Exciting Homework

I don't love homework and neither does my class. I wanted to find a way to make homework exciting, creative and enjoyable. I am constantly on social media sites looking for new ideas, scanning hundreds of Pinterest boards, checking out resource sites and reading my Twitter feed. My goal is to ultimately make my classroom learning so amazing kids are excited to come to school and attendance improves. The same goes for my homework. It is important that I set something because I am getting my students ready for High School.

 I wanted to share this idea I found on Ms. Lopez in the Art Room (this is a fantastic site for getting art ideas). They are autobiography maps, this is a create way for students to tell you more about themselves that they may not know and it is aligned with the curriculum and NCEA with visual literacy. Students are creating a map with a key and compass that is a symbolic representation of themselves.

I wanted to one up this again and include a research aspect to their homework on their name. Students had to find out where their name came from, what it meant, why their parents chose it and write a little description about themselves. This was so engaging for them and so interesting for the rest of the class. Definitely a homework task I will be setting at the start of next year!

Minecraft - What are the learning opportunities?

I am going to use my blog to reflect on the learning opportunities and success my students have had when using Minecraft. This is a program that is new to me but here are some things I have learnt so far:

Things to think about:

• Co-constructing protocols for working together in the Minecraft world.
• Reflection time to modify these and talk about the session, built in at the end
• An LO or LI - e.g. To create a classroom/school which you'd like to work in; a design for an adventure park for young people in Rotorua
• A blog for reflecting so we have evidence of the learning (got this step!)

What learning is taking place when we use Minecraft: 

Reading - Learning the names of tools, items and locations. Older children may choose to read online guides to extend their own skills within the game. 

Writing - Players can create their own libraries within the game and fill books with information. Players can also communicate with one another within the game.

Maths - The crafting system teaches basic maths and multiplication/division. It does this by players needing to know how many of each item they need in order to create other items (e.g. 3 sugar cane = 1 paper). 

Geometry - The Minecraft world is made of cubes and with these cubes students are able to create other shapes such as square based pyramids. Students will also be working on their multiplication skills and on the concept of volume and perimeter. 

Social Skills - Students can work together to build, explore, and learn while developing social skills, particularly teamwork. For older students it is a chance for them to learn about online collaboration and etiquette. 

Protocols that my class thinks we should have in place when using Minecraft:

1. No TNT

2. No fire

3. No griefing

4. No invisibility potions

5. No building right next to other peoples houses

6. No beacons (This is because it creates a large beam of light that then creates heaps of particles which causes the server to lag)

7. Everyone goes in under their first name (this is so people who are breaking the rules can easily be identified)

8. No portals (this causes problems because it teleports you random places like Nether which is a place full of Zombies, Pig Man, Gas and Withers) 

Trial

Task given: Create an adventure park that would be suitable for Rotorua

Time: 20 minutes

Pros: The mods (better enchanting mod means you can give your weapons enchantments, Smart Moving means you can run faster and freestyle swimming and you can even get superhero mods) The Yog Box (this is added things to minecraft like crocodiles)

Cons: Some people couldn't get on, the server was lagging. 

City of Ember

I love doing a novel study with my class each term.
There are so many awesome novels and activities available to get students excited for reading.
When I choose a novel study I try to choose a novel that is part of a series, this in hope that students will be so excited at the end of the novel they want to read on. I also look for novels that come with a movie, this is a great incentive for students who are less motivated than others to keep up with the work.

This term I chose 'City of Ember'. I chose this after stumbling across Runde's Room and seeing what an amazing job she was doing with the novel. Our term focus is currently 'Forensics' although this book doesn't have fingerprinting or DNA evidence, it does have the element of mystery. The students have been cracking codes, deciphering clues, predicting and analysing the chapters in the text to find a way out of Ember. This is a fantastic book and my class is extremely engaged.

 I  used Teachers Pay Teachers to gain as many free resources as I could for the novel. I did end up purchasing a few resources that I would definitely recommend:

Literary Question Fans
Story Elements Question Fans
Paper Bag Character Study
City of Ember the Complete Unit


After seeing Runde's Room blog posts about 'City of Ember' I was so excited I had to hitchhike off of her ideas! On her blog she had created a 3D mural - Click here to check it out - I showed this to my class and they were excited to get started. As a class we decided on what the most important elements are for the setting. Then we rolled a dice and students were assigned jobs. As I read the novel students began designing their elements straight away.

I am very excited to see and share the final product!

Designs will be 3D and added to this wall. Students have buildings and other elements of setting for below Ember, Ember and above Ember. 

Students roles and a timeline of when the mural is expected to be completed.

