Room 21's Class Blog

In researching how to write Tuesday in "Chinese" I was aware there are at least 3 languages including Shanghainese, Cantonese and Mandarin. It's not as straight forward as that. Earlier, I chose a translation that I thought was dragon in a class activity today. The fluent Cantonese and Mandarin speakers in my class did not recognise the symbol. I was embarrassed that I had made a mistake which is one of the pitfalls of cross-cultural analysis. There are always positive outcomes for every situation and we were able to have a discussion about where the symbol may have originated. Another positive outcome is that I am extremely aware of my cultural limitations. So this will result in me asking more questions, seeking more input from experts in our class and in the community. As you can see, I was not confident enough in what I found on the internet to use it in my blog title. An opportunity for further learning. One of the challenges this week is to; LEARN - the signs o...

Today we used a range of images as prompts for students to make connections. These connection may be connecting to each other as people, connecting items to their experiences, connecting items to their thoughts, connecting items to their lens on the world. The great thing about this activity is that there are no wrong answers. It was very interesting and insightful to get a glimpse into the student's thoughts. Thank you Room 21 for sharing your thoughts. For this task I created a 5 x 5 grid of a range of images. Some are random items, some have specific connections to individual class members, some are related to the interests of the class. Students were asked to group these items and explain why they were grouped this way.  Here are some of the student's responses.

In Room 21 we launched Chinese Language Week by having a discussion about Mandarin, Cantonese and Shanghainese languages. We were lucky to have some experts in our class to share their knowledge with us. Today we practised counting to 10. Here are some of our efforts. 一 二 三 四 五 六 七 八 九 十 Prisha's Speakpipe Link Morton's Speakpipe Link Nicole's Speakpipe Link Looks like tomorrow we are doing numbers 11 to 20. 十一  十二  十三  十四  十五  十六  十七  十八  十九  二十

Ka pai everyone. You have done so well coping with this very long lockdown. I can see that the limitations we have on us are starting to. take their toll. However, these are the times when we need to have a think about all of the things that we are grateful for. This will help us focus on the positive energy that come with gratitude. Here are some of our thoughts that we shared as one of our writing tasks.

 This week we are looking at 3 texts including; The Sun Tamer - comic styled story Why we celebrate Maori Language week in September Video NWS Pepeha Video Here are some of our thoughts about the message or theme or ideas that we identified in the story of Maui and the Sun as depicted in the comic story "Sun Tamer".

 Here are the points for the work completed over Week 7. There was a lot of hard work done in Week 7. Ka pai everyone. You can be proud of your efforts. You can be proud of your contributions to your Fale.

Screenshot from the video.   We hope you enjoy the video that Room 21 contributed to along with New Windsor School staff members.  

One of the disconnected tasks this week was to make a Whare Tapawha using sticks.  Here is the first submission that was created in record time. I was very surprised at how fast this was completed. Until I opened it.  Tau ke! Here is a quote of the text accompanying the Whare Tapawha creation. "I got lucky and found these sticks" This was a big improvement from the whare tapatoru previously submitted Quote: "I got lucky and found these sticks" If you look closely you can see 4 sticks. One for each side of the house. This is a huge inprovemnet on the whare tapatoru that was submitted before this one.

  Ka pai Room 21 for giving this a go. When we first started the seemed very daunting and overwhelming however you didn't give up. We chunked the phrased into small manageable parts.  You used the rhythm modelled to you and you gave it a very good attempt. Karawhiua! Here are some of the recordings made by Room 21 students. Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu Link to Faisal's Video   Link to Prisha's video Link to Calix's video Link to Ms Corbett's video Link to Nicole's video Congratulations to Nicole who won a prize in the Lynfield Kahui Ako wero. Nicole was up against Lynfield College students.   Link to Samuel's video Links to audio videos; Link to Rieza's audio Link to Ehsani's audio

Here are some of the Digital Pepeha created by Room 21 for Te Wiki o Te Reo Maori.

