Reflection - what we learned today

Today we learned:

1. That saying 'grandma' in Maori is way harder than in English - Olivia
2. Reuben did a back flip at gymnastics!
3. I am not really scared of doing a flip and failing any more - Tyler.
4. The first time I actually landed on my feet when doing a forward flip - Nathan.
5. We learned about the body parts of a fraction (Reuben). The line between the numerator and the denominator means: divided by (Nathan).
6. It was fun climbing the rope with your toes to hold on - Nathan.
7. I learned about the fear of kidney disease - Meg.
8. Today was the first time I ever did a flip! Jenny.
9. We learned about the different types of gases and the periodic table (Nathan, Jenny). The period table is a chart of the chemical elements (Meg/Nathan).
10. We wrote our first chemical formulas - it was fun because we hadn't done this before.

Some questions we have are:

1. Why do we use chemical formulas? Olivia, Jenny.

Next steps for us could be:

1. Creating more complicated chemical formulas and trying to put them together.
2. Practising a bit more our fractions skills, especially converting them from fractions, to percentages and decimals.

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Fractions

Fractions can come under more than one definition e.g;  A fraction is a numerical quantity that is not a whole number: 0.5 or 1.2 OR a small, or tiny part, amount or proportion of something: He hesitated for a fraction of a second.

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What I Know About Fractions

Fractions

• The top number in a fraction is called a numerator and the bottom number is called a dominator.
• A fraction is a percentage

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Fractions-Anna

Fractions are when you have a whole object and chop it up to get halves and quarters and eights.

So for example when you have a pie and you break it In two pieces,1/2 + 1/2 = 1

They are how to add or subtract a "fraction" from a whole number.

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Fractions

i Have done fractions before but i cant get my head around them.

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Reuben
I know basic fractions and can confidently answer and explain to the class.
I know that the top number of the fraction is the numerator and the bottom number is the denominator, I understand how to divide things into even and uneven parts.

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Newsletter - Term 3 Week 2

Kia ora koutou!

What a great first week we have had! It has been fantastic to have Tyler join us and become part of the Totara team. It is great getting to know you Tyler! Our visit from ERO (Education Review Office) went really well and they were impressed with the learning stories the students had to share. Well done everyone. This week we are running through our new timetable and starting new topics in Social Studies and Visual Art.

Check out the class blog - http://sevenoakstotara.blogspot.co.nz/ - for some snippets of last week. One that was especially fun was a drama game the class played which is worth a look to re-live the moment! There are other movies about to go up there this week. Over time you will see this area being more well-used by everyone in the team.

In maths this week students will be working more on Mathletics. All student user ID and passwords were emailed to you all prior to the holidays. We encourage you to get your son/daughter to show you at some stage this week how they use it. This system gives us detailed reports on participation as well as which areas are strengths and which are areas to develop in students maths skills. If you have any questions about this please email Rob.

In Science this week we are continuing with our crime scene investigation work where students had to conduct experiements to figure out what 3 common gases were... more on this soon

Rob, Kerry and Judith

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Fractions Intro

Here is an introduction to fractions for todays maths session:
Once you have done some discussion and recorded your ideas as comments to this blog post, watch the video. Those that finish the activity early can log in to Mathletics and I have some activities for you to complete.

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Anatomy Arcade

This is an awesome web site which is focussed on human anatomy. It has lots of fun games and activities on it for students to explore anatomy...

anatomyarcade.com

On the site is an area for games, some of which link to ipad games which look really good - BUT they are not free!

If any students really want these games please send me an email.

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Crime Scene Investigators

Video from the science investigation today - what are the 3 gases and which one is potentially harmful to the ecology of the earth? What are the 'terrorists' trying to achieve???

movie coming soon...

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Reflection - Thursday

touch base: i learnt all sorts of things.

class culture: at this time i think that we had a good talk. the little game thing that we did was fun and kind of strange.

science: now science with making mystery gasses was fun i used the bunsen things so i had fun.

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Meg's first blog

Since this is my first blog, I will need to get used to this evolved technology we have these days. I taught myself the meaning of  Mycophobia' (fear of mushrooms) and Anatidaephobia (Fear that somewhere, somehow a duck is watching you). I enjoyed my potato, and the gym class we had participated in today. I learned from a range of different activities such as backdrops, front-drops and various types of acrobatic activites

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Drama today

Today we learnt a new game which is a theatresports game - really fun!

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Designing a lesson

Today we had to brainstorm all the elements that comprise a really exciting lesson. The purpose of this is so that students can learn how to design a learning experience for others in the team.

