Thursday 29 September 2016

Term 3 complete

It's a little crazy that Term 3 has come and gone! I'm sitting here in LC5 with furniture all around me and it feels much like the beginning of the year. We've got some exciting things coming up in Term 4 and lots to celebrate from Term 3.

Reintroducing Trudy
This year I have been supporting English Language Learners at HPPS but I am also studying primary school teaching part time and will join LC4 in Term 4 to complete my final teaching practicum. In my previous lives I have been an urban planner, researcher, shelter rights advocate, international kindergarten teacher and international aid and development worker. I have lived in Japan, UK, Netherlands, India, Tajikistan, Cambodia, Vietnam and Australia but I am really excited about being back in NZ and beginning this new challenge.

Music Video Immersion
Lisa led LC4 in a music-video immersion activity using GarageBand and iMovie. The children learnt a lot about storyboarding, camera angles and storytelling. Throughout the activity they continued to develop their collaboration skills and reflected each day on the difficulties they'd had as an individual and as a group, this was to help build their resilience.

Daily film-making reflection and evaluation chart
Here is a taster of the music videos the class created, I'll post the rest of the videos to the blog this week.




AIA Healthy Challenge
Our class is participating in the AIA Healthy Kids Challenge next term.  It's a fun virtual adventure around the globe, led by rugby star Cory Jane and NZ Hockey star, Gemma Flynn.  We all create our own little avatars and each child will receive a free pedometer to count steps in the real world that will move our team around the online race track.  As we reach each new destination, we'll see a video of our class of avatars exploring with Cory and Gemma and getting some healthy tips too.

But we need your help!  We'd love you to get involved so you can support and encourage your child to get moving more often and help us get more entries into the draw to win one of twenty $1000 AIA sporting grants for our school and one of 50 Huawei tablets for our classrooms.  Simply join the Parents Class Team and count your steps to help move your team around the same course as the kids and you'll go in the draw to win a Huawei P9 phone too!    Race against other parents teams, get active with your child and have some fun as well.

Cross Country
On a warm, clear winters day six LC4 students attended the North West Sports Cluster Cross Country at Huapai Domain for year 5 - 8 students. All of our students really enjoyed the experience and are eager to participate again next year.

The course was challenging but it was great to support other children from our school.
"I liked the muddy parts when you went around the corner from the truck, my shoe got stuck in the mud." Apparently the mud was actually refreshing as it was cold and you'd  have to run through the puddles
"I was wearing my mum's running shoes so I didn't fall over"

"Nervous, but really excited" - Jack
"I felt there was no way I could catch up with the people in front of me, I just had to keep going so the person behind me couldn't catch up" - Aart
"I knew I wasn't breathing properly and I wouldn't get a good position"

Our students definitely want to do this again next year and think with more practise they might achieve better results.

Technology update - Borrowbox & Overdrive
The weather for the first few days of the holidays hasn't been great so if you're on the lookout for some reading for your children try the Borrowbox or Overdrive apps. These are apps that you can install onto a device from the Google App Store or iTunes and allow you to borrow electronic books from the Auckland Public Library system, they have a help page if you need assistance. There are a wide range of titles available including audio books that your child can listen to or follow along and traditional electronic books that don't have the accompanying voice over.
Student Reflections
On the last day of Term 3 we asked our students to complete a Google Reflection Form on the term, if your child hasn't completed this it would be great if you could encourage them to do this. It would only take 10 minutes. Use this link to access the form Term 3 Reflection form.




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