Otago Problem Challenges results

We are a very proud Room 5 today.  The results of the Otago Problem Challenges competitions have been released.  To start with, we all are really pleased with ourselves for trying hard and giving this a go.  A lot of the maths problems in the challenges are really really hard!

We're particularly proud though of our 3 classmates who earned Merit certificates (11 or more answers right across the 5 sets) - three cheers for Zoe, Justin and Sandy.  Even more impressive is our classmate George, who won the only Excellent certificate in the whole of year 7 (16 answers right)!

Character freeze frame

Another drama session - we all chose a fictional character and built a freeze frame of them.

Map making

In maths we are exploring how maps work.  In our first session, we created a 'course' using objects from the classroom.  We then had to create a 'map' of that course and plan a route through it for others to follow.  We had to think about:

• Distance between the objects
• Relative size of the objects
• Orientation of each object
• Placement of the objects relative to other objects and relative to the map

It was harder than it seemed!

Drama Freeze Frames

3 family portraits - 1 from the start of the session, 1 from about half an hour in, and the third about an hour and a half into the photo session when everyone is just over it!

Group 1:

Group 2:

Group 3:

Group 4:

Google 4 Doodle

We're going to each be designing a Google Doodle over the next week and a half, around the theme "If I could travel back in time I would..."

Check out this page for some links to historical Google Hangouts that might give you some inspiration: http://www.google.co.nz/doodle4google/education.html

What would you like to make sure you learn this week?

Let's set some mini goals for the week.  We'll write these up tomorrow, but this evening, have a think about:

What would YOU like to learn this week to do with either:
- Maths - number strategies
- Maths - measurement and shapes
- Writing - persuasive or narrative writing
- CIB - Balmoral Habits

And how could we celebrate when people achieve their learning goal for this week?

Book Week 2015

It's been a while, but wow, what a week we've had!

This week was Book Week.  On Tuesday, we had the Brainbusters Book Week Quiz, for which Room 5 had the theme palaeontology.  An awesome job the students did too of dressing up themselves and the quiz table.
Yesterday we had a visit from Siouxsie Wiles, microbiologist with a particular interest in bioluminescence.  And then today is R E A D dress up day.

We spent some time reflecting as a class on the process of creating the book quiz material.  Here are our thoughts:

Last week Friday we started planning out how we were going to decorate our table and dress ourselves to represent our theme palaeontology.

We had a read of books about dinosaurs and fossils, wrote down lots of ideas in groups and shared these ideas with the class.  We had a vote to make the final decisions.

We used the Balmoral habit of creativity by thinking about possible themes for the table; thinking about different possible names for the team.

We practised the Balmoral habit of thinking to generate these ideas together as teams.

We planned out what we needed to make and what we needed to bring, then we worked in teams to make our costumes and table decorations.

Making the costumes:

• Alice thought she maybe could bring her costume stuff in a day earlier to be prepared.
• Dev was pleased that he created his costume in one day - quicker than usual.
• The whole class: Balmoral Habit of creativity - using old fabric scraps and paper scraps to create costumes
• Keeru struggled with choosing her materials for her costume.  She had to use the Balmoral habit of communicating to ask others to support her and help her create her costume.
• In fact, Jo saw everyone using the Balmoral habit of communicating to work together and problem solve.

Managing self - it’s a class goal at the moment.  So how did we do?

Yay - these were great things	Mmmm, oops, maybe different next time
When Will started making the clubs and other people joined in to help making lots of them.	In the audience for the book quiz - keeping our clubs to ourselves (and modelling to teachers how to keep their light sabres to themselves). When Jo popped out of the class at times, we got a bit noisy. After the book quiz, coming back to class, the whole block was a little out of control and rowdy.

“We looked good.”

“#Swag”

“The table crew worked really hard and the table looked amazing.”

“Everyone was really independent and focused on making their outfit and this showed - it came out really well.”
“I think that our costumes looking amazing, especially Ullrich’s because he made his own pterodactyl suit.  Justin’s mask too.  We all spent so long making them.”

“I think our table stood out and looked really good.”

“I think it looked pretty cool, because when we looked at the volcano we made, we didn’t think it had enough detail.  So we improved it by adding more detail - Samara came and added creative ideas too, like the orange paper for lava.”

“I liked the special effects like the dinosaurs with their guts getting ripped out.”

“I felt like we were going to win the best dressed prize.”

Tidy Up Song Nominations Term 2

Have a listen to these and be ready to vote for your top three in class this week!  Remember, you have to be OK having this song at the end of most days for a whole term.

Paint the Town Green, The Script

Bacteria Song (20 seconds long)

I'm on Top of the World, Imagine Dragons

Happy Song, Pharrell Williams

Celebration, Kool and the Gang

Little Einsteins (1 minute long)

Take It Easy, Stan Walker

I Like to Move It Move It, from Madagascar

Everybody Dance Now

Diamante Poem - Zombie....

Today we learned the structure of a diamante poem.  Here's what we wrote together:

zombie

revolting ugly

gnawing infecting groaning

leprosy    flesh    rabies    disease

drooling limping decaying

braineating bloody

undead

Then we performed it...

Growth mindset

In Room 5, we have started talking about a culture of 'growth mindset' - seeing the brain and intelligence as something we can always be growing.

What are some other things Jo has mentioned when talking about this?

To start off our SSA, we had a go at doing something that we KNEW would not necessarily turn out great: Blind drawing of a portrait of one of our classmates.
How did that feel?  What was that like for you?

Discuss and answer these questions in the comments.

CIB: Promotional videos for Piha Mill Camp & Youthtown

We have just finished our first major piece of inquiry learning (CIB): Camp!  In groups we planned, designed and presented promotional material for the Piha Mill Camp and Youthtown.  Some of us did brochures, others did videos.

Here are some of the results of our work:

Songs with deeper meaning

Today we used our prediction, activating prior knowledge, and inferring skills to find the deeper meaning in the lyrics of the song 'Caught in the Crowd'.

What other songs do you know (or do your parents know) that might have deeper meaning in the lyrics?

A Man with Growth Mindset

One application of an amazing mindset.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qX9FSZJu448

Shape Songs

We had a bit of silly fun with maths in Room 5 today, writing raps and songs about various geometric shapes.  Here are some of them for you to enjoy!

Cone

Cube

Oval

Polygon

Prism

Triangle

Student leader election link

Vote for your student leader here:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/SCJN7J9

Welcome to Room 5, 2015!

Welcome to Room 5, 2015 edition!

It's great to have you here.  There is going to be so much happening this year, December will be here before we know it.

The Room 5 blog is primarily used as a discussion forum for Room 5 students.  Regularly throughout the week, I'll post discussion points from something we have read or looked at in class.  As part of your home learning, you will check the blog daily and comment on any new discussion posts.  Please also reply to each others' responses - we could get some great debates going!

I look forward to interacting with you digitally through the blog this year :)