Rangoli Art with Nature

 

Community Care

Every class at Sunnyhills School has a role to play when it comes to looking after our school's environment.  Room 1 is responsible for cleaning up the pathway between Rooms 1 & 2 and the hall, as well as along the boundary fence line at the end of our field.  

There were many weeds growing in the garden on the bank behind Room 1, so we decided to spend some time to pull out as many weeds as we could - and pick up any rubbish (fortunately there wasn't too much).  It has been raining recently, so the ground was relatively soft which made it easy to pull out the weeds.  Also, it was a gorgeous spring day so we were quite happy to spend some time outside of our classroom.

We filled up many paper bags with weeds and the bank looks much better than it was. 

Community Care 👍

Narrative Starters

Sometimes it's difficult to start writing a story. We get a 'brain block' and stare at the blank sheet of paper while time ticks on.  This can happen to all of us.  So, this week, we have been learning about different ways to start our story writing with 'great beginning strategies'.  These are:

• Action and dialogue
• Ask a question
• Describe the setting
• Begin with background information
• Have the main character introduce himself or herself

We had a go at using each starter strategy with the same photo prompt.  Here are our 'action and dialogue' starters.  

Now that we have a few story starters to consider when beginning our story writing, we hope to not be faced with that problematic blank piece of paper again. 

Cross Country (and Apple Clips)

 I've taken some time during Lockdown to follow some of my own passions and explorations.  One of these was to learn how to use Apple Clips.  This is a cool way to produce and share short videos and photos with others.  I wonder how we could use it in class to share our learning and understanding of new concepts?  Perhaps it could be used to upload learning evidence to Spotlight?  I'm looking forward to seeing what the learners in Room 1 create.

Morning Meeting - Friday 28th August

 

Morning Meeting - Thursday 27th August

 

Morning Meeting - Wednesday 26th August

 

Morning Meeting - Tuesday 25th August

 

Morning Meeting - Monday 24th August

 

Morning Meeting - Friday 21st August

A Time to Shine

Morning Meeting - 20.8.20

 

Morning Meeting - Wednesday 19th August

 

Morning Meeting - Tuesday 18th August

Morning!  

Here's to another awesome day of learning.  Looking forward to viewing your Flipgrid video of your Spoken Word.   Keep an eye on your email inbox for the Google Meet timetable that I'll be sharing with you today.  

Morning Meeting - 17.8.20

Kia Ora!

Welcome to sunny Monday!  This morning video is a bit lengthy, but it has important information about expectations for learning and Google Meets.  I encourage you to set up a timetable for learning, physical activity, and family time.  This will help you to be organised and complete all the 'Must Dos' on time. 

As always, please email me if you have a question or wish to share your learning.

Morning Meeting - 14.8.20

Morena!

Day 2 of lockdown at Level 3.  How was Day 1 for you? It was my daughter, Alice's birthday yesterday and we had planned to visit Commercial Bay in the city to celebrate, but we had to change our plans for dinner at home.  It was much quieter than the usual birthday celebration with no grandparents, friends and my other daughter is stuck just over the Auckland border in Tuakau. She is staying with friends so that she can be closer to work and doesn't have to deal with a 'check at the border' every day.  

It certainly has been a year for adapting to change. All the more reason to dip into moments of mindfulness and check the wellbeing of not only yourself but also family and friends.  Take care.

Morning Meeting - 13.8.20

Kia ora!  

In addition to Maths Buddy, we have the Maths Week website.  It is full of fabulous activities that you might like to have a go at.  The link is:

https://www.mathsweek.co.nz

You can also find a link to this on the 'Driving Your Learning' slide that is on the home page of our class website (access this by clicking on the link at the top of this blog page.

Buddy Time

Earlier in the year, we met up with our buddies from Rooms 9, 9a, and 13.   Buddy Time is a great opportunity for us to make connections across the school with other learners and also develop our GEMS through play, design and creating.

