Ruma Toru Otewa

Each week we take one of Tony Ryan's Thinking Keys and apply it to a topic or learning area for the term. As we are corresponding with Vermont Primary school this term our keys are surrounding the topic of Australia. This week, using the Invention Key, the class designed machines that iced lamingtons. Here is a selection. Ironically, the gentleman whom lamingtons were named after actually wasn't fond of them, calling them, '..those bloody poofy woolly biscuits.'

Last term we did a fractions unit for maths. At the end, the class used photostory to document some of their learning. To do this they also had to use the easispeak microphones. This week we have been tidying these up for publication. We still are not sure how to stop the voice tracks from fading off at the ends.

Isn't it amazing what you find when you search the term 'Vegemite'.

I thought this theme for the blog might be a treat for our ePals from Vermont Primary in Melbourne. You can also take a tour of their wiki here.

Today when we were looking in Voicethread we found a maths problem solving voicethread. We paired up and tried to solve the problem. It wasn't easy, but Sharnay and Holly cracked it. Here is the voicethread that they made in response. The original problem can be seen here and the girls' response is here

...should you accept it...

The first 5 people to comment on the blog get a chocolate fish.This can be anybody (students, parents, caregivers, whanau).
The first 5 people to register with voicethread and comment on our Light and Colour Voicethread will also get a chocolate fish. This does not include students who will be doing this in class.

This is a voicethread I created using the kids' posters about light and colour that we made last term. Besides sharing their work, it allowed me to have a play with voicethread. This work has also been published on the voicethread site and has a worldwide audience. Please visit our parents' page on the class wiki to find out how you can comment on voicethread publications and share your child's work.

What a great term we have planned in room 3. We are really excited about collaborating with room 4km, a year 5/6 class  from Vermont Primary School in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. We will be looking at the differences and similarities between our communities and ourselves. Vermont Primary is a urban primary school with a roll of around 400 hundred students so quite a contrast to Otewa School. I have been working with Room 4's teacher, Mrs McConachy to pair up our students so they can communicate via email through the ePals site (http://www.epals.com/). These emails are password protected and are monitored by Mrs McConachy and myself. I have asked my class to bring in anything they have at home related to Australia for our Aussie display, but rest assured Mrs Connolly, we will draw the line at standing you in the corner of the class for the term.