Careers Education through sailing

We got to go sailing and kayaking for two whole days this week.   We discovered capsizing is fun.  Salt water stings the eyes and bruises appear from nowhere.  Great fun was had and the instructor told us we should keep learning.   It was rather windy but our tacking, gybing, reaching, and downwind sailing got very good for beginners very quickly.  We are all great at capsizing and righting the boat.  Some of us can do this 5 times in 10 minutes in an opitimist which is hard to capsize.  Students showed their ability to take risks, persevere, and be courageous.   Mrs Feron also turned it into a lesson on working together even when we are tired, hungry and cold.  The carreers education bit: Working to help others out so the whole group can get into and out of the water quickly.  Group goals take priority over individual wishes.

Structure building.

An interesting time overcoming challanges with  creative solutions while we were building structures today.  They had to hold our group up 1 metre off the ground with only the materials provided.  Everyone thought there wasn't enough string!  Mrs Feron thought this was all about cooperation and contributing ideas.  We thought it was about avoiding any more work and having fun.

Fathers Day

We are learning to PEE when we write paragraphs.  Each paragraph has to have a point, an explanation, and examples.  I asked the lads and lasses in my class to write 5 peeing paragraphs about a parent. At this point Sheree reminded me it was Fathers Day on Sunday and asked if they could make cards.  I surprised them by bringing in my cardmaking stuff.   This resulted in a Friday morning and lunchtime of creativity and messes.  Halfway through the morning I had the bright idea of making this part of our upcoming unit on friendships.   I made the students write a complimentary description about a class member that I chose.   It was a much harder task thinking of ideas. We suddenly found a learning reason to use Google chat so Ihad to lift the class wide ban.  In The past Google chat has proved a major distraction.   Today, however, it was extremely helpful as it allowed students to discreetly queriethe friends odd the person they had been assigned to. A very successful way to get students collaborating with people they don't usually seem out.   They then made another card to  contain the published writing.

Chemistry Experiments

One of the lads in my class asked if we could blow things up.   I dutifully looked up the recipes and talked to our science teacher.   On Wednesday we spent 2 periods in the science lab discovering what chemicals change the flame color and making some bombs.  We soaked some pinecones in the chemicals in preparation for our Friday adventure.
Friday afternoon we gathered the pinecones and smoke bombs and rushed to the beach.   We learnt about fire safety,  the needs of a fire and how to safely extinguish fires.   The smoke bombs were a success but the pinecones didn't work.   We will discuss why on Monday.

Why students need an education.

Digging Holes

A consensus was reached quickly today that our Friday adventure would be digging holes at the beach.  The challenge was laid down.  Which team would be able to bury a team member.  The learning goal....work together in a group of Mrs Feron's choosing to complete a task.  The problem.  Lyp Sync is tonight and some of us couldn't go home and clean up before performing.  Oh well too bad.  Lets live in the now.

Lying around at the beach.

Now we are buried!

Must bury the murder weapon

Simease twins

Friday Adventures: Crawlie Hunting.

The first of our Friday adventures was walking down the stream looking for crawlies.  We found one eel, one dead rotten chook and lots of rubbish.  I think we need to do some research on the habits of crawlies.   We all enjoyed exploring anyway.  Some of the students followed a side stream up to a waterfall they didn't know existed.

Hut Building on the Beach

I have decided that period 6 on a Friday is going to be time to have adventures.   This will be Room 6's time to do wacky, crazy and fun things.   Today we spent 30 minutes at Collingwood Beach working in teams to build huts.  The students were challenged to build a hut that could hold all of their group.  We arrived at the beach and the students raced to claim the best hut building spot and supplies.  Frantically dragging wood, digging holes and building their huts the students raced to build their huts in the short time available.

It was fantastic to see the student working together, communicating and problem solving while enjoying themselves.

Have a look down the right hand side menu of this site.    Bling your Blog  Click on one of the links to find out how to Bling your Blog.

Check out these blogs for some great posts and comments to analyse.


Award winning blogs
 
http://yollisclassblog.blogspot.co.nz/

http://5s2012.edublogs.org/

http://mravery.edublogs.org/


New Zealand Class Blogs

http://tisthompson.blogspot.co.nz/    

http://slaterg4.blogspot.co.nz/

http://9plus10.blogspot.co.nz/

http://year78beckenham.blogspot.co.nz/2012/01/welcome.html

http://www.kaimai.school.nz/room1/

http://room6halcombeschool2013.blogspot.co.nz/

This is not what our comment section is going to look like!

Time for ideas on how to write a good comment.

Here is our class brainstorm of ideas.

Use SOLO to reflect on your thinking.  Record your reflection on your blog.

Multi-structural;  I can think of 3 or more features an internet comment needs.

Relational:  I know what comments need to be like to have a positive impact on other readers and the author.

Extended Abstract:  I can write and evaluate my own comments against criteria.