Thursday 24 September 2015

#KIDspeakNZ - what are you an expert at?

Here is a separate STORIFY which specifically shows the tweets which answer QUESTION 3 - take a look at ALL THE COOL STUFF YOU GUYS ARE EXPERTS AT! I would LOVE to be in on these lessons! 

Which one would YOU like to sit in on?



#KIDspeakNZ

Wednesday morning saw many of 'one6ers' participate in the second #KIDspeakNZ twitter chat. 

It was probably the fastest chat we had been involved in and definitely one of the BEST.

I moderated this chat alongside American teacher Marianne Malmstrom also known as @knowclue on twitter. Marianne is over in New Zealand for a conference and was keen to gather some student voice about how NZ schools are keeping up with the technology kids are using outside of school.

There were about 14 classes involved who tweeted close to 900 tweets during the 45 minutes.

These were the questions the kids responded to:

  1. What technology do you use outside of school to play, learn & connect with friends?
  2. Are schools keeping up with the way you use technology outside of school?
  3. Everyone is an expert at something. If you were to create a tutorial on ANYTHING in the world, what would it be?
  4. ‘No Future Left Behind’ was created 4 an international ‘Flat Classroom’ project. Do these kids speak 4U?  https://youtu.be/kra_z9vMnHo
  5. Q4b  (if yes) No Future Left Behind was created 6 years ago. Are we there yet?
  6. If you could change one thing about the way you learn in school, what would it be?
  7. What is one thing you would like teachers to know about the way YOU like to learn things?

Here is the STORIFY of the chat for you to have a read of!



Sunday 13 September 2015

Bubbles are Dots...aren't they?

Okay, so International Dot Day inspired me to do things DOTTY early in the week (as I have already explained in a previous post).

How could I use 'the DOT theme' and infuse this into Science today? Hhhmmmmmmm...

I know - BUBBLES! I think bubbles are dots - don't you? Yes I am convinced, bubbles are 3-dimensional dots filled with air! Yes - I am correct - yes!

So - our experiment with 3-dimensional dots filled with air started with some discussion around a few ideas which came up:

  • where do we find bubbles?
  • how are they formed?
  • what causes different sized bubbles?
  • can we make bubbles in different shapes?
  • what sort of mixture do we use?
  • what is the ratio of water to detergent?
  • what mixture will make the biggest bubble?
  • why do they have colours on the outside?
  • what makes them burst?
  • how do you know?

The thinking around ... I notice / I think / I wonder was awesome and we had some fantastic discussion.

Then they got to play...







Everyone was pretty excited by what they were discovering and there was a lot of conversation around 'shapes', 'the way we blew - soft or hard', 'bubbles inside other bubbles', 'why do they pop so easily'. 

Then we did another experiment - this time using a cup with the bottom cut out and some chux cloth secured with a rubber band over the bottom. WELL - this was awesome. We were now blowing long snake-like bubbles which got the kids VERY excited!







So with all our wonderings, observations, and thoughts completed it was time to get DOTTY! We had bubbles as acne...


We had bubbles as our brain that has escaped from our skull...



And we had bubbles as beards and goaties!...



After this we went outside to blow some more and watch them fly high into the windy yonder!...



A super session with 3 dimensional dots filled with air! Gotta love it:)








Inspired by DOT DAY

Today is International Dot Day - go here to find out about it! So today we focused on things DOTTY!

First up was a discussion about what International Dot Day is - " a celebration of creativity". So I posed the question:

WHAT IS CREATIVITY?

Here are the kids responses...


We had a quick discussion about whether something is creative even if it is not original - they decided YES it can still be creative as long as you are using SOME of your own ideas along with the inspiration you got from someone else. They were pretty clear that creativity was to do with 'imagination, uniqueness, has an element of fun to it, and is the making of something'. So a great way to start a Monday. 

I explained our first activity - 30 circles to draw as many 'circular inspired pictures' as possible in 60 seconds! (we cheated and extended our time to 3 minutes as after 60 seconds not many had much!) Are they not as creative as they thought?

Had some original ideas this time which I had not seen before like Jasmine's Japanese lady 'with baby' in crib..


No one had ever done a set of earphones before- well done Emily...


The two people kissing from Sophie caused hysteria!...


Although I have seen the pan of bacon and eggs before - I still love it Kristina...


Jackson's puffer fish was a new one too...


Mya's lollipop and girl next door was cool...


I thought Waimarama's panda was a mouse - either way it was cool...


And lastly, I couldn't select ONE from Connor so took a photo of most of the page! Some wonderful 'planets', an eyeball, and a cat with a 'speech bubble'...



All in all a neat little DOT DAY activity to celebrate everyone's varying levels of creativity!