Luke's first day at the new school - discussion please

Today we read about Luke's experience of his first day at the new school.  It is clear that Luke dresses differently from the other students.
Thinking about the way he played during the softball game (see section from the chapter below).  Why do you think Luke might have played that way?  How do you think he might be feeling?

From the book (Not Even, by Liz van der Laarse, p.42-43):

"Hey, fulla," his captain called, "you want to go backstop?"  Luke shook his head, walking out to the back to field.  The first batter did a slogger straight towards Luke.  He didn't bother jumping for it but let it sail past.  He turned and walked to where the ball landed.  The batter got a home run.
When it was his team's turn to bat again, (...) Luke grimaced as he took the bat from the captain.
"Strike one," the teacher called.  "Luke, if you don't strike at it and it's a good one, it's still a strike.  Right?"
The pitcher let fly again.  Luke made no attempt to hit it.
"Strike two.  Luke, on the third strike you've got to run, even if you don't hit it."
The ball whistled straight past Luke.
"Strike three.  Run, Luke, run."
Luke saw the backstop reach for the ball and started walking towards base one.
"Run, Luke.  Out on one.  Three down.  Change over."
Luke carried on walking out to his fielding position.  One of the boys in his team walked past.  "You didn't even try," he said.  Luke looked away.

The naughtiest boy in school

We started reading a short story today about Uncle Billy and Grandma at school, and a naughty boy called Charlie. Charlie had already had to fish in the cess-pit for a girl's hat he threw in the toilet, now he's been caught smoking in the privy.

There's only 1 page left of the story.  What do you think will happen in that page?

Ha, ha, ha, ha, staying alive!

Four fabulous females choreographed a great opening number for Room 5's assembly today, and all of the Room 5 students gave it heaps on our 70s disco dancefloor.

So, Room 5 students, how did it feel?  What do you think went well?  What would you do differently next time?  Anything else you'd like to share about the experience?

Let's hear your thoughts!

Not Even - the move up north with Pa

We are reading about Luke, an 11 year old boy who lives in Auckland with his mum, Blue (mum's partner) and newborn baby Kara.  Luke has been getting into some trouble, and in the chapter we have just read, he has gone to live in Northland with his koro, Pa.

Discuss: What do you think of this move?  Do you think it is a good idea for Luke or not?  Why, why not?

What Sounds Look Like

Today we did an activity which is about listening to sounds. What we did was we went outside onto the middle courts and spread out and sat where we desiered. Then we sat for about 12 to 15 minutes and listened to all of the sounds around us and drew them into our books. Afterwards we shared our thoughts about how we liked the activity and some of us shared what we had drawn in our books. Some of our thoughts about this were things like that it was easy and it was relaxing , calm , fun, awesome and peaceful.

Skype Call to Hingaia School

Recently, Room 5 had a Skype call with Hingaia School to discuss about their MLE and ask some questions.Some of the questions were ...
How do you think the MLE has improved the way you learn ?
What would you change about the MLE?
What piece of furniture do you like the most in your MLE?
What do you like about the MLE?

They had some really interesting answers. 

Their favourite furniture was Bean bags, Ottomans and Wheelie chairs.

They Said MLE really helps their learning, they can learn with other students of the same ability. They like that Bigger rooms gave them more space. They liked their school how it was and wouldn’t change anything.

There are year 1-8 students in the same studio and it would be really interesting how that would work in balmoral.

Afterwards they gave us a tour of their school.

One of the things they had was the green screen it was really cool, room 5 really liked that idea, we think we should get one of them in our school. A green screen lets you drop other backgrounds, like a picture, instead of the wall. It’s like a big green wall or a bit of green fabric, as long as it’s a different colour from something you might wear. When you film something in front of the green screen, you can then tell the programme that you’re using to change the colour of green to a picture or different background. But if you have green eyes or a green jacket they will also change to the new background.

It was a really nice school.  It was really exciting to chat to Hingaia School on Skype. and very interesting to see how different their classroom was!

Thank you to Sophie, Ashden, Kerwyn and Harriet for arranging the conversation, and thank you to the gang at Hingaia for their time.

Skyping with students from Hingaia School