Room 4 Literacy: I Am

At the start of the term Room 4 literacy crafted their own I am poems. We started by writing our poems down, trying to think beyond our selves in the literal classroom and instead thinking of our dreams, culture and wonderings... 

Next we illustrated our poetry using a colour of our choice. 

Check out our writing on the slides below.

                      

What makes a good learner?

 Today our literacy class discussed the difference between learning and behaviour. We realised that our behaviour has an impact on our learning. However, we also considered the fact that sometimes staying silent and sitting up nicely (or appearing well behaved) isn't enough to support us in our learning.

We each created a word cloud of ideas of what makes a good learner and shared our ideas: we had heaps in common!

These were our common themes:

The Robbery - Rae Jae

He had just woken up. It was a disaster when he stepped out of the door. There was nothing left. He had been robbed. No TV, no wallet and they took his whole life, the painting he had created that cost $8B, It was worth his life to him. The painting took him 32 years to finish.

What he created in 32 years was destroyed in about 5 minutes. Now that the painting was gone he quit his job as an artist. He was upset. The police checked the cameras but nothing was spotted, It was like the robbers never came.  

That's what he would have said if he really got robbed. You see the one the robbers stole was a fake. His real painting was locked in a highly secure base located in an unknown base. He was the only one who knew where it was.

He laughed at the robbers...

Room 4 Literacy

Today we met our literacy class for the first time. Our main activity was to write a letter to introduce ourselves and then we went on to complete some activities to meet our reading groups. 

We completed a range of activities that required us to work well as a team. We started with a listening game before moving on to a puzzle and a cup stacking challenge. Finally we created a piece of collaborative art.

We agreed that to be successful we needed to:

Communicate effectively by listening and sharing our ideas

Show respect to others by using kind words

Have a positive attitude and participate

The Leaning Tower of Spaghetti

This morning we returned to our literacy class for the first time since March! It was great (if a little strange) to be back and to read together once again.

Before we got into our reading, we had a quick challenge to remind us of some core skills of literacy; to be effective communicators, most notably. We got into our four reading groups and were given spaghetti, tape, string and a marshmallow.  The challenge was to create the tallest tower.

Each group had a different tactic, with some making spaghetti triangles, others simply sticking all the strands together vertically and others using the string to support the spaghetti to balance. In the end, Ihimaera took out the competition with an impressive 96cm tower they aptly named 'the learning tower of spaghetti. They were followed by Dahl with an 87cm tower. 

After the activity we discussed the keys to their success: communication, collaboration, active listening, sharing ideas, having fun. These are all skills that we will need to be successful in literacy over the next 6 months. 

Volcanoes

This week we have been learning about volcanoes in Literacy. We started by discussing what a volcano is and learning some key vocabulary, before learning about some famous volcanic eruptions.

Check out Jordin's learning from today:

              

Writing

This week we have been learning about sentence structure. We had to write a sentence based on an image. Check out what our literacy class wrote about this image:

(Chance) The cage rattled as the scuba divers gazed at the ginormous shark in wonder. The creature then swam swiftly towards the metal bars, circling around the species he had never seen before.

(Kauri) The Scuba divers were eager to have a look at the beautiful shark. They were desperate to share it with the world.

(Pauline) The divers are exploring sea life in the metal cage. Many pods were found swimming in unison. Sharks surrounded the metal cage.

(Caleb) The sea roared as the shark rattled past the cage which was full with people. After seeing the beast, they all wished they were anywhere else in the world.

 (Aaliyah)The cage rattled as the lights flashed at the shark.    

( Sonnia ) The ocean thundered as the shark shook the cage.

(Laolao) The scuba divers shook in fear as the shark swam past.              

( Tsai )  The shark was swimming around the cage ready to eat the people.

The Book of the Road

Today Room 4 completed our poem titled 'The Book of the Road' using the template provided by School Kit.

The poem was originally written by Kendrick Smithyman, which is all about a journey and the bulk of the poem is made up of directions from place to place. We used the same format as Smithyman, but we changed the name of the places and roads to those we found on Google maps to get to Richmond.

To view our poem we had to wear special glasses, as it had been written in blue and red overlapping pen. We discussed the fact that this in itself was a metaphor - we have to look closely and interpret the hidden meaning behind a poem. We also had a great time exploring the world with our glasses!

List Poem

Today Room 4 Literacy learnt about list poems. This is such a simple but effective style of poetry - it is essentially a list about a topic.

Kauri's list is about gaming - it tells a bit of a story too!

Amira's list is about climate change

This is Just to Say

Today Room 4 literacy had to write a poem using the same format and structure as This is just to say by William Carlos Williams. Check out these poems based on some of the naughty things that we did when we were little!

How to be a good person

Are you contemplating whether or not you are a good person? Check out Bethan's essay below for some great advice for life!

Are you a good person? How can you tell? There’s got to be some things that make people good. So what are they. In this essay I will label key characteristics that create a good person.

Respect. Everyone likes someone who knows to be respectful to others. Respect is something everyone, no matter what gender race or upbringing, deserves. You’re ability to recognise that makes you a good person.

Humility. Being humble is something that people need to do more these days. Humility gives us the ability to share our help without showing disregard to another person’s needs. For example: if someone is good at math and they are helping other people they will help the person without saying how simple they think it is.

Compassion. If you sympathise with other people you’re more likely to help them and you’ll find yourself helping people more. Getting into the habit of it will create a new way for you to get a good attitude about the way you are impacting other people’s lives. Making your life live to its utmost potential.

