Puarenga Tabloids

Mokoia Intermediate left for Devon (Taranaki) on Wednesday. Puarenga learning centre was down one teacher and about a third of the students. We decided that we would have our students run their very own Top Town type games for the rest of the school.

This was a three day inquiry process

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Day one:

Students elect a manager and vice manager - these students are in charge for the three days. All group leaders to report to the managers at the start and end of every session.

Students to opt into which group they want to work in for the three days.

Options:

- Media (Reporting, photography, video)
- Activity (Deciding and organising the events)
- Planning (Timetable, groups and all organisation aspects)
- Marketing (Making posters and flyers to advertise to school, contacting businesses and parents for prizes)

Once all students were in a group, each group elected two leaders.

Now our leadership team was complete.

These leaders had the responsibility of guiding the team and reporting to the two event managers.

Groups began the planning process.

We looked at previous Top Town events to give stimulus for ideas.

Day two:

Continuation of the planning process, finalising how the day is going to run.
All groups working with each other to ensure all aspects were covered and that the deadline would be met.

Day three

Event set up
Practice run through

Whole school assembled to be briefed and the events began.

Students PMI in groups and individual reflections in class.

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Pros

- Seeing students step up into leadership roles
- Completely run by the students
- Ran smoothly on the day
- Students had fun and all were involved
- Planning group had covered all bases and stood out as being exceptional
- Problem solving
- Communication
- Active engagement for majority of students
- Year 7s led and well as year 8s. Year 8s responded well to younger leadership
- Students proud of the event


Cons/Improvements

- Didn't run entirely smoothly - early on organisation was under pressure
- Event managers were tied up with the minor issues instead of being the total overseers
- Needed a more structured time table/map for where each group goes next
- Behavioural students pushed the boundaries
- Very stressful on teachers to let go of the reigns and allow the students to make mistakes and fix them by themselves (huge learning curve for me!)

Literacy Shed

Another amazing website to use to enhance writing.

Literacy Shed

My student's loved this. I asked one of them to choose a random number and then selected the corresponding thumbnail that went with this. We found ourselves on the ghostly shed page. 

I played the class the video clip without the sound. 

This started a big class discussion about how the character was feeling, what was happening, what sound must have been happening in the background and lots of other great questions. 

We watched the clip twice and students made notes about what they thought was happening.

They then used these notes to rewrite their version of the story.

Once they had written their own versions of the story and shared with the class, we watched the short story with sound.

Student's loved this writing exercise and have been begging to do another one, except this time they want to try it with only hearing the sound and not seeing the visual.

The website has great teaching points and content. 

Here some examples of student's work from this session:

Student 1:

The Escape

I shuffled carefully out of the unzipped tent, the night was cold but beautiful. My bare feet skimmed the soft dirt as I slipped them into my boots. I reached into my pocket, well half pocked and clasped my bony fingers around my unlit cigarette. 

I started walking through the dark forest, the stars look exceptionally amazing tonight. As I walked I noticed a long winding jetty with a wooden boat tied to the end. I gingerly stepped onto the boat and started paddling, the moonlight glimmering on the lake. I lay on my back and pulled out my cigarette.

Student 2:

What Happened?

I've been planning this for as long as I can remember, but as the cool air nips my nose I feel a shiver slide down my spine. I quietly get into my shoes and creep across the leaves.I walk to the jetty, I feel like something is watching me, I shake it off and carry on. I climb into the boat, drift for a bit and start my journey .

I look around and see this is the place and stop, lay my head back and pull out my cigarette. My parents still don’t know I smoke and I plan to keep it that way. I look out into the night sky, beautiful. Something rocks the boat, I sit up and look around, nothing, so I lay back down. There it is again, I sit up a second time as the boat rocks violently, that’s it, I start to row but I see I'm going nowhere. I sit back this is hopeless I sit back and write in my book 'Help Me' that’s when the last rock makes everything go black     

Student 3:

Is this the end?

I made my way carefully out of the tent, stepping over everything in my path. The fire is still blazing, red hot embers flying in the air. I wrap my hands around the lantern, clutching it, my heart pounding. My hands have suddenly gone cold and clammy. I ignore it and carry on.

The forest is alive around me. The trees are whispering and leaves rustle quietly on the forest floor. I keep walking until I reach the lake. The moonlight shimmers on the lake, as I step out onto the dinghy. I row out to the middle of the lake and stop there. I lay on my back, gazing at the endless stars of the sky. I light my cigarette and take a deep breath in. 

A splash sounds in the still night air. I stand up uncertainty on my face and worry in my eyes. 

Student 4:

Quetico Lake Mystery

I crawl out of my tent, my feet sinking into the soft soil, the heat of the camp fires flame fills the camp ground. I slip into my fur boots and start walking as quietly as possible into the dense forest, not knowing the foreign dangers that lie ahead. I tip toe along the jetty and crawl into the boat at the end, I use my kerosene lamp to light my cigarette, get out my book and start to paddle.

I decide this is a good spot, roughly around the middle of the lake. I rest for a while, my cigarette in one hand and one behind my head, not knowing this would be my last night under the stars.

“SPLASH” the boat starts to rock, sending ripples through the moonlit water, I start to worry I lift my lamp and hold it above the water…

Storybird Website

Today in class P3 had a play on the website Storybird.
I set very little guidelines. I told them they were going to write a picture book and that they could spend some time selecting the artwork to tell their story. They had not done a brainstorm or done any pre-writing. They used the images as a guide to sequence their story and then built on their stories from there.

We only spent one session on their stories and they came up with a range of different topics and story types. Some wrote humorous short stories. some created sophisticated pictures and other created how to guides.

They then had a buddy check and edit their work for spelling errors and missing punctuation. I still need to conference with each student on their story because when they presented there were still minor errors.

I was very pleased with the quality of work and it is definitely a website I am going to use again.

Tegan's Sophisticated Picture Book



Casey's Rhyming Tale



Tanner's How to Guide



Marnie's Funny Tale

Friday Night Hockey

Friday night myself and some other staff members went down to the turf to support our Mokoia White Hockey Team. 

I was able to take some cool actions shots of the kids for them to use for their blogging. 

They all played well, worked well as a team and have improved a lot over the term. Go Mokoia!