HCC Dog Control

The nice people at the pound [next to SPCA] need warm bedding for all their poor dogs. It will be very cold there through winter, so see if you can find old blankets, polar fleece, woolen jumpers, dog coats, etc, to help the poor crittters out.

Check out the good news stories here:

http://hamilton.co.nz/page/pageid/2145827175

Key Competencies in our learning

Part of your assessment for last term and this term is based on your mastery of certain key competencies. What are these mysterious sounding things?
How have they been integrated into your learning so far?
Are they important? Why?

Capabilities for living and lifelong learning

The New Zealand Curriculum identifies five key competencies:

• thinking
• using language, symbols, and texts
• managing self
• relating to others
• participating and contributing.

http://nzcurriculum.tki.org.nz/the_new_zealand_curriculum/key_competencies

HamiltON homework

By the end of Week One , Term Two, you need to have your own blog and on this blog you need to include the digital photos you have taken of Hamilton, [or ones you have found on the net]. If you took normal photos and have prints, you can scan them and post them. Anyone who does not have the equipment at home needed to do this can do it at school.
This must be achieved by Friday Week One.

You must then comment on this post saying your photos can be viewed on your blog.

The second task is to outline on your blog or in your topic book what your digital story is focusing on for the HamiltON inquiry project.

The third task is to create a storyboard outlining how your digital story will work. Step by step, image by image and with the text and any other explanation of what your Marvin characters might do to help narrate your digital story.

You will then create a digital story using the Marvin software. It is just like Powerpoint but with extra characters to help make your story more exciting for the audience.

The Digital story [using Marvin] must be no longer than 3 minutes in length, have no more than three Marvin characters in it, and be focused on the topic, not the use of characters or the inclusion of unnecessary actions.
The dialogue must be used sparingly to complement the written information. You must use your images of Hamilton [or those related to your personal theme] as background images.

The Hamilton inquiry, Marvin digital story, must be finished by week four of this term.
We will use the computers at school to get the work done in class time. Your homework is to upload the photos to your blog as stated at the beginning
You may include voice over narrative, music, video clips, scanned artwork, etc, for extra credit.

The best digital story will win a fabulous prize - Annick the Researcher and Elaine Her Majesty will introduce you to more information about exciting prizes and will judge the competition.
You will be competing against Room9!

Any questions?

What are you doing?

What are all the Room5ians doing? I have had several highlights - visiting my grandparents on ANZAC Day and having a really amazing date for my wedding anniversary.
What are you doing for your holiday?
Today I am following my chickens around wondering why they aren't laying, planting winter crops in the vege garden and walking the dog. To show how sad my life is, i just got excited over the idea of buying a new bail of barley straw to use for the chook house and the garden...

I bet your Kakepuku stories are coming along nicely - if you have written any on your blog, say so here so we can go and read it for you.

Term Two will start with finsihing our Kakepuku sotries and our digital stories about HamiltON.
After that we will be doing lots of maths, science and different styles of writing. Science fair is coming up too so get thinking about interesting topics... not things like "which fabric softener works best" or anything boring like that.

:-)

You have a PXT from AGENT S

Inside the V8 control centre.... thanks for the inside info, Agent S.

You have a PXT from AGENT S

Live action from the track as cars arrive for the HamiltON 400!!!

Matua Haami joins the Blogging World

http://room9sbloghettyblog.blogspot.com/

Please visit and leave comments. Be respectful [I know you would anyway]

:-)

V8's - good, bad or undecided?

What's your opinion? I'm interested in informed opinions only. Not just repeated prejudices or vague ideas about what might be true. Find out the facts by reading all the different articles, policies, strategies, etc in class. Ask people. Interview People. Analyze the information then decide for yourself what you think is a fair position to take. Be prepared to justify your opinion.
And thank you for being so wonderful.

ERO visit

Please tell the nice people from the Educational Review Office all the cool things we do as Room5ians ...

Reading activities for Monday, Tuesday, etc...

Remember Steve Austin? The Six Million Dollar Man? Probably not, because you weren't even born when he graced our television sets in the 70s.
Well, this isn't about Steve Austin. We ROom5ians have just come close to a special connection to the $5 Dollar Man! And he was way cooler than the Six Million Dollar Man because he was real and he was one of us.
:-)
Part of our reading programme will be relating to him this week.

The main reading material however, is the City Council's strategic plan. This seems sensible given that we are now included in their Creative and Innovative annual plan and have several active rolls in council affairs. We should understand what the Strategic Plan is and how we can contribute. They have asked us to make submissions so we should work out how to do this and think about what we want to say.

ALSO in ROOM5 this week and next term:

We will use interesting "filters" such as Gardner's Revised Bloom's Taxonomy and Directed Thinking strategies to help us analyse and evaluate the impact of the V8s on Hamiltron.

We will use Pohl's Thinking Keys to help us creatively design an exciting new City Heart for Hamilton.

We will learn how to use Gardner's Multiple Intelligences to add value to our follow up reading activities.

All our reading will be based around the $5 Man, Hamilton City Council planning, innovative city design, V8 supercars, tagging, water supply and the mighty Waikato, and our visit to Kakepuku.

