Friday Fun Day

Good afternoon,

Another fun Friday was had here. Being Friday 'n all.

Bit of this...




...a bit of that...


...and a spot of painting.






The idea is to produce a heap of paper with interesting colours, textures and brush strokes with which to make a collage of the Cicada and the Ant.

And a good time was had by all. 'Cept for Miss Fitzsimmons, who cleaned up while I swanned away on duty at lunch time.

Have a good weekend,

Mr Grant

Move it and Shake it Thursday

Good evening,

This morning kicked off with a bit of Axel-F, Crazy Frog style.



And we all know which movie Axel-F came from, right?

Then, after a Church Post Test (the children seem to have done really well), we jumped into our new topic - On A Level Playing Field.

I showed the children these two images...



...we discussed them, then I had them act out what happened next.










And then we ran out of time!

CU in the morning,

Mr Grant

New Maths Books Please

Good morning,

This is a notice for Room 2 Maths Children.

(It may well also apply to the other maths interchange classes, but chances are, their teachers are far more on the ball with letting you know when your children need stuff...)

The industrious wee things have all run out of pages and most are now using the back of previous worksheets to complete their follow up activities!

They need a 1A5 unruled (that is, blank) exercise book as soon as possible please.

Thanks, and sorry for the delay in getting this message out,

Mr Grant

I'm Back Wednesday!

Good afternoon,

It's good to be back. You've got a nice bunch of children!

This morning I thought I'd try something a little different for writing. I paired the children up, they discussed...


...then, in those pairs started to write a narrative together.

I was watching a clip of a presentation of an education statistician who has measured what has the best effect on increasing children's achievement, and one of them is - they learn a heap of stuff off each other. So we'll see how that goes...

Actually, talking of cooperating, here's a great example of it I captured this morning during reading.


Then off to fitness.



The children do seem to enjoy Crazy Frog!




Right, that's about it for the time being.

CU in the morning,

Mr Grant

SOLO Thinking

Good afternoon,

Well, the drugs the doctor has given me are working much quicker than I had expected them to, so, yep, I'll be back on deck tomorrow. Yay!

In the meantime, I've been trying to get my head around this SOLO taxonomy that I was introduced to in Wellington, and how we can use it to teach Sacrament...




Here are a couple of video clips from here that I've been watching to get my head around SOLO.

Note, the context of these clips happen to be university courses, but the focus is just the same as mine - how people (big and little) learn stuff, and how to best teach them.



...and also Part 1, which is only really context for Part 2 above.


I like the idea that the children can fairly easily identify where they are, and what they need to do to get to the next level in their thinking. Using those key words associated with each of the stages I think is the thing.

Thankfully Liz went to the same seminar and has begun adapting the Sacrament unit plan we got from there.

So...we'll see.

Mr Grant

Mr Grant's Crook...Again...Again...

Good evening,

I'm just back from the doctors and have been told to stay home tomorrow. Got me some pills and such, so...Wednesday might be looking good.

Bye for now,

Mr Grant

You know how I said I'd be back...

...well, actually...not tomorrow.

The snot may have started to easy off, but the coughing is really starting to hit me where I live. Or rather in my head, each time I bark. Ouch.

So, I'll be staying home where I live tomorrow.

I will be back on Tuesday though, coughing or no - the staff have got their practical part of our first aide certificate re-validation.

So, sorry, once again, but Mrs O'Neill will take good care of the wee cherubs tomorrow.

Mr Grant

Room 2 Newsletter for Term 3, Week 6

Good afternoon,

Here is the Room 2 Newsletter for Term 3, Week 6.

Enjoy the sun,

Mr Grant

I'll be back...

...said the Terminator to the policeman.

Hmmm, but that didn't end very well for most of the policemen at the station...

Ok, suffice it to say that I'm starting to feel a touch better, so I'll be back on Monday.

While I start fiddling around with planning and such like, click here to read the OLA School Newsletter for the 16th of August.

Which reminds me, if you haven't already, please ensure the office has got your current email address - these OLA newsletters are being sent home digitally now, as we're trying to reduce paper consumption. Room 2 parents, don't worry about it, I've passed the email address you've given me to Karen already.

The Room 2 newsletter will be along presently.

Mr Grant