Tuesday 4th March

Kia Ora all

Today a group of students received the first mathletics certificates for 2014. All these students earned over 1000points, with Bonnie amassing over 4000points. Here they are below.

The New Zealand Flag    

This term we are going to look at the country flags that reflect the different nationalities and connections of the Room 5 students.
Today we looked at the New Zealand flag. We decided to use a 'What do you see / why / wonder' thinking tool (I learned about this tool at the course I attended on Monday).

We placed the NZ flag in the middle, and around the outside we brainstormed 'what we could see'. This included 'stars, blue, cross (Union Jack), and the pole. We then described these features. For example 'stars' - cross, white, pointy, special, a shape, red, like Australia.
We then went a step further and completed a 'why' for each of the features.

For example, students thought the 4 stars represented: the Christchurch Cathedral, celebrations, shaped like a cross, the cross related to Jesus, the first stars in the sky, and red was the blood of Jesus.
These are the thoughts, ideas and opinions of the Room 5 students. It showed that we have a basic understanding (Southern Cross) and some misunderstandings. This is fantastic as it means that this is new knowledge, and students are hungry to find out.

We then did a WONDER, where students made sentences beginning with "I wonder..."

Examples were "I wonder what the 4 stars represent"; " I wonder why the Australian flag is similar to ours"; " I wonder why Australia copied our flag"; " I wonder who designed the flag"; " I wonder if there are other New Zealand flags": " I wonder why we need a flag".

Now that students have 'Wonderings' they are much more motivated to seek out the answers. We will build up the skill set required to complete this successfully together as a class, so that students feel capable of achieving success individually.

Our aim is for students to research the history behind the flags of the different nationalities represented in Room 5.

Reading

Today ALL students brought home a GROUP READER.

The following book should be in your child's bag:

Team Tr'e    - Becoming a Kiwi
Team Matina - Becoming a Kiwi

Team Bonnie - 'Annyong!' Means 'Hi!'

Students should read this to you. You can help by asking questions for them to answer; or you read it and you make statements that are True or False, and your child says if it is true or false.

Phrasing - students need to be able to read as if they are swinging on a vine from one group of words to another. This gives English a bit of a rythmical feel to it. Reading robotically can hinder their reading progress. A great idea is to record them reading on a device at home, play it back and get then to identify what they do well, and what they need to improve on.

Have a great rest of the week.