Saturday 28 May 2016

Musically

Another Friday afternoon saw a group of 'one6ers' create a couple of 'Musicallys'

A bit like 'Dubsmash' but kids seem to like this better? These kids love performing ... and I love watching them be creative and creating! The organisation which goes into the 'choreography' is interesting to watch ... collaboration at its finest! (Note our wonderful Shannon fall over the plant ... all planned!)



Mystery Hangout

Thursday saw SOME of the learners in 'theONE6' participate in a Mystery Hangout.

It still surprises me when only a few kids choose to do these ... as I see it as a really authentic way to connect and learn about countries ... not to mention the questioning skills and problem-solving involved. I guess this is all a part of LearningMYway ... allowing kids the choice to learn this way! (or not as it goes!) All I know is ... the kids who join me in these fun learning opportunities learn lots and are those kids who will learn to value 'being connected' in our global world.

I would love to thank Steph Campbell and her class at Hutt Central for setting time aside to Mystery Hangout with us. These kids were awesomely well-behaved and SO KEEN. It was an absolute pleasure to spend some time with you. We hope now you have experienced a Mystery Hangout that there will be many more to come! 



 

Sunday 22 May 2016

Another PlayDayMonDay

Big Ups to Ryan for coming up with our 

PlayDayMonDay idea.

Another great day in 'theONE6'.

For anyone wondering where PlayDayMonDay fits with learning, you should have a read of this article from the Education Review series. "Play based learning IS producing critical, creative, and innovative thinkers." 

Today I observed a group of boys come up with their own set of rules to play Boggle ... which they played for 75 minutes happily ... learning new words AND creating new words!


Today I observed kids choosing to be creative with paint for the covers of their 'unfolding stories' as part of the Me2 Programme.




Today there were kids who chose to participate in the Sumdog online Maths competition.


Then there were the girls who were also being creative putting together pages of their 'unfolding stories' using images they had printed.



Another successful Monday.

Having an innovative mindset and being willing to try new ideas to help engage our learners is what it is all about. The fact that this initiative was student-driven ... makes it even better. 

What have you done recently which was a student-driven initiative?




Friday 20 May 2016

GoogLink

I was having a play with Google Drawings this morning.

With the help from one of my PLN I discovered that using Google Drawing I can create something similar to 'Thinglink'. Now I LOVE LOVE LOVE Thinglink as a way for kids to create and share their learning in an interactive way and have been trying to help them learn how to use it.

But having discovered a way to use Google Apps to do the same thing is quite exciting as it means it is much more accessible AND easier!

It has been called GoogLink ... check it out here

So here is a GoogLink I created this morning to share who we are in 

'theONE6'

What do you think one6ers? 

I would LOVE you to have an experiment with it ... please make a comment back to me and tell me what you think?

FlashMob Friday!

After a Wonderful Week in theONE6 we finished our Friday with not 1 but 2 Flashmobs. How much fun was this!

Some AWESOME rhythm going on here:)



Thursday 19 May 2016

Weekly Reflection

Another busy, fun week in 

theONE6

Here is a Storify of our weekly reflections:


Wednesday 11 May 2016

PlayDayMonday

So ... halfway through Term 1 it was becoming clear that Mondays were just not 'a happening thing' in 'theONE6'.

One of my students even selected this Bitmoji (out of ALL the hundreds to choose from) because he just does not like Mondays!

So ... having participated in #GlobalPlayDay on the third day of the year, it got me thinking. And it got my student thinking too!

"Can we do PlayDayMonday?" he asked me one day. 

I replied to him ... that could be the answer! Go off and put some ideas down ... what kids could do, some cool online games you might play, board games they might bring in, cards etc. So off he went and put together a Doc of ideas. We posted it into our Google Classroom for others to add to and we kicked off this week. 





It went okay ... actually it probably went better than okay. I think MY own concern is ... are they LEARNING something during this day? There is this nagging feeling you get when attempting something innovative and different from the norm that the kids aren't really 'learning what they should be'. 

And then the question comes up ... "what is important to learn?" 

And then another question comes up ... "who says what I think is important is what they think is important?" 

And then I start thinking ... my goal is a student-centred , student directed classroom. If this is the goal ... then I have to allow them some choice in their days and what they learn. 

So we did it on Monday. It looked busy. It looked fun. It looked like everyone was engaged in some 'play'. 


Strategy games ...



Hangman ...



Creating their own music tracks using Ditty ...



Cool maths games ...



Another strategy game ...



using the time for MathsMakerProject ...

The kids were busy and the day FELT better than most other Mondays. What a great idea of Ryan's to suggest this and put the initial idea out there to me:)

Being a highly reflective person, I wanted to gather the #studentvoice about the success of the day so I created a Google Form to get some feedback. Here are the results ...


When Ryan shares this feedback, I have discussed with him that is perfectly ok if the 2 or 3 kids who aren't so sure about PlayDayMonday if they want to just continue on with their own learning tasks. He also has some suggestions from the kids which he will clarify before next time:) 

Nothing better than a student-driven innovation! 



This was the part of the survey which pleased me the most. The kids were pretty clear about what they were learning during the day. Perseverance is ONE of our core virtues - and it is the FOCUS virtue this Term. So this was awesome to see it as a top learning outcome for the day. 

Sharing, discussion, thinking about options, strategies, and moves, and being creative were other learning outcomes in the kids' top 3. I am VERY happy with that! These are all the things I wish for my kids at school ... the 3 C's 

COLLABORATION * CRITICAL THINKING * CREATIVITY

BOOM!



Thursday 5 May 2016

20%Time

Today was our first day of 20%Time.

For MOST kids ... it was a time of engagement, problem-solving, designing, creating, researching, building, and DOING ... 

A small few are still pondering what it is they want to CHOOSE to learn during 20% Time. It is interesting that when given some freedom to choose what to learn for 20% of the week, some struggle with this. Is this because they have had limited (or no) choice before? A question to ask them maybe.

ANYWAY ...

 The kids below are getting started on making a 3 dimensional 16 to paper mache and then cover with photos of our LearningMYway class in action. These same kids are also constructing a huge 'brain' to paper mache and paint/decorate to explain about Growth Mindset which we will hopefully hang in our library.



This group are investigating skateboarding and learning about 'how to learn tricks'. Their plan is to photograph and video the skills and tricks to create an informative YouTube video. 



A couple of boys are re-creating an environment they built in Minecraft. They plan to paper mache after they have constructed it then paint it. 



A group of boys are inquiring into 'Parkour' and 'free-running'. First thing they did was write a letter to the Principal to explain what they were doing and what they want to do to get his permission considering there is some safety issues involved. They are creating a presentation which includes some history about it, some photos and videos of skills and moves. The map of the school was given to them by the Principal so they can show him the areas around the school that they will be using.



There are students who have selected one of the Global Goals to inquire into and create a presentation which will share their learning using Thinglink.

One student is inquiring into Global Goal No. 15 and after gathering information is putting together a short film to share what she has found out.

One boy has chosen to research about Chinese 'masks' with the aim of creating an example using paper mache and paint.

We will keep adding to the blog as the kids progress on their self-selected learning journey:)





Tuesday 3 May 2016

Learning to Learn

Love my work! 

Learning HOW to learn is a goal for the kids in theONE6.

There are often small moments in the day when the little things mean the HUGEST in terms of "YES! my kids ARE learning to learn?"

Today... I needed to Tweet these so I had a record of these moments. These are 3 from many that happen during the day:)

I will share them with you here...