Creating Camps

It's a great novel, if you haven't read it! Holes by Louis Sachar is the story of a young boy who is punished for something he didn't do. Well, punished may be putting it lightly! He is sent to Camp Green Lake, which is in the middle of the desert, to dig holes every single day. It's an adventure story with a lot of interesting themes including friendship, integrity and respect.  

We are currently learning some clever persuasive devices to include in our writing. We have explored rhetorical questions, exaggeration and rule of three so far. The students will be writing their final persuasive text on this thought provoking question:

Does punishment influence behaviour?

As a school which does not have punishments or rewards, I am very interested to read the students responses to this. When we discuss this as a class most students respond to this question at a societal level, believing that 'yes' we do need punishments to influence people. However, at a personal level they feel they do not require punishments in order to do the right thing! Did punishment influence the main character, Stanley- well we just have to keep reading to find out!

Camp Green Lake is the setting for the novel Holes, so we decided to create a model of the camp. It has been a challenge working collaboratively, solving problems, making measurements, considering scale and sourcing appropriate materials. We finished them this week, finally!

The next step is to guide our Sphero around the Camp visit the landmarks and perform some light functions, sound effects and maybe even recorded voices. 

This week we had a practice navigating Sphero around a maze. It looks easy but it is quite a lot of coding behind the scenes. 

The coding is basically a set of instructions for Sphero to follow- how fast, how slow, when to stop, when to turn and perhaps even which angle to turn at. 

It's such a rich learning experience including maths knowledge, technology knowledge and skills and working together to problem solve. 

What pleased me was the students going outside their comfort zone even with their maze design. Many included angles and corners which took time to navigate through. 

So until our maze challenge next week, it's paper, scissors...

The Year 2s That Spoke...

Yes they spoke alright! Today our class had the pleasure of working with Year 2 students who had been reading the book The Papaya That Spoke. As part of the Talk 4 Writing program the Year 2s had learned the actions for the story but they took it one step further than that. They painted some rocks!

Each student was given a set of rocks to paint as a character from the story. They initially used black texta to outline it, paint to colour it and clear gloss to seal it. The Year 6s were genuinely impressed with the quality of their illustration skills.

The Year 2s then used their rocks to re-tell the story. They were brave to tell their stories with such expression, to students much older than themselves.

The next step was to innovate their story, by changing the setting, character, problem or resolution. Two courageous groups were willing to share their new story with the whole class.  

We thoroughly enjoyed their visit and it was terrific to observe the Year 6s in a mentoring role. Until the next storytelling adventure, it's paper, scissors...

The Making of the Mandala

It all started with some mindfulness colouring in one quiet, calm afternoon. We discussed making our own cushions to lie on for our Smiling Minds meditation sessions. 

"What if we write an inspirational quote on them?" suggested one student. So we designed our quote, font and began planning a stencil. The problem was the quote was going to prove too difficult to cut out from our contact stencil. "Why don't we design our own mandala?" I asked the frustrated students.So we did...

Mandalas are very bright and colourful and have rotational symmetry, so we set about creating our own personal design. The process started with a pencil sketch and then we transferred to contact by tracing it through the window. 

The next step, we all got creative! Out came the sponges, rollers and paintbrushes to create the colourful masterpieces. It was so much fun to play with paint and experiment with blending and marbling to create the desired look. 

Great idea painting the design on the sponge!

Peeling off the contact was exciting- revealing our mandalas in their finished state.

How were we going to make these into cushions you might ask? Sewing machines of course! 

We headed north to Joseph Banks Secondary College, on the bus, to utilise one of their awesome Home Economics Textiles rooms. Miss Williamson was on board with her trusted helpers, including Year 9 and 10 students. I was proud of the conduct and concentration of LA8 as they 'cottoned on' to sewing really quickly. In no time they had mastered the machine and whipped around the hemline to make one Mandala cushion!

It was a treat to head up to the high school and perhaps ease some early transition nerves as well as complete a project we had been working on for some time. LA8 are very grateful to the team at Joseph Banks for making this excursion happen.  The students have taken their finished cushions home to stuff and hand sew all ready for meditation in Term 3. Until the next time we get arty it's paper, scissors.....

Only dead fish go with the flow....

Hellloooooo... is this thing on! Yes, I know it's been a while since our last blog post. We've still been doing great things - we just haven't been letting you know about it!

I recently shared this quote with the students:

It's so much easier in school, in life to just go with the flow- trends, behaviours, learning...  It's challenging to go outside your comfort zone, to do something different to others especially when you're 11! I encourage this "outside the square" thinking... it's only when we go outside our comfort zone that we experience new and wonderful things and realise a potential we may never have known existed. 

