Team Writing

Recount writing. Is it hard or easy for you? It's not easy for everyone, trying to remember what happened, then how to talk about those events, then all the punctuation that has to go into it. For that reason, I tried out a different way of running a writing session with my learners, inspired by reciprocal reading. 

The goal of the exercise was to write a 5 sentence recount detailing an event. The first Digital Learning Object to be created is a simple Google Slide recount, using photos and the the 5 sentences (one per slide). We had varying Google Slide recounts, but most of the learners were able to form complete sentences (not run-on sentences) punctuated with capital letters and full stops that followed the TREE recount structure.

How did they do it? Last week, I took the learners out to play a simple game. As we played the game, we discussed known vocabulary that could be used to describe what was happening. We also had to talk about what was happening that could be talked about. The learners then had to find "interesting" versions of those words either by looking them up themselves, thinking of words themselves, or being fed them by me. This was the event to be recounted. The rest of the set up was a little harder.

I came up with a set of prompts learners could use to guide their own and their peers' recount writing. These prompts were inspired by reciprocal reading, where learners guide each other towards a better understanding of a text. I then showed the learners how to run their own writing session with their group of friends.

Many of the learners said they found it easier and more interesting to write in this manner than what they have experienced so far. 

To see how well they've done, please check their blogs and search the tags for Writing and "bean bag game" or "team writing".

Mr Wong

Panmure Bridge's Cross Country 2017

Here's our video from our 2017 Cross Country.

Late in Term 3, Panmure Bridge School took part in the Adidas School Fun Run. We had a lot of fun running around Mt Wellington War Memorial Reserve, and we managed to raise some money to help our school. Thanks go to our whanau and others who sponsored PBS learners to run. Thanks also go to Asics NZ who provided us with some shoe giveaways for learners who put in a big effort.

Term 3: Whole School 60 Year Production

It was back at the end of term 3, and everyone attending Panmure Bridge School had to dance in front of a huge audience. Why did we do this? We did this as a representation of the 60 years that Panmure Bridge School has been running.

It all started in the beginning of term three when we started to practise a dance each. Nobody knew what we were doing this for, but we all went along with it. We were greeted by a women named Zoey. Zoey was going to teach us the dances, although most of the class was still confused as to what this was all about. All together, there were 6 dance groups. They were in order, Gangnum Style group, Single Ladies group, Party Rock group, Whip Nae Nae group, Dougie Group, and Harlem Shake group. Each group had a separate dance to learn, and they would perform those dances together.

Every week the students would have a lesson, and for every lesson they would learn more and more. This kept on happening until completely knowing the dance became a lot more important. At this point, all students would be using any bit of spare time to go over these dances. Then the costumes needed to be sorted out.

Each group had required costumes, excluding Harlem Shake group. Now student would be practising their dances in their costumes to make sure that what they're wearing would be suitable to dance in (Whether it's the correct size).

I've got a bad feeling about this...

Learning Space 1 contributes Bad Feeling to the 2017 Manaiakalani Film Festival.

What would you do if you noticed the streets were empty on your way to school? What would you do if you saw one of your friends attacked by another student? Julian and Alex suffer this ordeal.

To make this movie, children in Learning Space 1 that had an idea for a movie wrote and submitted their narratives. The children or groups of children then had to submit a plan of the resources and actors needed. The best prepared group with the most movie-like narrative was selected to make their movie.

The learners in the successful group then took on the roles of actors, camera operator, director, and editor. Other roles that need to be acknowledged are Mr Johnston, Panmure Bridge School's principal, and the other children of Learning Space 1 taking the roles of crazed kids.

Inquiry topic: Poetry.

In term three one of the topics for inquiry was poetry. For this topic the students had to learn about many different types of poetry such as a limerick, a haiku, a cinquain and a diamante. They were learning how to express emotions and feelings through text.

The students learnt about the differences between the poems, these are the differences between a cinqain and a haiku:
A cinqauin has a noun as the title. A cinqauin also has two adjectives on the first sentence, as well as three words that end with ing, a phrase, a synonym and it must have at least five sentences altogether. The haiku has none of these.
A haiku has to be three sentences long, each sentence has to have a certain amount of syllables. For example the first sentence must have five syllables, no more and no less for it to be an actual haiku. So for the second sentence you have to have seven syllables and for the third you once again have to have five. The haiku also usually has a seasonal reference. The cinqauin doesn't have any of those either.

Whilst learning about these different types of poetry some found that they were quite good at making the poems while others had some trouble, in the end everyone had had a go at making a poem. Many children had written at least one poem so they were tasked with publishing their best one onto their blog.

Maths Art

Last term Mr Wong's maths groups did some cultural maths art. At first we started planning in small groups. We learnt how to transform our arts in 3 different transformations.They were called reflection,transformation, and rotation. Everybody each got 9 pieces of white paper to draw their patterns in. To make it easier some students drew their template pattern in and then traced over it. To do this Mr Wong did a station for people who wants to use paint,dye, or pastels.  

Japanese sword skills

Japanese sword skills!

A group of LS1 students went out with Mr Wong today to practise some Japanese sword skills for drama and dance. We learnt one stance (daijodan), the strike to the head, and the responding evasion.

We would like to thank Stuart Millward at Bunnings for providing the sticks to practise these skills with.

Place value conversion

This term in Mr Wong's maths groups we are learning about measurement. To help out with that, this week we are getting practise exchanging values. 

The challenge here is to make the thinnest money clip possible. Why? Because fat money clips can't fit in pockets. How? We did this by equally exchanging our notes for notes of higher value. For example, ten $1 notes can be exchanged for one $10 making the pile of cash thinner.

The Learning Intention was to exchange place value money.


Mr Wong