Tamaki Kindergarten Visit

A group of hub 1 learners were lucky enough to visit their kindergarten teachers and friends to have lunch together.

We talked to the children about what Stonefields School is all about!

 

The seven learner qualities help us with our learning anytime, anywhere. What are they and what do they mean?



We had a great time at the kindergarten and hope to do it again. A great big thank you to all of the parents and teachers at Tamaki who made this happen.

Bitsboard in Action in reading!

Here are some of our learners trying out Bitsboard today on the iPads.

This is an awesome app!  If you'd like to learn more and download follow these links.

Bitsboard info and List Word Boards...

We think school is really COOL!

Today we started learning this song in the hub - some of us would even like to practice it at home!

Re-telling with 'Show Me'

Halves and Quarters

In maths today some of us had a go at halving and quartering some simple shapes.  We also learnt what a half and a quarter look like when we write them as numbers.

 

Do you know what a half and a quarter look like?

Running at fitness time

 Hello Parents, We are learning to be determined and run at fitness time. We need to practice over the holidays and weekends too, so we can get ready for cross country next term.

We remember to wear sensible school shoes so we can run fast.

Taking the 'e' out of eLearning - Build your own Knowledge!

Hi everyone,

For those of you not aware, not only do we run the hub blog, but I also blog about eLearning tools on another blog here.

This blog is designed to share ideas for teachers and parents as to how IT tools can help kids in their learning.  If you have an interest in helping your kids at home using computers, iPads etc. this could be a great support for you.

If you'd like to stay up to date with the posts on my blog, click the little sun ray icon on the right hand side and enter your email.  Click the image below to enlarge.

Hope to see you there!

The Dolphin Rescue

Today in Discovery Time, Maya illustrated a series of pictures based on a story that she, Charlie S., George, Mikayla and Dan shared.  Here they are to explain what they came up with...

Nursery Rhymes

Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star - the full version

Today one of the poetry groups looked at the full version of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.  Did you know there are so many verses?

Something's happening on the building site...

Finding 5 and the missing numbers!

We are making sums with 5!

 We are finding and discussing how we found 5.

 What would be the answer if I add 2 to 5?

What would happen if I add 4 to 5?

As a hub we were trying to find the missing numbers!
Are we counting forwards or backwards?

Phonics and Handwriting Brain exercises!

 After phonics we get both sides of our brain to talk to each other. We pat our head and rub our tummies.

We march on the spot or around the hub.

 We learn how to touch the opposite knee with our opposite hand.

 

It is hard and we have to be determined. 

 Look at us we have got it... Can you practice at home?

Our Parent Sharing Forum

Good morning everyone,

We're very excited to share with you our new Sharing Forum.

Joining is simple... click here to go to the forum and then click the 'apply to join group' button as per the image below.  It's also linked off our planning site (Parents > Sharing Forum) if you'd prefer to access it that way.

(click to enlarge this image)

This forum will give you all a space to share your ideas, wonderings and findings with us all.  You might have tried something at home with your child that worked incredibly, or likewise, you might have tried something without success but think it could work better for a different child?  You might be looking for some creative or interesting ways to make learning motivating and fun? 

Whatever you are willing to share, or wanting to know, this will be a great place for you to share your thoughts and questions with each other.  No question, comment or reply is silly!

As teachers, we will dip into the forum to answer your questions, but the blog and planning site will continue to be where you'll see us most.

This is your space to share and learn from each other.  We'd love it if everyone body signed up and checked in every now and then to really get the most out of the environment.

Nobody knows your child better than you and it's time we used what we know to help each other out.  What an awesome opportunity for us all to learn and share for the benefit our our kids!  

WALHT: Finger point when reading

Flax Ropes in Science

It was fun to learn about how we can sustainably harvest the flax. 

Can you remember how to cut the leaves and which ones we can harvest? 

Was the change to the flax reversible or irreversible?

Inside our hub at buddy reading time

Each Thursday, our big buddies come downstairs to our hub to read books with us in the afternoon.  We look forward to it each week!

Our favourite things about buddy reading today:

"Reading the words.  We collaborated to read them" - Maya

"I was reading the old book to my buddy" - Clayton

"That he read it out loud" - Aurelia

"I liked buddy reading the books" - Hannah

Here's a photo of how the Butterfly Pod looks during buddy reading...

Click here  :)

Stonefields has gone BRONZE

We're very proud today as Stonefields School got a Bronze Enviro Aware this morning.  We've been working very hard to get this.

Mina is in the Enviro Group and would like to tell you more... (click to enlarge her writing)

Independent Superstars!

We have an amazing bunch of learners in Hub One!

"I always give my dad a high five out of the school, then I go to the school and go to the classroom and then I put my bag away myself" - Charlie S.

"I put my bag away all myself and my book bag and my drink bottle" - Jacqueline

It's good to be independent because "you will learn doing things on your own because if your parents go away and they help you, you won't know what to do" - Jahvan

"I feel good because I like it when I'm doing things myself" - Margot

"I will do it myself because if my mum does it, my mum will don't be proud of me.  If mummy's be in the car, she will be proud" - Kaichi

"My mummy doesn't help me put my stuff away.  I do it by myself.  I put my bag away and my drink bottle and my book bag" - Emily S.

