Every
day at the end of our writing time we spend 10 minutes on the mat. Some of this
time is to edit and self-assess, some of it to buddy read and some of it is for
peer assessment. At the end of every session we listen to three different stories
and give our feedback to the author.
This week we are learning to write persuasively. That means that we need
to change people's minds or make them think the way we do. Our topic this week
is - Let us wear mufti!
On Monday we started with our planning day. Mrs F got us to sit on
either the for mufti side or against mufti side (interestingly we were split in
half - 12 children on each side) Then we did a bit of research by reading
newspaper articles and watching some news reports about the mufti/uniform
debate.
Next was the fun part. Using our talking strips we sat with a buddy and
an iPad and recorded our opinion using persuasive language (I strongly
feel/firstly...because/a further fact...because and therefore I believe...)
Here is a video of what we thought
On Tuesday we started with our introduction remembering a title, a good
hook, and stating our opinion. We continued with writing our reasons with
evidence and finally our conclusion. Here are a few examples of our
writing this week.
This week we had two lucky recipients of our Duffy books. Well done
Losaline and Darnell. Losaline received hers as she is an awesome role model
for others in Room 7. Darnell received his for great effort in maths.
Cyrus received our kindness certificate for being generous. This week he
lent his shoes without hesitation to another child in Room 20 so that they
could participate in bike riding lessons. What a generous nature!
On Monday and Tuesday this week Room 7 had bike
riding lessons. We learnt about bike safety and practised different skills such
as braking, signalling and turning. We learnt ABCD of bike safety (air, brakes,
chain and direction) as well as the 4 L’s (levers, lean, look back and leg
over)
This week we have a visitor in our school completing a study on some of
our year 4 children as part of a NZ wide study for the National Monitoring
Study of Student Achievement. This year they are focusing on maths and social
studies. A teacher comes into our school and works with a small group of
children gauging what they understand and what year 4 are capable of. This then
gets taken back to Otago University and gives educators a picture of what our
year 4 children are doing across New Zealand.
Here is a photo of some of Room 7 hard at work with the NMSSA teacher.
One of our other jobs around Bairds
Mainfreight Primary is looking after the garden and this week Miss Bedford and
her gardening group harvested some of our vegetables we grew. These vegetables
were given to BMPS as seedlings from the gardening class at St Kentigern in
Pakuranga.
Some of these vegetables are destined for homes of Room 7 children, some for coleslaw and vegetable snacks for Room 7. Some however are going to be donated to the community pantry just opened in Otara. Very cool idea! Here is the link to find out all about it...
https://m.facebook.com/donate/300992223971376/?fundraiser_source=feed
Some of the children in Room 7 are part of Sistema
Aotearoa. This means they attend in school and after school violin or cello
lessons. Every single one of these children works hard and has great
determination. Usually in year 4 after 3 years of lessons we start receiving
our instruments. Here are the photos of room 7 Sistema children with their new
instrument.
R