The students have been sinking their teeth into descriptive writing, taking risks with new vocabulary, unusual sentence starters and character development. Their narratives are proving to be engaging and entertaining as I read them aloud to the class. There could be some future authors in this class!

I asked an LA8 writer to put himself out of his comfort zone and write a guest blog post. 
"Cool!" he replied. "What should I write about?" he questioned. 
"I want some honesty," I replied, "don't just tell us what you think we want to hear. I would like your honest feedback about Yoga and Mindfulness activities in LA8. Do you think we should do them? Do you think they help? I've asked you SD because I feel you will be honest."

Without hesitation SD hopped onto the computer and moments later we had this.... his first guest blog post.....

I feel that yoga helps us with our posture and gives us an extra boost of confidence when we really need it. It has been beneficial for us with sport and we have got more advanced in yoga. Mindfulness has been helping us with concentrating and code switching. We are always more focused after mindfulness and we produce better work as well.

We have something special because we are the only class who does yoga, but most do mindfulness and they all say it helps every single minute afterwards. Every day when we do yoga we get better at it. I think we need to spread it though all schools and you should try it to!

So what are you waiting for? Until next time it's paper, scissors....

Making Magic!

It's fun to play with stuff isn't it? I remember as a child playing with craft and creating little 'masterpieces'! As children get older we find they have less time to create and play, particularly at school. That's why I'm such a fan of STEAM in education. You may remember from previous posts, Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Maths all have their part to play in these problem solving scenarios. 

This week began with the construction phase of our Sphero chariots, which equally frustrated and delighted the students. They persisted and didn't let the obstacles stop them- adapt and overcome was our new mantra!

Next week, we test and trial these chariots with the Sphero and then we have the opportunity to amend our designs. The Sphero is then given instructions via code on the iPad to follow a path with the chariot. Watch this space for future posts as this project develops. 

We've commenced our weekly Year 6 STEM rotations! Every Wednesday the Year 6 students have the opportunity to work with students from other classes and with different teachers on STEM challenges. In LA8 today we had the Newspaper Tower Challenge- each group made only 7 newspaper dowels, stuck it together with only 60 cm of tape and had to build the strongest or tallest tower! It was good to see planning, sketching and compromise before building the tower. It makes me laugh when the future lawyers challenge me with loopholes in the instructions in an attempt to persuade me that the are not bending the rules or dare I say cheating- future superstars of Contract Law in the making! Until the next daily learning challenge it's paper, scissors...

Great to be Grateful

Gratitude is something we must continually remind ourselves of. As a teacher, mother and wife I certainly have my cup filled daily with love, laughter and positivity. It’s one of the lovely gifts we get as teachers.

WARNING- Teacher Joke

At the end of the term though, I was fortunate enough to celebrate a birthday milestone with my class, yes, turning 40! How lovely, I thought, to spend the day with my class and share some birthday cake for a little treat. Little did I know that for some time the students had been planning with Mrs D and Mr B a surprise for me! I walked into a room full of streamers and happy birthday signs, a graffiti board full of lovely messages and a few jabs at my old age! Then to the not so tuneful rendition of Happy Birthday ¯- in walks Mrs D with many gifts brought in by the students. I felt so overwhelmed by it all and it truly made it the most special day. I will never forget how the joy of that morning took all the pain away of turning 40!

Generous gifts

Seriously, I am so thankful to the parents, students and Mrs D who orchestrated the special gesture. I now have some lovely keepsakes, photos and treasured memories of LA8 2017. Until the next LA8 birthday, it's paper, scissors...

Yummy Yummy in my Tummy!

The sweet smell of sugary icing wafted through the air as the chefs set to work creating their masterpieces! What a special feeling making cupcakes with joy and happiness sprinkled on top with the intention of helping others.

Yes it was that time of the year where the Year 6 students rally together to raise funds for charity. It's not just making a donation though! The feel good factor comes from hard work, practice and care in creating cupcakes that others will want to buy- all the while raising funds for others not so fortunate. 

Of course, it must be noted that behind the scenes on the weekend were Mums, Dads and carers making cupcakes with their children- prepping staging and props and having practice sessions piping and decorating. 

  

It is wonderful to observe the children enjoy being creative and celebrating as a cohort the fantastic fundraising effort of over $1300!

Making the Cupcakes-piping

Making the Cupcakes- assembling

Making the Cupcakes- staging