Here's a snapshot of what we have been up to:

Morse Code

Every Wednesday morning, the One Odd Bunch have the wonderful Mrs Wilmoth helping them with their learning while Mrs Croll is in leadership meetings.  Recently, they have been learning about morse code and roman numerals.  Here are presentations created by Jessica, Finlay and Oscar to share their learning:

Videos and Padlets

Vocanoes - a Provocation for Our Inquiry

Today, during a quiet spell of writing, I put this video up on our TV (thanks to Auckland Museum for this simulated video of volcanic activity near Rangitoto Island).  It's a provocation for our Year 6 Inquiry about volcanoes.  The aim was to catch the learners by surprise... and I think I was fairly successful.  

After watching the video a few times, the learners were invited to think like scientists - what did they see, think and wonder?  This thinking was recorded on a Padlet.  Here's the result:

Link to video, if you would like to watch in full screen.

Share and Shine

Here's some videos and photos to illustrate some of the amazing learning that took place during our Lockdown Learning at the beginning of Term 2.

Writing and Design Thinking

Writing is one of the many learning activities in our Distance Learning programme and One Odd Bunch each have several writing goals to master. After deciding on the genre for their writing, e.g. narrative, explanation, poetic etc., they then needed to come up with an idea. Sometimes coming up with an idea can be difficult, so we provide them with a variety of prompts and ideas to choose from in our 'Writing Zone'.

The art of writing - whether it be a story or explaining the why and how, involves a series of steps - planning, drafting, recrafting and editing. I feel that the steps in writing are very similar to the process in Design Thinking:

• Empathise - reason for writing: to entertain, inform, report, personal etc.
• Define - identify the audience and purpose for writing
• Ideate - plan for writing; generate ideas; what are the key points to include
• Prototype - draft up ideas and organise for paragraphing; consider language and                        structure; vocabulary, spelling and punctuation
• Test - get feedback and make changes to improve your writing

What do you think?

Here is a slice of the published writing that One Odd Bunch have 'designed and produced'. Enjoy!

Final Lockdown Post

It was great to meet up with the One Odd Bunch yesterday afternoon in our Google Meet. Hopefully it's our last now that we're at Level 2, with hopefully a move to Level 1 very shortly.  There were many questions about returning to school on Monday and hopefully I've been able to answer them all. The classroom felt a bit quiet so it will be great to see everyone again. 

I apologise for not posting a video yesterday morning. I thought I would send one from the classroom, but things got a wee bit busy. Aditha asked for the Daily Challenge so here it is, but instead of it being the Daily Challenge, let's make it a Weekend Challenge. 

WEEKEND CHALLENGE

Minute to win it!

Check out the link below and select as many 'Minute to win it' challenges you can do. Email your photos and/or videos to Mrs Croll.

How many can you do?

Minute to win it challenges

Keep safe,

Mrs Croll

Room 1 @ Sunnyhills School

B.Education

Post Grad Cert Digital and Collaborative Learning

      

Morning Meeting - 14.5.20

Morning Meeting - 13.5.20

Crime Scene on the Lego Board

Oscar took up the Daily Challenge on 11th May, to have some fun and create a short movie. He use Lego and the 'stop motion animation' technique to make this crime scene movie.  Stop motion animation is when you take a photo, move the objects just a fraction, then take another photo. This process is repeated until you have completed the scene. 

Director:  Oscar

Narrator: His dad

Morning Meeting - 12.5.20

Sorry One Odd Bunch... I got totally engrossed with reading a few of the awesome pieces of writing that you have sent me.  It's taken me 4 weeks, and I've finally twigged that I can use Screencastify to provide you with verbal feedback. It's so much easier than typing comments along the side.  However, if you prefer the typed comments, let me know.

Right - here's the daily morning video that I know you've been waiting for :)

Morning Meeting - `1.5.20

Share and Shine

Morning Meeting - 8.5.20

Links to the Mothers' Day activity sites:

https://www.easypeasyandfun.com/mothers-day-crafts-for-kids/

https://artprojectsforkids.org/how-to-draw-a-mothers-day-card/

Share and Shine

Design and creativity seem to be the most popular choice in our Distance Learning programme. Here's a snapshot of what Jazlyn and Finlay have been up to.

