Back to School

Sort of Back to School

As we have moved into Alert Level 3, there are a few of us who are heading back to school.  We have two bubbles at school and can't wait to get started.  Things look a little bit different but we are set and ready to go.  

Each student has their own big workspace.

Individual workspaces have a few essentials.

GUmboot tape shows us where to sit to keep social distancing up.

Steps Stars

Stunning Steps

In Whakamanawa, one of our goals this week was to do at least 100 minutes on Steps Web.  It is only Thursday and check out these two great self-managers.

Our next goal is to get more people from Whakamanawa doing great amounts of time on Steps.

Olivia's ANZAC

ANZAC LEARNING FROM HOME

Although much of our learning from home is being done online, some of our students are also getting creative on paper.  Olivia received a pack recently from the Ministry of Education and has been busy working through the learning tasks that were included.  

Here is an example of what she has been doing:

We are looking forward to seeing more of these cool activties.

Learning From Home

Let's Learn

During the time that we are staying at home, we have been using these slides to guide our learning.  Whakamanawa class view this slide to find out what to do.  Each day, Miss Waho uploads a different video to help with her explanations.

I like using this as a template for our learning because it is simple and easy to follow.  

I found this tool in my Google drive and created the slide to use.  I also used Powtoon and Voki. 

I wonder if other people think this slide is useful.  Let me know what you think and how I could improve it for my students.

Math Mission

Using Powtoon for Math Instructions

It is a great time for exploration.  For week two I tried out a different Powtoon to give my Math groups instructions for the week.  Check it out:

The Value of Voki

Instructions with Voki

For Literacy learning from home, this week I created a Voki instead of recording myself.  I was interested to see if this idea would work and make things a bit more interesting for students.  
When you use Voki, you can select and create your own avatar and put them in different settings.  You can then choose a type of voice an accent.  
To enter the content for what your character will say, you can choose between recording yourself or typing the content in.  

This is week two's Literacy instruction clip:

I haven't used Voki for a long time and really enjoyed it.  I thought that this would be a useful tool for teaching and for sharing learning.  

I learned how to create Voki by visiting the Voki website and trying out how it looked.  I also used Screencastify to capture my Voki because I don't know how to embed it straight to my blog.  

My next step is to teach students how to create a Voki and to be able to use this as a format to share learning.

Using Powtoon

Messages With Powtoon

During our learning from home time, teachers are recording a video to let children know what learning tasks are on the plan.  This week, I decided to explore with some tools I haven't played around with for a while or ever. 

Monday's message for Whakamanawa was created with Powtoon.  

Our next step would be to get students presenting learning using Powtoon and also to create lessons for different subject areas.

Week Two From Home

Google Meet Session

Kia ora whānau and welcome back to week two of learning from home.  Today in our Google Meet session, we went through our value for the week which is Being on Time.  We also had a look at Miss Waho's video messages for the day and week because she did them slightly differently to last weeks.

After we watched Miss Waho's Literacy clip, we had a look at Voki.  Miss Waho screen shared and showed students how to create a Voki.

This is the demonstration for when we were ready to share:

Our next step is to have a focus on our blogs, creating quality blog posts and using Voki to make our posts more interesting.

Welcome to Term Two

We're Back...But Not Back Back

Term Two has officially started back and Whakamanawa have been in touch.  Today we all met on a Google Meet so we could see each other and say hello.  We haven't used Google Meet before so it was good to explore this tool.  We had nineteen of us there and discovered that we can share our screens which will be great for our online learning as we work from home.

We have another meeting planned and are looking forward to chatting again.

Our next step is for Miss Waho to figure out how to view all faces at once instead of the speaker only.  

Super Power Reading

Reading is Our Super Power

This year, Mrs Ryan has introduced a new theme to our school to help boost the amount of reading we do and have huge amounts of enjoyment while we do it.  

We started off with a book launch where some well-known locals arrived at school and shared their wisdom with us.

Mrs Ryan also gave each class a lovely package of books to share.

We started creating and using READO sheets which are like BINGO but with reading activities.  

In Whakamanawa, we had a session in class where we could do some of the READO activities.  It worked really well and the room was full of excitement and engagement.  

Stacey Bakes

Rewena Bread

This year we have been really lucky to have Stacey back with us.  She has been doing a teacher aide course and as part of her work, she planned and implemented a unit around rewena bread.  

Students used a range of tools to help them in the learning process and got to actually make and bake some rewena bread.

Here are a few photos of what they did:

It sure was delicious.  Our next step will be to have another go at baking rewena bread and other types of bread and make comparisons.

Fun Friday

Things With Beads

One of the Fun Friday activities we had running in term one was Things with Beads.  We had a selection of beads and children were able to make bracelets or necklaces.  We had even had some children who chose to make gifts for other people.

We are hoping to buy some more beads and do this activity again because we were able to create some lovely pieces.

Duffy

Duffy Theatre Comes to Gilberthorpe

One of the highlights for us all each year is the Duffy Theatre.  We welcomed them back this year and watched the story of Duffy and his friend and their adventures with a very interesting and rare creature.  Once again, all of our students were engaged and really enjoyed the show.

Social Time

Being Engaged

Relationships and interacting in a positive way is important for us not just in school but for life in general.  We decided to create a time where we could all socialise and interact with each other.  Students selected activities to do and spent time socialising with different people.  We found that this was a great way to connect and get to know each other more.

Our next step is to make this a more regular activity and continue to make and maintain relationships and communication skills.

Self Assessment in Values

Whakamanawa Assess Ourselves

This year in Whakamanawa, we are self-assessing in our Values learning.  We have a value and behaviour expectation each week and have created a slide to assess ourselves in how well we show this particular value and what we can do to get better at it.  

This is the template we all have our own copy of:

Kiwi Can 2020

Kiwi Can is Back

We are really pleased to have Tia and Owen back to take us through the Kiwi Can Programme.  We have a new way of collating our Kiwi Can points and have made a great start to the year.  

Here are a few pics of one of our first sessions:

Cultural Learning

Our Cultures

In Whakamanawa, we have a great selection of books that teach us about different cultures from around the world.  Many of these are about children and tell stories of what life is like for them.  

In our Reading Alone time, we had a selection of books laid out for sharing and children could choose to read them.

Here are a few of our students engaged with the books they have chosen.  

Our aim is to grow our collection and have regular cultural reading as part of our classroom programme.

Getting to Know Our Cultures

Getting to Know Our Cultures

The beginning of the year is always good for getting to know each other and developing positive relationships.  This year for the first four weeks we worked in home base classes to develop routines, expectations and to get to know each other more.
We then pulled all of this together and had a Cultural Sharing Day.  Students were able to learn about our different cultures and learn more about their classmates.

Students in Whakamanawa worked on a Cultural Sharing slide and then presented these on the big screen to the class.  The engagement and encouragement from students were really lovely to witness.  All students were really focused and full of positive comments and questions during the sharing sessions.  

This is an example of one of the student's slide:

We had a class shared lunch and an afternoon of performances.

We are looking forward to sharing and strengthening our cultural knowledge and understanding throughout the year.