to work in.

This week we have been continuing in our project groups which the children are enjoying being part of.  We have also started a Thursday rotation in the afternoons using the Portal, the Gym and teaching art skills to the children.

Some writing groups have started to learn how to write procedures.  This week we wrote about our "Walking Water" experiment.

Friday provided lots of interesting PINs workshops led by children and some very supportive parents. 

Week 1, Term 2

Hello and Welcome to Term 2!

Our blog post this week will be focussed on our projects.  These projects are teacher led inquiries, based on the interests and questions that the children had.  They fell out of our immersion on the concept of 'Interaction' last term.  

Money

Our money group have been busy answering the questions that the children brainstormed.  We have learnt about different shaped coins and why paper money has dollar amounts on them.  The children have enjoyed doing coin rubbings and designing their own paper play money.  Next week we will be designing our own piggy banks using recyclable materials.

Where Do We Come From?

This week we have been discussing our ethnicity and sharing our culture.We have used a world map to look at where our families have come from in relation to NZ.We have also shared food and customs in our homes and taught each other a little about our language.  We are putting together a group project book so if you have anything from home we could add to this that would be wonderful (photos, family recipe, pictures showing your origin and culture).  The group voted on a country and culture we will look at in depth next week and we have decided to explore Samoa.

Cooperation Vs Competitive 

This week we have taken part in a number of challenges:

*The Hoop Challenge

*Rob The Nest

*The Paper Chain Challenge

Watch this space for more project updates next week! 

Week 10, Term 1

This week we wrapped up the immersion phase of our learning. We have explored 'Interaction' in a range of contexts and this week the children chose a project they will be involved in over the next three weeks. 
Ask your child which project group they chose:
Money
Where do we come from?
Competitive or Cooperative?

We had some new PINs leaders this week. Thank you so much to our students and parents who ran workshops for us! This week we had an awesome range of activities including easter egg decorating, colour mixing science experiments, drawing, lego, ANZAC poppy making and more. We also had our Early Learning Centre friends join us again. They come for our first PINs workshop every second week. Next week a few LC1 children will go to the ELC to run some workshops.  

Some reflections from the LC1 students:

"I like these workshops I'm going to because they're fun. I learnt science and drawing." 

- Robbie

"I ran a PINs workshop for the first time. It was drawing. It was fun helping everybody with their drawing." 

- Quinn

"I ran a PINs workshop today. We made pirate ships out of lego. It was fun. Next time I will make cars." 

- Liam

"Everyone was drawing and concentrating. It was my first time running a PINs workshop. My Grandad came to take photos. I will do a teaching Chinese workshop next time."

- Tina

"My workshop was drawing butterflies. Everyone was listening. In my second workshop some people weren't listening and following my instructions. I liked running a workshop." 

- Joy 

"I ran a PINs workshop with my Mum. It was my first time running a workshop. We did mixing colours and it was science. My favourite part was dipping the soap in the colours and watching the swirls."

- Seth

Week 9 Term 1

This week we were lucky enough to go to 'Keeping Ourselves Safe' workshops with Constable Lauren.These workshops were also followed up in our guardian groups. These were the topics we covered: 

I Am Unique

- Who we are: all about me, what makes me special, where I live, what to do if I get lost

My Body Is My Own

- Physically me: naming body parts

- Touch: touch we like, touch that hurts, confusing touch

Dealing With Unwanted Behaviour or Touch

- Saying “No”: saying no, moving away from a frightening situation, asking for help

- Secrets and tricks: trust, not keeping secrets - always sharing a secret with a trusted adult, identifying ‘Tricks’

Adults Who Help

- Asking people we trust for help: who we can trust and talk to

For PINS this week we were lucky to have workshops from students who hadn't led a workshop before. We had an assortment of topics from:
'The Solar System, drawing Giraffes, drawing Animals, drawing Cats and Dogs, Beatboxing, Drawing Boats and creating Rainbows. It was great to see how well prepared these students were with printing off images at home and preparing activities in their own time. The workshops were all a hit and the students felt a great sense of achievement. Please let us know if your child would like to run a PINS workshop for next week.