We normally do number bingo with numbers from 1 - 75. This is really only because that is the highest number our online bingo caller web based app lets us go to. Here is a link to the site we use  https://letsplaybingo.io/ Today we spent a long time creating different shapes and making them a range of colours.  This actually took so long that Ms Corbett had to make a master bingo template because we were running out of time. We decided to have a shared template with all of the coloured shapes already available on the side. We spent 15 minutes as a group contributing different shapes to the template. Today I learned that in Google Sheets I can insert a Google Drawing through "Insert" on the menu and you can draw and colour the shape there and then. Then you can insert directly into the chosen cell.  It is way faster than the way I have been doing it. Samuel shared his screen and showed me in today's lesson. Thanks Samuel. Here is a screenshot of our contributions to our sh...

 We found an online jigsaw site (of which I am sure there are many). This site is called  jisawplanet.com We used this activity as our Wednesday Warm Up task.  We got carried away and ended up doing quite a few jigsaws each.  They ranged from 6 piece jigsaw puzzles to 255 pieces! Ka pai Justin and Nicole. Here are the class efforts on a Google Slide. I thought I chose a 35 piece puzzle but it turned out to be a 96 piece puzzle. I was wondering why it was taking me so much longer than the rest of the class to finish. The class made me share my screen so they could see my progress as they were working on their multiple jigsaws! They offered lots and lots of encouragement and supportive advice. Thank you Room 21. I think you get that from your teacher. Here are a few screenshots of my progress.

We shared our thoughts about lockdown with a focus on what we are grateful for and identifying ways we could improve our wellbeing. We did this as a writing task where we group ideas into paragraphs. This was a very structured task with a modelled example from me. This task was completed in real time as part of our daily get togethers via Google Meet. I was heartened to see how easily students were able to identify things they were grateful for. They ranged from things like sleeping in to working from a comfortable couch to spending quality time with family. It seems that many student's families have kept routines in place which I believe contributes to their resilience in this lockdown.   Here are the thoughts of Room 21 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------...

This week we looked at words that have the "ch" sound but don't have the letters "c" and "h" in them. We created a Jamboard to record our thoughts. We spent about 15 minutes adding our words during one of Google Meet sessions. Students added new words as they though of them over the week. On Day 2, we revisted the Jamboard to check the list by "agreeing" or "disagreeing".  After this process, some students chose to remove their words, some chose to keep them and others added new words based on their new understandings.  Below is a screenshot of one of our Jamboard pages.  Ka pai Room 21 for your contribution and participation. I am very proud that you are comfortable to take risks by sharing your thoughts. I am also really proud that we could question each other in a respectful and value adding manner.  I love being part of your class!

 Well done for all of your efforts this week Room 21.  We are 16 days into this latest lockdown. I am very proud of your resilience and perseverance.  Ka pai to you all for getting up and making it to our 9:01 Google Zoom Meets. Ka pai to you all for coping with Mrs Corfitt's non-stop stories because she misses human beings and ends up talking your guys heads off. Ka pai for staying positive and being focussed on what you are grateful for Ka pai for making the most of your connection time with your class Ka pai for making great learning choices Ka pia for making great behaviour choices during casual connection times Ka pai for all of your engagement and participation in Group Discussion hui Ka pai for coping and not crying when Mrs Corfitt wins all of the challenges Nice effort for our first Friday Hair Day. Today we had a bit more of a relaxed group session. Even so, our Calix still managed to be more distracted by his TV.  Calix cast his Google Meet onto the family...

 This week we have been sharing all of the words we can think of that have the "sh" sound but don't have the letter "S" nor the letter "H". Here are some of the words we came up with. I think I might have had the  most. Just saying...

Today we were looking at ratios in cooking. Students were asked to complete an independent online task looking at ingredients needed per person.   Here is a link to the task . Once Chloe had finished, she followed the instructions in the recipe. Chloe swapped shrimps for ingredients she preferred more.  Here are some photos of Chloe's creation. I am super impressed. I think Miss Harland would really appreciate some tips because cooking is a skill she is currently focussed on. Preparing the ingredients Cooking the eggs Cooking the other ingredients Add the rice Add the "shrimp" or other preferences And eat! Looks delicious.  Great job Chloe