Setting The Scene For Learning

We've had a really positive start to the year in Koru 1. It has been wonderful seeing our friends from last year, meeting some new people and being in a new classroom space.

During the first few days of school, we explored what we value most in a classroom. This came in the form of a group activity that had us rank different aspects and behaviours in a classroom by displaying them in a diamond formation. It was interesting seeing and hearing about how we all have different experiences, which have shaped our beliefs.

We also had other activities including circle times and a forum through our Koru 1 Google Classroom to help bring out many of our ideas for our classroom vision. The participation and contribution form everyone was important. Just some of the things they wanted in our vision were:

Jaxon - "We look for learning opportunity’s is one of the things I would like to see on our classroom vision"

Taya - "To feel happy and safe in class"

Jarome - "I would like for everyone to be kind to each other"

Chelsea - "I would like to have an organised class or it will be too messy to learn"

Kate - "We should admit when we are wrong"

Archie - "We should be flexible"

Coby - "I would like us to be peaceful, because in our class it would be nice to have a cool calm and collected class well we are working. It would make a difference to people’s learning"

A few photos of the journey are shown below, along with our completed vision, which we are excited about and will refer to often throughout the year.

Woodend Camp - A Shared Story

A SHARED CAMP STORY

This is a story of our Koru camp at Woodend last week. It has been created by taking excerpts from individual camp stories that students wrote for their personal blogs. We hope this gives a number of perspectives and reactions from a few of our points of view. See our individual blogs for more from specific children.



DAY ONE

Grace: 

Last week on the 24th of October Koru 1 and Koru 2 went to Woodend Camp. We went there to have fun and for new experiences we did lots of activities. First we went on the bus to Pegasus park for lunch. Then after lunch we walked throw Pegasus Pines. When I was walking I felt like I’ve been walking for years. When we were walking I saw a snail and Rylie wanted to keep it! Finally when we got to Woodend park we had a snack and played on the playground for a while. After, we walked all the way to Woodend Camp. When we got arrived Cody told us the camp rules. We then we got into are groups. I was with Jaycee, Rylie, Alizay, Savannah, Angel, Paige, Willow b, Kiara, Mia, Ana and are parent was Vikki.

How Can We Improve Our Outdoor Spaces?

This term we have been wondering how we could improve the spaces outside our classroom. Since moving to this block, we have noticed that we could probably do some things to beautify our outdoor spaces, as well as create some spaces that could be useful for our learning. This project links well with all 3 of our schoolwide themes this year - Imagine it create it, My place our world, and My body and me (Hauora).

An aerial view of the areas we are working with

Part of the reason why we went into the city earlier in the term was to find some inspiration and to help generate ideas. See that blog post for more details.

Since then we have spent time outside our classroom, trying to reimagine what it could look like if we were to design some new areas. We decided that if we were going to do this, the areas would fit into 3 categories - Learning, playing or relaxing.

We have begun deciding on specific designs we would like to work on. For each design, we have decided that they must...

• Have a purpose - for learning, playing or relaxing
• Be safe
• Beautify our outdoor areas

Soon we will be completing some final designs, which we will be locating the materials for and prototyping. We will be looking for feedback from others in our school community on what they think of our designs and how we could improve them. 

The Perfect Purple Paint

Today, some of us made the perfect purple paint using 2 teaspoons of blue paint to 3 teaspoons of red paint. This would give us a total of 5 teaspoons of perfect purple paint.



We related this to our knowledge of fractions. We noticed that two fifths of the mix needed to be blue and three fifths of the mix needed to be red.

We talked about ratios. This perfect purple paint mix was a ratio of 2:3.

Next, we were given a problem. Here it is:

We used multi link cubes to show our problem solving. We were able to get creative with our answers by making something with our cubes. 

Here's Jarnia and Breanna's answer. It shows that you would need a ratio of 8:12. Eight teaspoons of blue paint and 12 teaspoons of red paint to make 20 teaspoons of purple paint.

Here's Caleb and Rylee's answer. They used their multiplication skills to get an answer of 8 teaspoons of blue paint and 12 teaspoons of red paint. They displayed their answer by showing the mathematical thinking that took place. 

It says x 4 E which they explained represents multiply everything by 4.

How would you solve the problem?

Data Analysis And The Football World Cup

We have some avid football fans in Koru 1, evident in the large number of students we have getting stuck in to some very energetic, passionate football games at break times. It only seemed fitting to connect some of the learning in our classroom with the excitement in Koru 1 and around the world currently with the Football World Cup taking place in Russia.

