eUpdate Week 7

Are you ready to Geocache?

Here is what we will use to get us started on our big class Geocache hunt today. We are going to be putting our mapping skills to the test - BIG TIME!

Digital Modeling Books

Have you had a chance to look at our digital modeling books? They are another way you can be involved with what we do at school.

The modeling book blogs are linked from our pages at the top of this blog. There is one for maths and one for literacy. Here's an image from our literacy modeling book.

You can have a read of your child's group work by clicking on their tag at the bottom of a post - all of their group posts will come up on the blog (if you ask your child which group they are in they will know.)

Some of our posts are videos, some are photos but most of them are created using an ipad app called 'paper'. I hope they give you a window into what we are up to - you can even comment or ask a question using the link on the right.

I'd love to hear how you find it or even suggestions of how it could be improved or changed!

Football Skills

This term we're doing a mini unit on football skills. We want to get really good so we can 'waste' Kauri in a football match!

We're using this solo matrix to help us work out our next learning step. This is Thomas's self assessment. He thinks he's at level 2 (solo multistructural) because he's mastered three or more strategies but there are some more skills he needs to get better at. His arrow next to today's date says that he needs to get better at dribbling with both feet so that's what he worked on today during our drill circuit.

Here's a video of the 'elimination game' we played after our circuit. We had to 'maintain possession' of the ball or risk having our ball kicked out of the grid and being eliminated.

Teacher's College Skype

Today we had a skype session with some trainee teachers from our local teacher's college. They spent 30 minutes asking us about how we use elearning strategies and technology in class to help us learn!

There were some fantastic questions and I was so proud and impressed with their answers. Here are some of the questions they asked;

 - what kinds of technology do we have?
 - how do we think it helps us learn?
 - do we have any ipad apps we could recommend?
 - are there any negatives to having the technology in class?

It was an excellent opportunity to practise our oral language learning goal for the week of 'Using our Social Courtesies!' I was proud of you all for the way you spoke in turns and the polite, detailed answers you gave - here's a screen shot of the comment their lecturer sent on skype afterwards!

Surprise!

Look what came to school after you had all gone home!

See what happens when you visit our blog after school - you get some little rewards... =) 

Our New Room...s!

We've in! On Friday we moved everything into our new classroom and we're loving the two breakout rooms that go with it. Here's a 360 panorama site that shows you our main room from every angle.

All it needs now is some of our work on display (and our tree to be planted / stapled up) and it will feel like home.  We hope you can pop in sometime soon and have a nosey around.

Our first week?!!

Welcome to the Matai Masters blog! As you can see from this photo it's going to be an interesting first week starting from Monday. This was taken on Tuesday and it's looking like our new room will be completed sometime in week 2 or 3 (the linings that will go on our walls are still on a ship somewhere out to sea).  So..

...our first two weeks will be spent in the largest class of all - the Activity Centre!  There are some pros and cons with this -

Pros - LOADS of space, a huge area for sports games, close to the car park (I know, I'm stretching that last one)
Cons - could be chilly, we'll have to talk quietly due to the echo...

But - it will be an adventure! Looking forward to seeing you all on Monday and getting into a new Term!

Make sure you bookmark this site at home so Mum and Dad can find it easily!

Mr Herring