Collaborative Writing - Day 2

Today was our 2nd day of collaborative narrative writing with Year 3 students in Room 10 from Grey Lynn School in Auckland.

3 more groups were online using Google Docs to write a story together at the same time. Take a look at the completed narrative stories:

The Dog that couldn't bark

Names of story authors:
Nelson Central: Aria & Aulay
Grey Lynn: Amy and Anton

Once there was a big dog called Spot. He couldn't bark because he had a bad disease in his throat. He lived with his owners called Jack and Jazmine.

One day, when Jack and Jazmine were out shopping, Spot saw some strangers snooping around the house. Spot watched as they smashed the toilet window and went inside. Spot knew that they were being robbed! "What shall I do?" He thought. "I can't even bark to get help! I'll have to deal with this all by myself."

There was a trampoline standing next to the bathroom window. Spot jumped onto the trampoline, bounced really high and did a somersault through the bathroom window. He landed on the toilet seat, which luckily was shut.

Spot charged at the robbers and cornered them. Then he leaped as high as a kite and scratched them on the face really hard. He grabbed them by the pants and pulled them out the front door.

Just then, Jack and Jazmine came back.''Oh No!'' said Jazmine sadly. ''We have been robbed. I think we should call the Police." But Spot jumped up and showed them the robbers lying on the front step.

''Well done Spot!'' said Jazmine and Jack. Then Jazmine said "You are an amazing dog."

Jazmine quickly went inside and discovered that nothing was stolen even though the toilet window was smashed. They called the Police and got the robbers taken away to jail. Then Jack got Spot a big, big bone. "Here you go," he said. "Good job. We can trust you to guard the house even though you can't bark. You're the best!" Spot felt very proud of himself and happy to have such nice owners.

The Robot Cat Adventures

Names of story authors:
Nelson Central: Sheridan and Jacob
Grey Lynn: Jennifer and Cameron

Once there were two robots who were best friends. Their names were Flyer and Braike. They lived in a space ship with their cat called Max.

Flyer and Braike were trying to fly their space ship to Mars, but they kept getting stopped by big green aliens who wanted to take their beautiful cat, Max. The aliens had never seen a cat and thought it looked delicious!

Flyer had an idea. He said, "we should transform our space ship into a shield space ship so that we can get past the aliens." Braike thought that was a good idea, and Max was just glad that he wasn't going to be eaten! Flyer found some recycled material like metal junk that they couldn't use any more, and they made a strong protective shield.

Finally they landed on Mars , but the aliens were already there. "Oh no," said Braike. "What should we d

o now?" "Maybe we should talk to them" said Flyer. "They might not be as terrible as we think. Maybe they just want to pat the cat." "Ok," said Braike. "But we are NOT giving them Max."

''Greetings Aliens," said Flyer. ''What do you want from us?" exclaimed Max trembling. ''We just want your space ship and to take a photo of your beautiful cat so that we can make one like it back on our planet," said the big green alien.

"Well," said Flyer, "you can only have our ship if you give us one of your cool space ships. And we will let you have a photo, but you can't have Max. He's ours."

Braike was very proud of how Flyer stood up to the scary aliens. She thought that he was very cool. The aliens were also impressed with how Flyer talked, and they agreed to everything that he said.

So Flyer and Braike stood beside Max the cat and the Aliens took a picture of the three. Then Flyer and Braike zoomed off like a motorbike and said ''goodbye." Max said ''meeeow!" They thought it was a good day after all.

Where is Santa?

Names of story authors:
Nelson Central: Luke & Ethan
Grey Lynn: Stella and Ethan

Once there was a girl called Bella who lived with her very mean parents called Joe and Kim. It was December and Christmas was coming. Her parents were so mean that they weren't going to give her any presents for Christmas.

In her bedroom she decided to write a letter to Santa but he didn't respond, so she decided to go to him. She didn't know how to get there though, so Bella called out, "Santa, Santa, where are you?" But there was no reply.

Bella decided to call Santa's hotline to see if she could get him to come and see her. She picked up the phone and dialed the number but all she heard was his answering message. She thought she better leave a message, just in case.

"Hi Santa, it's Bella here. My parents are being very mean to me and I was wondering if you could come to my house and help me."

Bella knew one place that she could find Santa. It was the shops! She decided to look in the shop and to her suprise he wasn't there, so she walked sadly to her house. When she arrived, she called again "Santa, I need you," and suddenly he was there.

She said, "oh Santa, you're here!" Then he said " I got your message and I came as soon as I could. Here is a little toy for you. I need your help as well. Can you be a helper in my workshop? One of the elves has had to move away and I need another helper." Bella felt really excited about getting to live with Santa and also getting to move away from her mean parents. She went to tell her parents, but they didn't care anyway. So she went back to Santa's workshop in his sleigh.

The first thing she did when she got there was make a toy truck made out of metal. She was so happy to be with Santa and his reindeer at the North Pole. She was as lucky as a cookie, the luckiest person in the whole world.

Well done to the 3 groups who wrote their stories today!

Room 9 Teaching!

At the Nelson Kids' ICT Expo last week 12 students from Room 9 were extremely brave and confident...
They got to teach over 2,000 children from 8 different primary schools!!

Room 9 were running 3 stations. They had to demonstrate, teach and help the kids (and some of the teachers too!)

One station was using xtranormal to make animated movies, another station was using Tutpup for maths challenges and the final station was using Kidpix for artwork.

Take a look at some of the interviews and photos of Room 9 presenting in the video below. They were SOOOO fabulous!

A huge congratulations to the 12 students involved - you made us all so PROUD!

Double Birthday

Today we found out that Lesley, who is a teacher in our syndicate (Room 13) has the same birthday as Aria in our class!