"I haven't been at school very long but my mummy and daddy don't pack my stuff away.  I do it myself.  They just drop me off and that's why I do it myself every morning" - Aurelia


Here in LH1 we are independent in the mornings.  We do the following things:

• I put my drink bottle away
• I put my book bag away
• I put my school bag away
• I say goodbye to mummy or daddy (or whomever is dropping me off) and then
• I choose some learning or something to play with until the bell goes.

We talked about being self-aware in the mornings and suggested that our more confident learners might even be inclusive and help the younger learners out in the morning if required.

Can you help us to grow the independence of the Learning Hub One students?

Science: How does heat effect different foods?

In Hub One we get to choose where we learn!

Science: Melting and Setting

We learnt that heating and cooling both chocolate and fat is a reversible change, because they can go from being normal, to runny and back to hard again over and over and still go back to being like they were when they started.

Here we are showing the changes between liquid and solid...

Science: Bendy Pinocchio

Science: How does heat effect chocolate?

Feed and Read: The Skeleton Dance

Each day at Feed and Read time (just before morning tea) we get to enjoy a video or a story.  Today Mrs Elliot shared this neat song that links to our science learning for the day.  

Here we are, singing along!

Home Learning with Playdough

"These are my playdough rhyming words.  I made the playdough in cooking (at home) and then I made two animals and lots of words.  They are all robot words"  By Ashikka

If you'd like to make playdough at home, check out the learning that the ALL group did with Miss Hinge here!

Discovery Time

Determination in Reading

In our hub we've been very spoilt - almost everyday learners have come in wanting to read their books from home to the hub!

Today Riley and Jahvan had a go.

Here's Riley to tell you more (click to enlarge the photo)

Friday Morning Poetry

Each Friday we look at new poems in the hub.  Here's one of our groups practicing one of the poems, in which they focused on punctuation and expression (especially around the question marks).

The Dark Dark Forest Poem

Some of the children in the afternoon ask for this poem every time they come and see me, they love huddling together and pretending to be scared.

Dancing to the Beat

Look at the Break Through Group- we learning how to use the count of 8 to help us with our dancing.

Ariel's building her Vocab

Ariel described her bird puppet today - can you think of any other words?

Didn't she do well!

Showing Respect for our Environment!

"Today we were picking up rubbish because it was good for the environment.  It took all day (at morning tea and lunch time) to clean up the school.

We tidied it up because other children will come to the school and we'll keep on tidying it up everyday because then when it's always tidy, it will look shiny.

We think we should tidy up the school every day because even though our hands got dirty, we washed them anyway.  You should try it, then you'll keep your environment healthy and clean for other kids and yourself.

If you go to another school, maybe you could do the same as us.

Thumbs up for Stonefields School"

By Lily D. and Charlie H.

Making play dough

In learning hub 1, Miss Hinge has been working with a group of children to boost their skills in literacy.  As part of widening vocabulary, we made play dough today!

Here is the recipe we used...

Then we watched a video for the method of how to make it...

We had so much fun!



Then we made some words we knew using the playdough



Shayan - I made a shiny super star play dough. Play dough is my best
Ravyn - I like this play dough. I was excited.
Ayami - Play dough is my best and I love it. I love the pink colour. I was excited too
Kaichi - I like the golden sparkles because it's fun to make the play dough
Eugene - I like the red play dough

Assessment Workshop: What is a running record?

Many of you will have heard us refer to running records and may be wondering just what we're actually talking about!

We use PM Benchmarks here in Hub One; this is a standardised test used throughout the country.  The nature of this test is that all teachers administer it the same way, creating a set of data that is comparable across the hub, school and potentially wider.

It consists of two readings (one to allow the reader to become familiar with the text, and another that's actually assessed for fluency, errors etc.), and an assessment on the learner's re-tell and answers (to both literal and inferential questions).

We've made a little video below to show how this assessment is carried out.  If you have any questions, please do get in touch by leaving a comment below!

Henry's Home Learning in Phonics

In phonics some of the learners have been looking at words with the same endings and we noticed that they often rhyme.

Here's Henry with some home learning he chose to do...



Can you think of some words that rhyme with 'dot' here?


Words that rhyme with 'dot'... at AnswerGarden.ch.

Ripper Rugby

Today we all took turns to head to the hall for our last session of Ripper Rugby with Hamish.

We had a wonderful time, everyone was determined and inclusive. So many of us have learnt a new skill!!

Thank you Hamish

 

The photos were taken by the children/ our budding photographers!!

Making connections independently!

Today whilst we were reading a number of learners made connections without being prompted to do so - don't they rock!

...and here we have George, Julia and Kodi spotting small words in a big word!

The Three Little Pigs

In the afternoons some of the learners have been working together to make different types of houses for the three little pigs.  This learning links to oral language and our science concepts.
 

Do you know about the tides?

In reading, one of our groups has been learning about tides - do you know much about them?  If you don't, you might like to watch this video and talk to someone at home about what you noticed.  Have you seen the tide change yourself?