Room 2's boggle work - Both from school and from home!

 Kia ora my wonderful readers! With the return to school, I have to admit that I haven't been really good at updating our class blog regularly... I will make my mea culpa this week (it means that I am admitting having done something wrong. It's like saying "I did it. I am guilty!" Oops...)  and will post more updates than I usually would. Stay tuned!

Most of Room 2 has come back to school recently, and it has been oh so lovely to go back to face-to-face teaching! Even with the new rules in place to keep us safe, I have to say that heading back to the classroom has been super fun. 

We have been doing a lot of learning (staggered days are no excuse), and today Room 2 decided to share the fantastic work they have been doing with making words out of our scrambled boggle boards.

To make sure both the students studying at school and those studying from home had the opportunity to contribute and share their learning, we have been getting more and more familiar with using Jamboard. I then downloaded our finished product as an image, which I have added to this Google Slide document for everyone to enjoy looking at.

Check out our fantastic boggle work from the past few weeks:

Let me know what you think of the mahi that Room 2's students have been working on and sharing! Can you find some extra words yourself? We would love to know!

As always, I am sending lots of love and Aroha your way, and I absolutely cannot wait to hear back from you! 🧡🧡🧡

Room 2's passion for sharing - Term 4's padlet and portfolio!

Bonjour my fantastic readers! This week is a bit of a special one for me as it is my birthday: Miss Flo is turning 106 years old! Wow, that's a lot of years. I have the most amazing news for you all today though, and I hope that it will bring some more happiness into your day as well, seeing as how this lockdown has been going on for such a long time.

As we all know, I have a strong passion for making sure that our learning is visible, and I absolutely LOVE sharing my students' work. From now on, every time a student shares their work with me via email, I will make sure to also add it to this virtual portfolio, for us all to have a look at. Children will have the chance to say a few words to present their mahi, and they will be able to access their feedback without having to ask parents for access to their mailbox. I have also added a filter so that viewers can either browse through all of Room 2's mahi, or so that they can directly look for a specific student's work. But that's enough talking from me for now, why don't you check it out for yourself?

Look at this super cool portfolio display, where Room 2's students can share the create activities that they have done throughout their learning journey:

I also have one more thing that I wanted to share with you, my wonderful readers. This term, Room 2 students have been learning to add their work to our class padlet by themselves, they no longer need me to upload their work for them. I am so so so amazed by all the digital skills they have developed throughout the year, they are all experts now.  They are even leaving some lovely comments underneath their classmates' posts!

Let me know what you think of all the mahi that Room 2's students have been sharing! 

As always, I am sending lots of love and Aroha your way, and I absolutely cannot wait to hear back from you! 💙💙💙

Learn about the magic behind butterflies...

Kia ora my wonderful readers! I cannot believe that we have reached week 3 of term 4 already - it has been such a long time since we have been able to see each other face to face.  Still, I am more and more amazed every day at how well you have all been handling this extended period of home learning. I can honestly say that learning has been happening online for Room 2, we have created a lot of projects and have been doing a lot of sharing as well..

For the next two weeks, we will be working on developing our critical thinking skills through our T-shaped literacy unit about butterflies (click on the link and check it out too!). Let me tell you about what I planned for us: we will learn about the life cycle of butterflies, what makes them so special, and we will even have some opportunities to do some art together.

Look at these cool displays that we can use to showcase and share our learning:

What do you think of our three displays? Which one do you like best? If you would like to see your own work on these displays, it is easy as: simply fill in this form to let us know what you have learned about butterflies.

As always, I am sending lots of love and Aroha your way, and I absolutely cannot wait to hear back from you! 🤎🤎🤎

Friendship & the Rainbow Fish

Kia ora my wonderful readers!

We have spent two fantastic weeks working on our T-shaped literacy unit about friendship/ whakahoahoa (click on the link and check it out too!). And let me tell you about all the great mahi that the students in Room 2 have been doing.

We have been learning how to use a new tool this term, and it looks like we are starting to be pros at using jamboards already. But don't mind me, check it out for yourself (no teacher editing here, yay!):

If you are not familiar with the story of the Rainbow Fish, our classmate Zara has even recorded herself reading it to us. Well done Zara for doing so many create activities and for remembering to share them with us, what a fantastic work! 🌟

As always, I am sending lots of love and Aroha your way, and I absolutely cannot wait to hear back from you! 💚

Top 3 things about Room 2's students

Welcome to term 4 my wonderful readers!

Wow, I cannot believe that it has been a whole week of online learning already. I know that this is not quite what we hoped term 4 would be like, but I know that we can do this. 

I thought that we should start this term with one of the most fantastic pieces of work that we have done so far. This is our most popular writing activity to date, and I can see why. It is oh so exciting to find out more about our friends! 

I cannot express how proud I am of your hard work over the past few months, and as hard as distance learning can be, I have planned a whole lot of new activities for us to have fun together. I've got a whole lot that I want to publish on our blog (with your help of course!), and I am so looking forward to a whole new term of learning.

As always, I am sending lots of love and Aroha your way, and I absolutely cannot wait to hear back from you! 💛

Our (digital) gratefulness circle

Ata mārie my wonderful readers!

I feel like I have failed you this week. It has been exactly 15 days since I last updated our blog. I had so many ideas, but alas, time got the best of me this time. To make up for it, I thought I would post something super special to my heart today.