Last week some students working with Mr K began a number of maths related challenges based around football. We have done a lot of learning this year around statistics, specifically conducting statistical investigations that have included posing questions, collecting and analysing data, and presenting information in clear and easy to interpret ways.

To push this a little further, students involved in the World Cup challenges have been learning more about data analysis, involving understanding what the mean, median, mode and range of a data set is, and how these can be calculated. We initially learned how to do this by using the example of a group of us and our ages. We were then using squad information from international football teams - including age, caps and number of goals from each player.



It has been great to see students like Wyatt so pumped up and engaged in this, to the point where he has been doing his own statistical research into other teams besides those given.

Check out some of our individual blogs for more personalised learning reports.

Which Are The Bounciest Type Of Sports Balls?

Yesterday a mix of children were working with Mr K to find out about collecting data, analysing data and different ways of presenting information that is fair and does not contain bias.

We started the day by watching this video by OK Go. After watching, we discussed what maths might have been involved in the filming and production, then viewed this video that had one of the musicians answering this question. It was fascinating to see all of the data in their spreadsheets and how accurate it all needed to be in order for everything to go as planned.



It was interesting to examine some graphs that had been poorly constructed. We picked them apart and noticed how they contained bias, which was a new word for us, or why they were misleading. Often graphs can be misleading when they do not have a random survey sample, or when the shape or positions of the graphs have been altered to show a more desired result. Some of these problems are mentioned here.

We all tried to come up with survey questions for the rest of our group that were fair. Due to the limited number of responses available in a multi-choice survey, questions about opinions could sometimes seem a little biased. These might include questions like 'What is your favourite fast food?', and then only having 4 or 5 options chosen by the questioner. Alternatively, questions like 'Are you left or right handed?' or 'In which month were you born?' did not contain any bias.

The main project for the day was a group one. After chatting about our favourite sports balls, we began an investigation to find which type is the bounciest. We had time to plan our investigation and used a template that Mr K shared, which included things like materials needed, how we would collect and record the data, and what our hypotheses were.

We then conducted our investigations. The most challenging part was trying to gather the most accurate data we could. Check out the video below to see how we approached the task.



The final stage in this project is for us to create some displays to share our information and to make conclusions. What happened? What does and doesn't the information we analysed tell us? Were our hypotheses correct? How could we have approached this investigation differently?

Check out our individual blogs next week for personal learning reports and additional media.

Getting to Know Ourselves Better

On Wednesday Koru 1 enjoyed another project based learning day. Mr K took half of the class for a statistical investigation, involving the physical world and Mrs Harris took the other half on a journey to stronger self awareness in regards to our surroundings and our preferred learning environments.

First the children with Mrs Harris took part in a kōrero by participating in a human continuum. Mrs Harris said some statements to get us thinking. Here are some of them:

I would rather read instructions than listen to the teacher explain them. I like to get up and move around throughout the day. I like drawing lots of pictures whenever I get the chance. I remember things better if I write them down. I like a peaceful learning environment. I prefer to set up a work space on the floor.

If we agreed with the statement we would walk down towards the end of the room with the yes sign pinned on the wall and if we disagreed we would walk down the other end. Some of us ended up somewhere in between for certain statements. We shared our opinions and listened to what other people had to say.



After we got our brains thinking during the human continuum we wrote a list of all the things we need to shine as learners. We took this list and used the ipads to make our own google slide titled "I Learn Best When..." This made us to think about what we need as a learner, so that school is a positive, successful experience. Some of us like sitting at tables, while others enjoy setting up on the floor. Some of us need to write things down while others need to take pictures or draw more. We are all unique and it's important that we respect each others' differences.

For the second half of the day we explored our favourite places. We drew sketches of our favourite place at school and outside of school. We shared with the group why we like these places and how they make us feel. We talked about spending time in these places to improve our hauora (wellbeing). We also learned that when we feel like we need a positivity boost we can close our eyes and picture these places in our mind. This gave us many positive emotions such as excitement, happiness, peace, love, connection, bravery, warmth and gratitude. We wrote these fantastic words on a piece of paper because it felt wonderful! We discussed our favourite spaces in the classroom and how spending our learning time in these spaces make us feel safe and focused.



The key ideas we need to take away from today are;

- To be successful learners we need to know what's right for us.
- Thinking about our favourite places can evoke positive emotions.
- Everyone's needs are different and we respect that.
- Getting to know our learning needs better will help us make wiser choices in the classroom.