Literary Questions Fans

Story Elements Question Fans

Main Learning Intention for the novel

Students have been keeping a record of important events and locations in the novel by colour coding a map of Ember

One students design of the generator from the novel

Introduction Lesson for Fractions

Today Mrs Hyde came into P3 and taught an introductory lesson for fractions.

This was an area that I wanted to observe a senior teacher teach. 

The students really enjoyed this lesson and I was able to see who was capable of imaging and how had sound fractions knowledge. 

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WALT - Find fractions of lengths to see that fractions are equal parts of one, that fractions can be bigger than one, that fractions can be equivalent.

Teacher

Students

• Fold your arms if you know what this is ¼
• Fold your arms if you know how to say ⅓
• Discussed how to say ¼, ½, ⅓, ⅕, ⅙
• Discussed how ⅕ and ⅙ have the ‘th’ sound at the end
• Diagram of ½
• Discussed how you cut when you have to share with a sibling
• Discussed what would change if your sibling had to choose the piece
• Discussed that halves are equal pieces
• “What is important when dealing with fractions, you are going to make sure the pieces are always equal”
• Highlighted the word equal in the WALT
• Diagram showing thirds - “which diagram shows thirds?”, students correctly identified which one was thirds and were able to discuss that it was because they were all equal
• Discuss what is wrong with the next diagram.

• “One piece is a half and the other side is a half that is cut into halves making each half ¼”
• Students handed three hexagons (hexagons because they are easier to cut than circles)
• “These are large chocolate chip cookies, I am mum and I have given you three biscuits, I want you to share them, I want you to show me how you would solve the problem of sharing three biscuits with two people”
• Have students share how they solved the problem
• “We halved one biscuit and then we had one whole biscuit each so we then had 1 and half biscuits each” - Drew a diagram of these on the board and explain strategy
• Did anyone solve this a different way?
• “We did three halves each” - “So you cut them all up and had three halves each” - “Is that the same as the strategy above” - “Yes” - “There are two ways I can write that” - “Is 1 ½ the same as 3/2” - “Who thinks they are the same? Who is not sure? Lets test it”
• Uses the biscuits and overlaps them to show that they are the same.
• “I can say the 1 ½ is the same as 3 halves”

• Join up with another group - now in groups of 4
• Each group has to show that they have three wholes and discard the rest
• Teach check that each group as three wholes
• “Now show me how you would divide those three biscuits between four of you”
• “How many people knew straight away they weren't going to get a whole biscuit?”

• “Each person got a half and a half of a half”
• “Who knows what that is?”
• “I have 2/4 and ¼ - Who knows what that is?”
• “3/4”
• “What is ¾ the same as?”
• “1/2 + ¼ or 2/4 and ¼”
• Need four wholes in front of the group of four
• “Mum gave you four biscuits but you hate these ones so now you need to share four biscuits between three of you”
• Lots of class/group discussion happening
• Teacher walking around making sure students understands its four shared between three and prompts them by saying how are you going to do that?
• “Were you going to have less than a biscuit each or more than a biscuit each?”
• “Less than a biscuit”
• “We had one whole and then one left”
• “I am going to draw this one so I can follow your strategy”
• “The three people got one each and then the last biscuit we cut into thirds”
• “Was there an easy way to cut this in thirds?”
• “If you folded your hexagon like this then you can cut it easily into thirds”
• “What did you get each?”
• “1 whole and a third”
• Teach write up how this fraction looks and discuss
• “Did anybody do it a different way?”
• “We cut our third differently”
• “Did anybody cut the whole lot into thirds? If you had done this how many thirds would you have ended up with?”
• “6 thirds”
• “How many thirds would one be?”
• “Oh 4/3”
• “How many thirds in a whole?”
• “3”
• “What word in our walt shows ⅓ and 4/3”
• “Equivalent”
• “Can we have fractions that have a bigger number on the top?”
• Discussed parts and wholes
• “In your head, I have got two biscuits between three people, who can do that in their heads? If you can’t you can do it with the biscuits. As soon as you think you have a got it fold your arms”
• Students that can do this are imaging
• Asked people to explain their strategies, don’t want guesses want explanations
• Explain strategies
• “You have a half each and then have a half cut into three”

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P3 then went onto a link on 'Padlet' to reflect on their learning. This was the first time they have used padlet and I found it to be a very worthwhile reflection tool. 

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Next Steps:

1. Writing meaningful and useful reflections

2. Questions from Numeracy Project Book 7 (Assess understanding of today's lesson)

3. More fractions activities that are leading towards level 4 of the curriculum (adding fractions - 3/4 + 3/5).