Your holidays through poetry

Are you a reluctant writer? Or do you love the power of words?
Here is a starter to help you write more expressively about your holidays... And as a bonus, you need less words too ;-)

New Zealand has several famous writers and poets. James K. Baxter is one of them. He writes thus:


"The town was usual enough; it had
A creek, a bridge, a beach, a sky
Over it, and even a small tin church
I never went to. My brother, my cousins and I
Did what boys do - dozed in the hot
Schoolroom, made bows and arrows, dodged the mad
Boatbuilder, crept like rabbits through the black
Under-runners with a weak torch,
Burnt dry rushes, wrestled or swam
Doing nothing important"

- James K. Baxter


Re-write the poem, filling in your own details, using strong verbs, interesting nouns, and appealing adjectives, yet maintaining the same rhythm. Post it on your own blog or as a comment here.

Globalisation assignments

Let's clarify our globalisation assignments here....

1. Homework - Personal, creative, high quality, "model" project [not necessarily a model, but something physical, and representative of your learning in globalisation]. Must be extremely high quality so you are proud of it and everyone else is amazed by your brilliance.

- due week middle of week 8

2. Paired Youtube documentary project - done collaboratively with your pair of M3 students.

Includes a story board and a record of your timetabled interactions with M3 - Using Small-World wiki, Edmodo microblogging, our other blogs, Skype, telephone, and email.

3. In class group projects such as developing a globalisation newspaper, magazine or website. Perhaps something creative projects like a drama, song, dance, musical piece, Marvin animation, etc.

4. To regularly interact with the class blog and to develop an e-portfolio of related resources and opinions on your own personal blogs.

5. You may use Glogster also, but it must be linked to the class blog and your personal blogs. It is my preference that you continue to use blogger to keep a record of your learning.

6. We will also be doing a letter writing campaign to try to convince politicians to put a stop to destructive palm oil plantations in places where orangutans should be living.

Creative Ideas

State your creative assignment ideas here for the organic garden, permaculture, sustainability, worm farming and composting.
Or come up with a clever creative homework assignment to do with behavioural enrichment for the budgies or rats.
Or, suggest something innovative or creative to do with studying the Olympics.
Consider the various "multiple intelligences" or Bloom's Taxonomy when you think about designing a task. What level of task is this? Designing a project would be...?

Science Fair

Science Fair is fun!
Well - it should be anyway.
You will all complete an observational drawing in class.
You may do the photography as anoptional extra - this could be in place of the wallchart.
You must do a wallk chart explaining how a "home appliance" works, unless you do photography or one of the other more tricky categories.
If you want to avoid the wallchart category in favour of an investigation or technological innovation, you MUST follow the instructions and seek advice from me. I strongly recommend that you think carefully before attempting this option with the time that is remaining to you. A detailed, dated log book is essential.
We have discussed it all at length. You have written instructions.
You must bring your completed work to school on the first Monday to show me BEFORE you glue anything onto your A2 coloured presentation paper.
It is COMPULSORY.

The MechBoy Initiative

Mech Boy has inspired me to post an assignment for you:

List here in the comments a person you think has been the most influential in terms of advancing human knowledge and technology. Please also say what they are noteworthy for and why you think it is so important. Justify your opinion.

More tasks later - let's see who we come up with first...

Here's a little help from a person on the net...
http://www.dlmark.net/hundred.htm

The 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History
Revised and Updated for the Nineties
by Michael H. Hart

Mr. Hart's very interesting book contains biographies of all the following people, ranked in order from most influential to less influential, along with the author's reasons for so ranking them. The book is available at most bookstores and libraries.

The links will take you to a site on the Web about the person named
(not to a chapter in the book).

• Muhammad • Isaac Newton • Jesus Christ • Buddha • Confucius • St. Paul • Ts'ai Lun • Johann Gutenberg • Christopher Columbus • Albert Einstein • Louis Pasteur • Galileo Galilei • Aristotle • Euclid • Moses • Charles Darwin • Shih Huang Ti • Augustus Caesar • Nicolaus Copernicus • Antoine Laurent Lavoisier • Constantine the Great • James Watt • Michael Faraday • James Clerk Maxwell • Martin Luther • George Washington • Karl Marx • Orville and Wilbur Wright • Genghis Kahn • Adam Smith • Edward de Vere • John Dalton • Alexander the Great • Napoleon Bonaparte • Thomas Edison • Antony van Leeuwenhoek • William T.G. Morton • Guglielmo Marconi • Adolf Hitler • Plato • Oliver Cromwell • Alexander Graham Bell • Alexander Fleming • John Locke • Ludwig van Beethoven • Werner Heisenberg • Louis Daguerre • Simon Bolivar • Rene Descartes • Michelangelo • Pope Urban II • 'Umar ibn al-Khattab • Asoka • St. Augustine • William Harvey • Ernest Rutherford • John Calvin • Gregor Mendel • Max Planck • Joseph Lister • Nikolaus August Otto • Francisco Pizarro • Hernando Cortes • Thomas Jefferson • Queen Isabella I • Joseph Stalin • Julius Caesar • William the Conqueror • Sigmund Freud • Edward Jenner • Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen • Johann Sebastian Bach • Lao Tzu • Voltaire • Johannes Kepler • Enrico Fermi • Leonhard Euler • Jean-Jacques Rousseau • Nicoli Machiavelli • Thomas Malthus • John F. Kennedy • Gregory Pincus • Mani • Lenin • Sui Wen Ti • Vasco da Gama • Cyrus the Great • Peter the Great • Mao Zedong • Francis Bacon • Henry Ford • Mencius • Zoroaster • Queen Elizabeth I • Mikhail Gorbachev • Menes • Charlemagne • Homer • Justinian I • Mahavira •

Runner-ups:

• St. Thomas Aquinas • Archimedes • Charles Babbage • Cheops • Marie Curie • Benjamin Franklin • Mohandas Gandhi • Abraham Lincoln • Ferdinand Magellan • Leonardo da Vinci •

Biographies and other information about many of these people and their works may be found at Access Foundation's Encyclopedia Britannica's Great Books site.

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!]

extra homework

Hi Kids and Parents - if you require extra homework, try this site. Mrs Barham suggested it as a possible source of extra learning.

http://schools.look4.net.nz/

Mrs Barham supports our use of blogs for extending learning. I wonder if we can help her to become a regular contributor to our blog?

Homework

week one homework:

1. See if you can find info to work out why a supposedly 'dead' battery will start powering an electronic device after being rolled and rubbed a bit. I often find this is the case, [as demonstrated today with the stopped clock] and i wonder why... [by Wednesday]

2. Learn the meanings and spelling of your word study list. [by Friday]

3. Complete the All Black World Cup loss P.M.I. and work out a 40-60 second speech, based on that P.M.I., to be delivered in groups tomorrow.

4. Mathmate - due Friday

5. Complete your overdue assignments by Friday - Speeches and last term's inquiry project.

6. Start looking for information on the Moon, Sun, our atmosphere and space travel.