Check out the little movie "Birthday Wishes" that we made. It also has a special message from Aria.

Inquiry: Similarities and Differences

WALT identify the similarities and differences between a person with a disability and a person without a disability

Inquiry Stage: USE

With our Inquiry partners, we chose one of the disabilities we have been learning about in class and USED our information in a new way. We used a double bubble map to compare and contrast how we are the same and different to a disabled person.

Check out some of our maps (click on them to see them larger) and see what we came up with!

We learned that disabled people can still do so many of the things that we can, they might just do them in different ways.

Many thanks to our visitors over the past few weeks that have helped us with our learning :)

Inquiry: A visit from Anne and Peddy

Our Inquiry topic this term is: Rights for Everyone

We have been learning about different types of disabilities. Today we were lucky enough to get a visit from Anne and her guide dog Peddy.

We wrote questions that we wanted to find out the answers to about Anne and her blindness. We emailed them to Anne. Today she came into Nelson Central to answer them.

Here is a story that shows how special Peddy is:

Peddy is a working dog and she helps Anne because she is blind.
Peddy knows how to cross roads and knows when it is safe. You are not
allowed to pat Peddy because she might distracted.

By Jayden

Check out these videos to hear some of our questions for Anne and the answers to them.

We learned how important Peddy is to Anne, she helps Anne with so many things in her daily life.

Even though Anne is blind, she can still do many of the same things we can!

Room 9's Matariki Wishes

The 24th June was Matariki in New Zealand.
It is the celebration of the Maori New Year.

We had a great time doing three different rotations of workshops.
First we made fern prints with Rachel. Then we did knucklebones with Neroli. After that we did poi and rakau with Lesley.

In the afternoon at eLearning time we thought about our Matariki wishes for the world were. We used Kidpix to draw in pairs what our special wish was.

Our Maori Legend Digital Story: Maui and the Sun

We have been retelling stories as part of our writing unit. We learned about some Maori legends including Maui and the Sun.

First we storyboarded all the ideas from the legend out into a 6 box storyboard. Then we wrote a sequenced retelling of the story. Next, with a buddy we each took a part of the legend to draw a picture on Kidpix of and to make a voice recording of.

You can see below the WALT and success criteria that we followed, and see our final product!
We hope you enjoy :)

Publish at Scribd or explore others:

Maori Legend retellings

Room 9 have been learning to retell stories in their writing.
We learned about several Maori legends and focused on retelling them in detail and in the correct sequence.

Here are some of Room 9's retellings of Maui and the Sun

Maui slows the Sun
Maui wanted to go fishing but the sun went accross the sky too fast. He couldn't go fishing. Maui's brothers made a net. They caught the sun. The sun said "Let me go!". Maui started to wack the sun with the jaw bone. The sun said "ouchy". The sun promised that he would go slowly in the sky. Now Maui got to go fishing for longer.
By Jazmine

Maui slows the Sun
Once upon a time Maui lived with his brothers. Maui said to his brothers "Let's go fishing!" but it was too dark. So Maui said to his brothers "make ropes and a net". Maui and his brothers went to the hole that the sun came out of. At the hole, they stretched the net over. When the sun came up they caught it and got caught in the net and the ropes. Maui climbed the ropes and hit the sun with the magic jaw bone. "Why are you doing this to me?" the sun cried. "Because you are moving too fast" Maui said. Finally the sun said that he would slow down.
By George B

Kidpix image drawn by Aria and Jessie.

Thinking Hat Tuesday - If there were no adults

This Tuesday our thinking skills topic for Oral Language was

"If there were no adults".

This was definitely quite an exciting topic!
We used De Bono's Red and Black thinking hats to investigate and discuss how we would feel and why it would be bad if there were no adults around.

You can check out our best ideas by clicking and looking at the photo below.

Thinking Hat Tuesday - If there were no such things as trees

Our thinking topic this week was

"If there were no such things as trees".

We used the BLACK and the YELLOW thinking hats to examine the negative and positive aspects of this. You can see some of our ideas in the photo below, click on it to be able to see and read it much larger.

Thinking Hat Tuesday - If animals could talk!

Today for Thinking Hat Tuesday our Oral Language Talk topic was:

"If animals could talk!"

We used the Black & Green Thinking Hats to challenge and stretch our thinking.

When you think with the BLACK hat you need to think about the bad points, weaknesses, judgement and bad ideas.

When you think with the GREEN hat you need to think about new ideas, use your imagination and think really creatively.

Here are some of Room 9's best ideas from our discussion today:
(Click on the picture to see/read them bigger)

Swimming Reflections

Now that swimming is completed Room 9 has been reflecting on the improvements we have made, the skills we have developed and the techniques we have remembered.

Check out the video below to see/hear the reflections of some of Room 9 students.

Thinking Hat Tuesday - If bees were as big as cats!

Today's Thinking Hat Tuesday challenge & brain extender topic was:

"If bees were as big as cats"

We focused our thinking by using the Red and the Yellow Thinking Hats.
The red hat is all about our feelings about the topic, while the Yellow hat is all about the strengths and good points/ideas about the topic.

You can see some of the great thinking Room 9 has done on te picture below.
(Click on the photo to view it larger)

Thinking Hat Tuesday - If sheep could fly!

Every Tuesday for Oral Language in Room 9 is "Thinking Hat Tuesday".

This is a time where we challenge our thinking and apply De Bono's 6 Thinking Hats to problems or situations (imaginary or real). For the past week we have been learning about these different coloured hats and what type of thinking is needed when we 'put them on'.

Today we discussed "If sheep could fly..."

Click on the photo to see it bigger and read some of Room 9's great ideas from our discussion using the black (bad points) and yellow hat (good points).

For parents who want to know more about De Bono's Thinking Hats - check out this information page.