Morning Meeting - 7.5.20

Morning Meeting - 6.5.20

Share and Shine

Here's some more fab learning experiences that One Odd Bunch have been up to...

Share and Shine

Star Wars - May the Fourth Be With You!  

Yesterday's Daily Challenge involved designing a game with code, or drawing a character from the epic science fiction Star Wars movies. These a few of the best that have been shared with me.

Morning Meeting - 5.5.20

Apologies for the delay; I appear to have gremlins in my WiFi this morning.  I finished recording my morning video before 9am, but am having trouble uploading.  I'm using my GEMS power of determination and persistence - so I will get there!

11:30 Update...

Finally managed to upload this morning's meeting video.  Don't know if it's the weather, or what, but I'm being challenged with technology this morning.  Might have a break, pause, refresh and start again :)

Morning Meeting - 4.5.20

May the Fourth Be With You

Daily Challenge

A long time in a galaxy far, far away...

Star Wars Day, May 4th, celebrates George Lucas' Star Wars. This epic science-fiction film hit our cinema screens in 1977. "May the Force be with you" was the phrase used by Obi-Wan Kenobi, to wish an individual or group good luck or good will. 

Today, you have been given a few options for the Daily Challenge (click on the text to be transported to the learning zones):

      A Star Wars-themed activity             or           Build a galaxy with code

                 

I'm looking forward to hearing what you did, so please share via email.

One Odd Bunch on Google Meet

Whole Class Meet

This week, Week 3 of Distance Learning, was a time for us to experience using Google Meet so that we could extend our online learning from solitary to group sessions. The majority of us had not used Google Meet before, so the learning target for our initial 'meet' was Google Meet 101 - How to navigate our way around the screen, when to mute and when to talk. 

With the first 'meet' (for most of us) under our belt, we decided that we would try a whole class 'meet' this morning. I wasn't sure how many would turn up and was excited to see 21 familiar faces on the screen. With the mute button engaged, our chat screen became very busy with 'hi' and 'lol' having regular appearances :)  We played a scavenger hunt and shared our weekend plans - a mix of indoor and more outdoor activity, now that we're at Level 3. Some family pets made it onscreen too!

The 'meet' wrapped up with a very laggy 'happy birthday' for Aditha, who celebrated his 11th birthday last Monday.

Thanks for coming along, One Odd Bunch.  'See' you next week!

Share and Shine

Morning Meeting - 1.5.20

Morning Meeting - 30.4.20

Share and Shine

Instructional writing is used all the time in our daily lives.  It can appear easy, but it's surprising how quickly something can go wrong if information is missed out.  Wednesday's Daily Challenge was to write instructions for making a favourite sandwich, then test out the instructions by getting someone else to make it.  This was a great way to check if  all the necessary information had been included - not just the ingredients, but also what utensils to use and where to put the ingredients.

There were some delicious sandwiches made yesterday - which means that the instructions must have been written correctly!

I wonder if the result might have been different had the instructions been used to programme a computer 😏

Morning Meeting - 29.4.20

Morena!  Welcome to Week 3.  I tried recording this video on another computer... and it didn't go too well. There's a bit of lagging - but I'm sure you will manage to understand my message.  Looking forward to catching up with you all in our Google Meet sessions.  See you soon!

Google Meet - 'How to' Video

Hi One Odd Bunch

Further to my earlier post, here's a video (excuse the quality), with more information on how to join and be part of a Google Meet.  Please make sure that you watch this video today and know where the Google Meet icon is on your 'waffle'.

Google Meetings

Hi One Odd Bunch!

Starting from tomorrow morning, we will be using Google Meet to meet in groups to say "hi", share our lockdown experiences and talk about our learning.  I can't wait to catch up with you all.

