Quad Blogging

Hi there, I hope you all remember to visit and comment on our fantastic Quad blog posts during the holidays!  We have had a lot of wonderful comments from them and I hope they are able to say the same about us!  I hope you are all having a fantastic holiday!  

Quad blogging

• Burnham-on-Crouch Primary School
• Apollo Parkways Primary School, Australia
• Biggin Hill Primary School Kent

Quad Blogging begins with our new schools....

How exciting to be in another round of quadblogging.  We are very excited to be learning and collaborating with two schools from England and one from Australia.  This week we are focusing on Biggin Hill Primary School!  I wonder if you could all find time to visit and comment.  Maybe you could visit and check out all the learner's individual blogs.  It would be great if you get some quality comments on and start up some conversations.  We are the feature blog next week!  Fun times....

Collaboration across New Zealand

Check out this wonderful blog post about our writing being read and edited by Room 5 at Melville Intermediate.  

MAGIC moments with our writing...

Check out the amazing work Room 5 at Melville Intermediate have been doing with our writing... AMAZING

Reflecting on our written language...

Late last term we started narrative writing.  Following on from our animal inquiries we chose animals to 'be', to write from their perspective, to write as if we were the animal!  We discussed language use, problems and resolutions and painted pictures with our words.  We also talked about showing the reader as opposed to telling the reader.  We started tentatively and shared some of our stories on our blog.  Gradually we became more confident with writing from the perspective of the animal and we loved the choice over animal to be.  We have written from the perspective of a cat, a dog, giraffe, panda, caterpillar, and a fox.  Today we used the Literacy Shed and shared the AMAZING story Stray by Maia Walczak Shed  to write from the perspective of a stray dog.  
After an amazing session writing and editing we reflected on the HUGE improvement in our written language over the term.  We came up with the following reasons for our improvement:

• We have practised lots;
• We know we can write our best writing;
• We love the motivation of watching a clip;
• We challenge ourselves;
• We believe in ourselves;
• We like writing for the 100WC;
• We like feedback on our writing and we are getting that through our blog posts;
• We are always improving.

Mrs K is very impressed with our work. We are very impressed with our work.  We have been very excited to have people comment about how much our writing has improved since the start of the year.  

We plan to publish our stray stories here over the next few days so please keep checking back and let us know what you think of our written language.  

Check out the photos of us so engaged in our writing today!

Pure MAGIC with collaboration this morning...

This morning we got this amazing response to our Space wonderings.  I can hardly believe the time and effort Mr Mannell has put into supporting our learning journey.  Each learner felt valued and encouraged today.  We are so grateful for the motivation with our learning.  When we have completed our planet visit webquest we will have a much better idea of our individual inquiry paths.  

Thank you again Mr Mannell!

Skyping MAGIC today!

Today we had the most amazing skype session with Mrs Skinner from the West Coast of England. We organised to skype on Wednesday – teehee – how money that was! It is Wednesday for us now, but not Wednesday for Great Britain until tomorrow! We got it sorted and our wonderful conversation began. We talked about the Olympics, and the MAGIC of Mrs Skinner seeing the Olympic torch when it travelled through Bristol, then again when it travelled through Kent. Britain had made a commitment to have the younger generation involved in the opening ceremony so it was amazing to see the young light the copper petals, igniting the combined cauldron to burn for the duration of the Olympics. The Journey of the Olympic torch is amazing!

We then talked about the 100 word challenge and the second challenge which is the five sentence challenge. This will begin again on the 3rd of September and our class is signed up ready to go! It is an amazing opportunity for us to connect and collaborate with writers around the world.
The hundred word challenge is a great target for those of us who struggle to write a lot, and it is a great challenge for those of us who write pages. It is a chance to craft our writing and chose our words carefully!
What an exciting buzz at writing time today! Words floating around the room…. Dancing on the pages, creating pictures in our minds, entertaining us…

Oh my goodness... we have a published story ready to share already...........

Josh and Callum would like to teach you to count to ten in Maori

Callum and Josh had a lot of fun making this.  We hope you try and repeat the numbers.  It would be great if you could count to ten in Maori.  Let us know how you go!

Bridget and Zara share a Mihi

On the Marae…

We have been learning with the Maori NIE for Maori language week. (NIE stands for Newspapers in Education.) We acted out visiting a Marae. It was lots of fun. First of all Sam did a haka. We walked forwards and Sam put down the koha.  The tangata whenua picked up the koha.  We sat down and we were greeted.  We sang.  We spoke.  We greeted each other.  It was interesting because we have only been on a Marae once.  We would like to visit one again.

Skyping with Melville Intermediate

Today we had a Skype session with Melville intermediate school.  We talked to two girls from the te ao upurangi class.  We showed them our mihis. At first we had a chat with them and asked some questions about Maori language. We had a talk for about their Maori language, their waiata and their karakia.  At the end Bridget shared her mihi. We had alot of fun.

We told the girls they are amazing ambassadors for their school.  They are fluent Maori speakers and they helped us with our pronunciation.  Mr Webb and his amazing class help us with our pronunciation and our mihi.  They have been recognised nationally for the wonderful work they do supporting Maori language learners across New Zealand.  You should check out their amazing blog!

Our Global Collaboration....

Kia ora from New Zealand.  We feel very privileged to be hosting this blog this week.  

http://passtheblog.creativeblogs.net/

This week is Maori Language week where New Zealand really celebrates te reo Maori (the Maori language).  The theme this year is Arohatia te Reo - cherish the language.  

We are excited to share a little of our country, our culture, and our language.  Each day we will try to share a new phrase with you.  Thank you for joining us on this exciting journey!

Kia ora 

Awesome skype sessions with Rosmini College.

We are loving our weekly Skype sessions with Rosmini College.  This week we learnt about Fire Safety.  22 of us said we were going to go home and check our fire alarms.  I wonder if we did?

Skyping with Simon

Yesterday we skyped with a guy named Simon.
He was very brave facing us alone especially as he didn't want to do it alone!
He talked to us about road safety. He taught us all the rules about road safety. It was interesting to learn about.
He also told us about what to not do and what to do when near roads and bus stops.
He gave us some quizzes and stuff.
It was quite fun really!

Our sensational skype session

Yesterday our class had a skype session with Simon. He talked to us about road safety. He told the people that go on the bus not to run around or play tag or hand ball when the bus is coming. Simon also told us that if we travel to school by car that we should always wear our seat belt when the car is moving. Simon said that if you see a ball on the road, that you want to get, that you do not pick it up. If your mum or dad tell you or if they don't then he said that you don't go near it or leave it until the owner has found it and has picked it up. Simon said that if you walk to school or home after school you should always walk on the foot path so it is safe and so cars don't run you over. If you see a pedestrian crossing do not run across because you think that the cars will stop instantly. You wait until the cars stop and you walk across to the other side safely. When you are getting out of the car you always get out on the side where the foot path is. Simon also asked us some questions about road safety and how to keep safe. We put our hands straight up in the air when we knew the answer. 

Thank you Simon for teaching us about road safety and how to keep us safe.

Skyping with Rosmini College

To finish a MAGIC day we had a MAGIC skype session with Rosmini College.  We are working with this class for the year on Health and Safety messages.  It was exciting for our two classes to meet and introduce ourselves and our classes and schools.  Each Monday this term we will be skyping.

Quad Blog Commenting

Our quad blog classrooms are now back from their midterm break.  This week we are focusing on Fagley Primary.  

http://bradfordschools.net/blog/fagleyblog/

I hope you all get a chance this week to visit and explore this blog and leave some awesome comments.