We will use Taylor's Multiple Talent Model to make decisions about what we would do if we were the Mayor or CEO of Hamilton for a week.

Needless to say, this is going to spill over into Term Two.

What must be completed this week is the self portrait and the Kakepuku Narrative [draft only].

rain rain come and stay...

I hope it does rain properly for the sake of the poor animals on farms throughout the Waikato.

This article suggests it will - sadly it could also interfere with our fieldtrip!

Rain forecast for drought-stricken Waikato

Low pressure weather system from tropics will bring wind and rain to upper North Island, soaking Waikato over next few days

13 April 2008
Relief is in sight for drought-stricken Waikato with rain forecast for the North Island over the next few days.

A low pressure system is dragging wet air from the tropics which will bring wind and rain. The first bout will make its way down the island from Northland later today or tonight.

Weather analyst Philip Duncan warns there will be wind gusts reaching 100km/hr across the northern part of Northland and up to 80km/hr across Auckland Harbour. Winds of 100km/hr are already lashing Cape Reinga.

Rain will reach Waikato tonight or tomorrow and should last up to 36 hours.

http://home.nzcity.co.nz/news/article.aspx?id=83971&fm=psp,nwl

Room5ians live up to the school motto - "First Learn to Serve"

You have been invited to share a moment. Click here to view this Telecom Photo/Video message.

"Weed work worthwhile"

Does anyone know the Maori translation of our school motto?

Fireworks baby!

Nightglow !

How cool is it to live in hammy?!

Sir Ed, Room5ians and Maungatautari

Last night we were privileged to join a walk up Maungatautari to carry our commemorative rock for his cairn and to hear some special words about and by the great New Zealander.
I felt honoured to be there on behalf of Peachgrove and the University of Waikato Hillary Scholars with Sasha.
Maybe, like Sir Ed said, you could take up opportunities. Perhaps one day you could win a Hillary Scholarship in your field of excellence.

I hope you follow your dreams and live life to the full.

Reading via the blog

Is the blog an effective way to supply you with reading lessons?
Can you please state the reading strategies here whilst at home to see if you can remember them...

Also, re-read earlier posts and comments to find hidden maths homework. First to find and answer the questions wins the prize! [extra weeding time!]

Bloggers are "monkeys living by the law of the jungle"

"Malaysian candidates required to have blogs"

According to the Malaysian youth deputy Khairy Jamaluddin [A Malaysian politician] people who blog are monkeys, but now even he has succumbed to the usefulness of this modern communication tool.

Read the article by following the link and analyse the points of view contained within. Assess the author's purpose and write what you think it is as comments.

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/TECH/04/11/malaysia.blogging.ap/index.html?eref=rss_tech






"Israeli officials: Facebook is national security threat"

As cybersafe Room5ians, you are aware of the potential peril's of social software such as Facebook, Bebo, MySpace, etc. As M-learning secret agents, you do not want to give away personal details to complete strangers via the net. It could jeopardise your cover.

The Israeli military is highly skilled and has concerns over the use of Facebook by it's troops. Read the article to establish the main point of their opinion. Write it here as a comment.


http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/04/11/israel.facebook.ap/index.html?eref=rss_tech


"Even your dog has a blog"
Even your dog has a blog
It goes without saying that Max, a 3-year-old golden retriever can't talk. But that doesn't stop him from chronicling his dog's life -- as told to his owner Aubrey Jones -- on the blog "Max the Golden Retriever".

- read the article and the blog of the dog, then use your reading stategies to determine the author's purpose or reason for writing Max's blog. State your opinion as a comment.

Room5ians take on care of school grounds and love it!

You have been invited to share a moment. Click here to view this Telecom Photo/Video message.

Weedy weed whackers at work

Fieldtrip Fantasmagora!

WOW! What a great field trip. We did so much. You Room5ians were excellent!!! The best group I've ever taken on a field trip in 8 yrs.
Please state here what you did, where you went, why you did it all, who you met, what you are going to do next and all the cool ideas you have for enhancing parts of Hamiltron, City of the Future.
Yeeehah! What great learning!

Green V8s for HamiltON400

Agetn S has forwarded to me HCC documents showing the council's plan to make the V8 event carbon neutral, This is very cool. There is also a green policy for us to read as part of our literacy programme.
We ROCK!!!
Hamiltron, city of the future

Agent S strikes again...almost

Hmm
OK that didnt work. You guys are going to have to teach me how to post to blog from email as that clearly didnt work - and I have lots of supercool stuff to send you. Talk soon. S

Sarah and her good mate Greg Murphy....

Website www.hamilton.co.nz

Sarahs office

Hello hamilton underground agents. Thought youd like to see my secret bunker at council head quarters. Can you see murph? I flattened him and keep him safe on my desk until he needs to drive at the v8s. I will send you some info about the v8s as well. Stay tuned. s

Mohamed spreads the word

You have been invited to share a moment. Click here to view this Telecom Photo/Video message.