Here's the 'low down' on how to join a Google Meet and what to do once you are there. I've also included the timetable for our 'meetings'.  Please get back to me asap, if you are unable to join me on the day and time that you've been scheduled.

Share and Shine

Well, ANZAC day was quite a bit different this year. I was grateful that I didn't have to get up so early as I only needed to walk to the top of my driveway, rather than drive to an ANZAC service. Radio NZ had an ANZAC service broadcast, so I had this playing from my stereo - loud enough to hear it from the street. It was an eerie experience, looking up and down the road to see the flicker of candles from others who were joining in with me from a distance.

Here's some lovely ANZAC wreaths that were made for Friday's Daily Challenge:

Science Experiments - Germs, Water and Acid vs Alkaline

Some of the One Odd Bunch have been turning their kitchens into lab,s to conduct science experiments at home. Here's a sample of what's been going on.

Morning Meeting - 24.4.20

Share and Shine

Tuesday's Daily Challenge brought out the illustrator in many. Here's a selection of the best.

We have some amazing cooks in Room 1.  I can't wait to get back to school to use our hall kitchen for more science, maths and totally scrumptious learning!

Olivia hasn't been able to get to the beach for a surf during lockdown, but this hasn't stopped her from using her surfboard. Here, she is putting it to use as a whiteboard - genuine 'kiwi' ingenuity!

Morning Meeting - 23.4.20

Share & Shine

Daily Challenge - 22.4.20

Here's today's challenge...

Can't wait to see all your fab book covers!

Paper Planes - Daily Challenge 21.4.20

Today's challenge was full of Design Thinking, Mathematics and Technology. I only received two entries... super work from Daniel and Amy.

Update 22.4.20 - Amy just informed me that her longest throw was 8.7m.  You win the challenge, Amy.  Great throw!

Morning Meeting - 22.4.20

Share and Shine

Maddie and her brother, Cooper, have created this presentation about essential workers.  Their aunty is a nurse and she was able to answer their inquiry questions.

Eeny Meeny Competition

Here's the details about the Eeny Meeny competition that I mentioned in Monday's Morning Meeting.  There are super prizes for you and our school.  Competition closes on 27th April, so get designing and creating.

Morning Meeting - Tuesday 21 April

Morning all!  Sorry, this is a little late.  I was watching Nathan Wallis on the eLearning TV2+ channel, and lost track of time.  Also just realised that I didn't change the date on today's video (whoops).  Anyway... have a good one and please email me with any questions or sharing of learning.

Share and Shine

Once again, I am blown away with the learning that is taking place at home. Here is a snapshot of what was shared with me yesterday.

Click here to view Bree's video (only Sunnyhills School emails can view this video)

Lockdown Memes - Daily Challenge: 20.4.20

It looks like this challenge was extremely popular.  Memes are such a fun way to share our thinking :)

Papatuanuku is Breathing

This afternoon, a friend sent me a link to this video and I just had to share it with you. Like you, I can't wait for the day when I can once again explore all the natural treasures that Auckland has to offer us. But until then, Papatuanuku is breathing.

Today's Challenge - Make a Lockdown Meme

Yes, that's right... get your creative hat on and create your very own  meme!  Your challenge is to make a meme about the lockdown, or your bubble.

Free memes can be found here

I'm looking forward to being entertained by your designs, so please email your image to me.

Morning Meeting - 20.4.20

Sharing Our Learning

Here are a few more examples of our learners 'Sharing and Shining'.

Sharing Our Learning

Oscar has been using this time at home to learn guitar and Sienna has been busy reading online stories with her nana and answering maths questions from our very own PM!  What have you been learning?

Today's challenge was to find objects in the house from A-Z.  Here's what Pasindu and Maddie found.

Link to Pasindu's doc

Morning Meeting - 17.4.20

 

Sharing Our Learning

Look what some of our learners have achieved today!

Today's Challenge:  Making a Fort

  

Measurement, Science and Technology...

 

                                              There's more to cooking than you think!