Monday 27 May 2013

Making Connections

Reading:

Our learning intention today was to connect with the text to form a deeper understanding of what we read.
Our Success criteria was to make the following connections:
- Text to Text
- Text to Self
- Text to World
- Text to Media.

After making connections with the whole class using the text 'Full Moon Barnyard Dance' we went off and made connections with our own books that we have been reading.
Below are some of the connections we came up with.

 By Cody
 By Tiffany

 By Makeelly

 By Chelsea


By Fatat


What text are you familiar with that you can make connections with?
What types of connections do you make frequently?
Why do you think it important to make connections with a text?



Thursday 16 May 2013

CBL Reflection


Both 5/6 classes at ACPS have been working really hard to present their findings for their CBL research. The quality of work that has been produced is fantastic. Students have enjoyed researching their own questions and constructing new knowledge from their findings. The challenge solutions that have been carried out are of a very high standard! Both Mrs Cotter and myself are very proud of what all students have achieved. 

Your job now is to celebrate and reflect on all that you have achieved. Your task is to comment on this post. Describe your solution to 'Respond to an issue that you want changed'. Use the reflection prompts below to guide your thinking. Try to answer at least one prompt from each section. You are allowed to add your own thoughts as well

Reflection Prompts

Understanding the Challenge

• Explain the big idea, essential question, and the challenge.
• Why is this important to you and your community?
• Who does the challenge impact?

Guiding Questions/Research

• What were the most valuable guiding questions?
• What kinds of surprises did you encounter during your research?
• What resources were the most valuable?

The Solution

• Describe the process your team went through to come to your solution.
• What things did you try that didn’t seem to work?
• Why do you think your solution will make a difference?

Executing the Solution

• How did you put your solution into action?
• How did you measure its effectiveness?
• What obstacles did you face during this process?

Teamwork

• What challenges did you face working as a team?
• How did your group utilize individual talents?
• What have you learned about collaboration?

Review of Your Work

• Could you have solved this challenge differently?
• What would you do differently if you were to take on this challenge again?
• What is one thing you learned that you will never forget?

Connections

• What did you learn during this process that you didn’t know before?
• How can you apply this process and/or your solution to other similar challenges 
in the world today?
• What skills did you learn that apply to other areas of your learning?

Monday 13 May 2013

Explaining Everything!

Over the past few days in Maths, we have been solving a range of worded problems. When solving problems we know there is a process to follow-


We have begun using the app on the iPads 'Explain Everything' as a way to work through different problems and explain how we have solved them. 

See and listen to some of your work-


By Campbell


By Chelsea

By Elysse

We are looking forward to making more videos to explain how we solve maths problems!

What did you think we did well?

Do you think we explained these problems well or do we need more practise? 

What problem solving strategies do you use when solving word problems? 

Thursday 9 May 2013

Should the pigeon drive the bus?

Today we read this hilarious picture story book- Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus by Mo Willems. It is an unrealistic story of a pigeon trying to convince a bus driver that he should be allowed to drive the bus. The pigeon is quite convincing (or really just annoying because he nags so much). We discussed the character traits of the pigeon and decided that he is confident, stubborn, a nagger, cheeky, adventurous, a go-getter, crazy, curious and persistent!


We then talked about all the devices that we have learnt about that could convince somebody to do something and decided we would have a debate. 

Our learning intention was to- 
Identify strong arguments and use persuasive devices to convince the audience

Our success criteria was-
- Explain our point of view
- Use evidence to back up arguments

Here is our debate-



Vote now...

Would you let the pigeon drive the bus?
  
pollcode.com free polls  

What do you think? Would you let the pigeon drive the bus? 

Do you think we met our success criteria? Why / Why not? 

Have you ever done debating before? 

Homework Blog


Hi, we are the Junior Government (Campbell, Fatat, Adison, Elanur, Aykut, Neha and Ramy). We have been doing CBL for about a term. Our challenge was to respond to an issue we want changed.

First, we brainstormed issues we wanted changed, we then chose one of them in consultation with Miss Spink and Mrs Cotter. We chose the homework blog idea. So we persuaded Mrs Cotter and Miss Spink to maintain the homework blog. We are now getting it up and running.

Now our homework will be on the homework blog and not on our class blogs. The homework will be updated every four weeks. It is important to have a homework blog because it is helpful to kids who need the help and kids who don’t need the help. It is very useful because many people like to share their ideas and work.

The essential question was 'How democracy does an impact on the way we live?'.  Democracy has made impacts on our lives because it changes the way we live, it can make the way we live better or worse because we are able to have a say. By convincing Mrs Cotter and Miss Spink we were able to change the way we learn in class and out of class.

You will find the homework at

Hopefully it will be a big help to all students.