Mohamad Tajeran visits the class to tell us why we need to plant trees.

awful tragedy

I feel really sad today for the firefighters of our fine town, and of course for their families.
One brave fireman has died as a result of injuries sustained in the blast at the coolstore in Tamahere. Several others are in critical care. Our thoughts and prayers are with them.
Last night I watched the smoke filling the sky from several kilometres away.
It seems so bizarre that this is from a cheese fire...

I suggest we take a bouquet of flowers or something to deliver to the firestation when we go into town. what do you think?

Writing our story...

While writing Kakepuku catastrophe, we need to remember some of the rules and regulations of writing, [like using capital letters occasionallyl...mr woody!] as well as ideas to help make our writing less tedious to make an audience suffer through.

the internet being our friend, as it is, i have found official documents made by "the government" to support our understanding of what is required when we write properly...

Level 4b learning intentions:
[level 4b is the level we all want to achieve as a minimum for our reading and writing. many of you are already capable of this or more but reinforcement and revision is useful to help retain knowledge and skills.]

Audience awareness and purpose
Engages audience and sustains reader attention. Language use and writing style enhance the telling. The writer's "voice" may enter the text and invoke a reaction.

Content inclusion
Story includes comprehensive elements (i.e., orientation, complication, resolution, and sometimes coda). Clear focus on and development of specific events, characters, and settings.

Coherence: sequencing ideas and linking
Story element sequencing managed well (e.g., effective plot or development of events). Effective linking is evident through the use of some linking devices (e.g., conjunctions of time - afterwards, next, meanwhile), which make the story flow.

Language resources for achieving the purpose
May use language devices (e.g., figurative language) and descriptors (e.g., adverbials, adjectives) to engage the audience and give detail to and develop characters, actions, and settings. Purposeful use of dialogue (where included).

We will have to discuss this in class to understand it all. By trying to comprehend what is actually being said here and relating it to our writing, we will probably learn something about writing..and it will be a kind of reading lesson too! HOoray!

Let's edit this page together in class [under my login] and make new vocabulary a different colour. transfer these words to your word study list when you have identified them.

MATHS [non]Homework

to be done at school...you may think about it at home, discuss it, work out what you need to find out to be able to answer it at school, with a partner....
in other words - it's not homework.
well, not really.

At the school swimming sports Roo, Sebtastic, Courtorama and Brainyda completed in the fifty metres freestyle heat.

Roo came first with a time of 40.395 seconds.

Brainyda came second, Courtorama came third and Sebtastic pulled a hammy and came fourth.

In the next heat, Mojo finished with a time 27 hundredths of a second slower than Roo.

What was his time? ____________

And why was Mr Woody not there...?

Mobile Technology and our Fieldtrip

This Wednesday we will be walking into town to further investigate our city and how we can be positive contributors to it. Our goal of course is to create digital stories that showcase HamiltON's strengths and maybe investigate some of the less desirable aspects with a view to making some meaningful suggestions for the HCC to consider.

We will hopefully be meeting the Museum director to discuss how we can have input into the development of wonderful museum exhibitions and programmes involving kids.

We will also go to the library to meet someone important to discuss the exciting new possibilities relating to the library of the future... This is good timing because our own library is being redeveloped soon and you could share your ideas for that too.

The river banks will call us also so we can capture our wonderful Waikato River as Mlearning agents. Perhaps we will discover fascinating historical sites along the way.

For this trip we need to be able to gather information as we travel. Mobile phones are one means of capturing information on the run. We even know how to post it to our blog now. But what else can we use? How do we arrange it? And what if there isn't enough cool ICT to share around? Not everyone has a phone. How else can we gather our information? Can you think of innovative solutions to solve the problem? We need everyone involved at all times to avoid boredom, so how can we creatively get everyone involved?

Please post your ideas.

V8s come to HamiltrON, City of the Future

YEs, it's not long to go now....

Headlines are beginning to catch my eye:

"V8 Supercar driver Greg Murphy has rubbished suggestions of carnage on roads during Hamilton 400, saying Ingalls is chasing headlines"

http://home.nzcity.co.nz/news/article.aspx?id=83641&fm=psp,tst

There is usually a battle of words between such rivals as Kiwi Greg Murphy and some of the Aussie drivers befroe a big race. This is no different. It adds to the fun.

Can you tell me more about the V8 supercar teams or drivers or the event itself?

wireless network

does anyone have a parent who works with wireless technology or can advise us about what is the best way to set up a wireless network at peachgrove? i am currently posting using one...
:-)
p.s. today's professional development on the Marvin software was really cool!

Happy April Fools Day!

You have been invited to share a moment. Click here to view this Photo/Video message.

Poisson d'Avril means April Fool! See th tags for the last two posts :-)

Sad news for Mr Woody

Sadly, despite having a wonderful class of Room5ians and really enjoying working with students, Mr Woody has become frustrated with other aspects of teaching and has accepted another exciting opportunity to work in a different profession. Today will be Mr Woody's last day at Peachgrove but he will keep in touch with the wonderful room5ians who have enriched his life.
The new teacher is someone who knows and respects the Room5ians and has worked as a reliever in the class.
Kia kaha!
Aroha nui!

Mr Woody