If you take these qualities and put them into your daily life. You will mature as a person and find the ability to make better decisions. It won’t be easy but you will be a good person. If we gather these qualities as a species, we can make the world a better place

Navigating Narratives

We then had to find connections between these ideas by grouping them and justifying the links between the hexagons. This made the task much more challenging, but it reiterated the fact that good writing is good writing - some aspects of the text change across genre while others remain the same.

We are straight back into it in Room 4 literacy! This morning we discussed what we already know about narratives and their features. We had to sit with our reading groups and write hexagons to represent our prior knowledge.

Haiku

Today in Writing we discussed Haiku's and syllables. We were then tasked with making our own Haiku, drawing upon rich vocabulary. Check out some of our poetry below:

As I swim alone

In a lake of great Silence

I’m feeling content

I'm a Gemini

That is a zodiac sign

what is yours reader?

How much can I fit

Into a Haiku format?

Oh no I ran out

Identity Masks

This week in literacy we have been discussing our identity and how we express our identity to others. We realise that some aspects of our identity are more obvious than others. We also discussed how we show different parts of our identities in different situations to other people. In response we made masks - one side that illustrated how others perceive us and the other that represents the aspects of our identity that are more subtle, or lesser known.

Check out our progress so far! Some are from the front and others the back of our masks.


                 

Taste Poetry

This week room 4 literacy have been focussing on using effective vocabulary in our writing. After writing a poem about an object last week, we are writing taste poems about food - being able to experience the subject in this way has helped us heaps with our ideas!

To force us to use precise vocabulary our poems were very short; they only had four lines and each line either contained 3 or 5 words! For example:

Palms are sweating

apprehensive about the impending sourness

warhead in mouth

sourness dissolves and sweetness ensues 

Watch this video to see us recite some of our poems:

                      

Lamb to the Slaughter

In literacy we have been reading slightly longer and more complex texts to prepare for college. Check out what Venice created below - her story is linked on the last slide.

Expressing meaning through art

This morning at PES we attended our termly immersion assembly. In these assemblies, the teachers present something that will inspire the learners about the theme of the term. This terms them is te wa toi - art time!

The team 5 created a skit in which the 'students' of an art class created images that expressed different meanings. For example, the use of the colour blue represented sadness, while a square represented a confined space.

In response to this, Room 4 Literacy decided to create a piece of art that represented their holidays. This could be literal (e.g. I drew the beach I visited) or figurative (e.g. I drew the sun because my holiday was filled with joy).

Can you guess what the meaning of these images above could be? Bonus if you can write a story that accompanies the picture below - believe it or not, it's creator came up with a wonderful justification about the meaning of the piece.

Debating!

This morning Room 4 Literacy participated in a formal debate about Fortnite. We gathered some information about the game and wrote a clear paragraph that described one reason why we thought it should or should not be banned for children under 13.

            

We then staged a formal debate between members of the Dahl and Ihimaera reading groups, while the rest of the class judged the strength and clarity of each speakers arguments.

We found that the Dahl girls had written clear arguments that were backed up with a lot of facts - this made them harder to rebut and encouraged our audience to agree with what they were saying.

While the boys arguments contained less factual information, they spoke with great confidence and they constructed very strong rebuttals arguing the points the girls were making. This displayed the difference between oral and written language to us all - while the girls arguments were perhaps stronger on paper, the boys delivery and clever rebuttals made it a close debate!

Procedural Writing

We have been learning about procedural writing and the importance of writing clearly this week.
We started by reading three different sets of instructions for popular card games. The first set had really unclear instructions and we became a little frustrated trying to work out what the author meant.

The second set contained a little more detail and it was slightly easier to read, but we found the structure a little confusing. We much preferred the third set, which had a clear layout and easy to read instructions.

We then wrote our own instructions for a really simple task - making a sandwich! We realised how easy it is to be vague in our writing, but that our instructions need to be clear for people to know what they are doing! When researching sandwich fillings we also learned more about making a healthy sandwich. Did you know a serving of a spread like butter or mayo tends to be about 2 teaspoons?
Check out Hilary's instructions below:


1.Put two slices of bread on a plate. Get your butter knife and spread butter on one slice of bread then spread butter on the other slice.

2. Put two pieces of lettuce on to a slice of bread than add the ham. You should have 30g or 2 slices of ham

3. Then get your tomato and slice it. You should then put two slices of tomato on your slice of bread.

4. Start to slice the cheese. After that’s done put 2 slices of cheese on your sandwich.

5. Now its time to use mayo. Grab a teaspoon and scoop some mayo in to it and put it on top
of the bread.

6. Last but not least put your other slice of bread on top and you are finished

Fortnite Battle Royale

Check out Josh's essay about Fortnite. Does it really live up to the hype?

I play Fortnite Battle Royale at least once everyday. The thing I like about this game is how it is open world and you can build.

What is Fortnite? Fortnite is a free-to-play battle royale game developed and published by Epic games. It is a early access video game which means it hasn’t fully been developed yet and is still in development. So far the game has done very good. The update in february 2018 the developers reported they have 3.4 million players.

How well did Fortnite do? Well for starters Fortnite has earned 126 million dollars beating their rival game PUBG, With over 178,000 viewers on twitch and there rival game with 84,000 viewers. While Fortnite is still free on xbox one, ps4, pc, and mobile. PUBG is still charging there fans. $29.99 to buy the game on xbox one, pc, the game has not yet released on ps4.

How do you play Fortnite? Once you start a game in fortnite you load into a place called Spawn Island. After that you hop on the battle bus which will take you above the main island were the war begins. You jump out and land at a location of your choice. After that you find a weapon which will help you knock your enemies down to win the game and get a victory royale. It doesn't sound very exciting but it really is a accomplishment for many people. And it is still doing amazing to this day.

To conclude I want to explain how much I enjoyed making this review. My favorite part about writing this is researching the facts about Fortnite.