Initially we will be using our ideas to create a lesson in maths based on our strengths, as identified in asTTle maths late last term.

Here are some of the initial ideas:

-being able to explain something confidently (Olivia)

-using technology and things (Helena)

-it pushes you and it's above your level so you have to try hard and think about it (Reuben)

-you know what you are going to teach and if you finish you kind of have a back up plan of what you're going to do next (Olivia)

-making it relevant so you know when you might use it (Helena)

-using real life things and examples makes it more fun (Jenny)

-everyone listens and takes part in it which makes it more fun (Tyler)

-good teachers are interested in what you are learning and in helping you (Reuben)

-not too many unnecessary rules (Meg)

-good explanations so you know what you are doing completely (Anna)

-the teacher being interested in your learning with the subject (Nathan)

-not just bookwork all the time, for example building or other things to give it variety (Jenny)

-being able to freely express ones opinion (Meg)

The next question we reflected on was: what order do things go in during a great lesson and what happens at each step?

Beyond that, students will design a lesson based on their asTTle strengths to target someone else's next step learning.

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My day in a nutshell

This is my first blog, so bear with me if my language is to old-of-fashioned for your taste. I taught myself the meaning of Mycophobia (Fear of Mushrooms) and Anatidaephobia (Fear that somewhere, somehow a duck is watching you). I thoroughly enjoyed my potato with beans, and the gymnastics activities were also intriguing and interesting, we learned from a range of activities, trampoline gymnastics and aerobics. well, I suppose that was my day in a nutshell, there will be more, don't fret. Much obliged   Meg

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todays reflection

Today we went to the the since lab we had to make 3 types of gases then we went to the Christchurch school of gymnastics we learnt how to do new skills on the trampoline i had a great day and I’m looking forward to next thursday. 

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Reflection - gymnasium

Today in totara class we looked at healthy disagreements and unhealthy disagreements, after that we went to hillvew science lab and played around with mystery gasses, my favourite part was making the gasses. Once lunch was finished we went to a gymnasium and had heaps of fun on the trampolines. The main things that I learnt today were class culture, what is required to make gas and how to kinda do a back flip.

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Today 24/7/14

Today was fun science was interesting with all the gasses and learning how different gasses react to fire. Baked potatoes were good and gymnastics was awesome on the trampolines.

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Web Challenge - altering the blog slider

Here is a little challenge if you wish to get into a bit of HTML coding - change the slider images on the class blog...

1. Find an image of something that happened in the class that you think would make an interesting highlight for the blog.
2. Resize the image - if using Apple Preview follow these instructions... if using windows do a web search to figure it out. The images need to be 960x400 pixels max.
3. Download a free text editor (e.g. TextWrangler or similar) and then copy the HTML code from inside the blog Template > Edit HTML, making sure you select all then copy it into a new text document to save onto your computer.
4. Scroll to line 1537 to spot the code you need to change.
5. Upload the resized images to a new album inside your Google Plus. Navigate to the image you wish to use, then right-click and copy image URL.
6. Paste the URL in so that it replaces the old URL of one of the slider images. Then ensure you copy the URL for the post the image will link to. 
7. Don't forget to give it a Title, Description and delete the links that are placeholders.

Google Plus your masterpiece to the class to show them!

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Totara News - Term 3 Week 1

We hope you have all had an amazing holiday and a well deserved break! We are all looking forward to starting a new and exciting term. Firstly, we want to give a very warm welcome to Tyler Selman, it’s great to have you join the Totara team! 

We also want to welcome our newest educator to Seven Oaks, Judith Anthony. Judith will be teaching the English program on Wednesdays and has designed an engaging term for you all. It’s great to have you on board Judith!

Here (and below) is our new weekly timetable with a few changes for this term. We have also included a term calendar so you can see what is coming up and when. This has taken into account the ideas the students brainstormed at the end of last term for ideas they would like to incorporate into the learning programme. Please note that this term overview can (and likely will) change as the programme changes.

We have ERO (Education Review Office) visiting us on Tuesday and Wednesday of the first week. We will spend Monday morning catching up on holiday news, reviewing assignment comments, going over the weekly timetable and discussing learning stories to share with the ERO team. Rob will join us on Tuesday to meet  ERO and will be leading a session with the class in the afternoon.

We are very much looking forward to seeing you all and re-connecting.

Kerry, Rob and Judith

kerry.coulshed@sevenoaks.school.nz

rob.clarke@sevenoaks.school.nz

judith.anthony@sevenoaks.school.nz

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