If you have ever visited Room 2 on a Friday afternoon, you would know that we have our own little tradition going on. To celebrate the end of an entire week of being at school, we usually sit in a circle and practice expressing what we are grateful for. This term has been a whole lot different, and unfortunately, we haven't had many opportunities to do so.

As this is something that have been deeply missed (and also to celebrate Mental Health Week!), I thought that we should bring this back to celebrate the end of our distance learning program.

But that is enough talking for now. For now, I would like to introduce you to our digital gratefulness circle displays (yes, displays. As in, more than one):

Mental health awareness holds a very special place in my heart, and I could not bear to miss out on our gratefulness circle for an entire term. 

If you also want to add your own gratefulness reflections to our class blog, I can only encourage you to fill in this form and our display will update itself within a few minutes. The best part is, you do not have to be a Room 2 whānau member to add to our wonderful displays. Give it a go, we would love for you to join us in our little Friday tradition. Of course, if you prefer to email me your work I would be  more than thrilled to add it here for you!

As always, I am sending lots of love and Aroha your way, and I absolutely cannot wait to hear back from you! 💚

Celebrating Te Wiki o te Reo Maori

Ata mārie my wonderful readers!

I know what you must be thinking - it has been a whole 13 days since Miss Flo last posted. Needless to say, I will need to keep on working on my goal for a little longer... The good news is, things can only get better from now on.

This week is a pretty special one for Aotearoa: the whole country is celebrating Te Wiki o te Reo Māori. Room 2 has been making the most of their distance learning program this week, and let me tell you: we have been celebrating in style. Have you checked out our Te Wiki o te Reo Māori site? Go have a look for yourself!

But who am I kidding? You all know me too well by now. Of course I have been keeping myself busy working on a few projects. For today, I would like to introduce you to our pepeha display:

If you also want to see your pepeha on our class blog, I can only encourage you to fill in this form and our display will update itself within a few minutes. The best part is, you do not have to be a Room 2 whānau member to add you pepeha to our wonderful display. Give it a go, we cannot wait to see your own pepeha! Of course, if you prefer to email me your work I would be  more than thrilled to add it here for you!

Do make sure to stay tuned for more, I will be posting our special padlet up here really soon. In the meantime, 

As always, I am sending lots of love and Aroha your way, and I absolutely cannot wait to hear back from you! 💚

Following up on Room 2's reading log statistics

 Kia ora my wonderful readers,

I know what you are thinking. Posting 3 days in a row is really unusual for us, but what can I say? I guess that miracles do happen. The point is, I was super excited when I first told you about our reading log statistics display; but deep down, I knew it was not perfect. I wanted more. 

I was convinced that there was a way to make our data more personalised. It took quite a bit of playing around, but then it worked! I would like to officially tell you that I have added a second page to our original report. Check it out:

On this page, you will notice that you can now access each student's individual data thanks to a drop-down list. You will be able to see how many books each participating student has read, which books have been enjoyed the most, as well as the last review that students posted. 

I would absolutely love it if you could give it a try and let us know what you think of this one. Do you find this second page useful? Remember, you can still access the first page of our report.

Before I leave you for today, I wanted to ask you something: how are you all going with your goals? Personally, as thrilled as I am with my progress on posting more frequently, I am still not 100 % convinced that I can keep it up. As a result, I think it would be best if I keep working on my goal a little bit longer. I'm sure I can do better, and not to be so on and off anymore. All of us in Room 2 would love it if you could let us know your goal is going in the comments below!

As always, I am sending lots of love and Aroha your way, and I absolutely cannot wait to hear back from you! ❤️

Room 2's clever mathematicians

Kia ora my wonderful readers!

As you know, Miss Flo was sick this weekend. Staying at home for the whole weekend wasn't all bad though. Sure, I haven't been able to go for a walk in my neighbourhood, but I have been able to have some fun working on a few projects. As you would have probably guessed, I had a whole lot of time to go nuts with my spreadsheets again, and I have created this lovely interactive graph about our maths learning. Woohoo, it's party time! What do you mean "not yet"? Fine, I'll wait until this post is up then. I would rather celebrate with Room 2 next time we are meeting anyway. 😉

You might think to yourself "but Miss Flo, this looks a lot like Room 2's reading log display", and you would be correct. However, with the wide variety of maths Google Forms activities available on our class site, this one took some creative thinking to get right. And you all know how much we love creativity at New Windsor School! But that's enough talking, have a look for yourself:

This one will not update itself automatically for now as I am still tweaking a few bits and bobs on it, but it also includes the work that you have sent me via email.

What do you notice? What do you wonder?

I love working on this kind of project, but do you enjoy them? If you do, let me tell you a little secret: I have a few more things in the pipeline, so make sure to stay tuned! 

How are you going with your goal? I think I am pretty on track with mine, for now, having posted two days in a row (yay, Miss Flo is back in the game!), but I think I will keep the same goal for a little bit longer. I'm sure I can do better, and I do not want to be so on and off. I'd love it if you could let Room 2 students know how your goal is going in the comments below!

As always, I am sending lots of love and Aroha your way! ❤️

Every super hero has a nickname - My favourite is called Dad

Right, so Miss Flo might have lied a little. I really tried my hardest to remember to post on our blog, but it has been 10 days and you might be thinking: "what is Miss Flo doing?". From the bottom of my heart, I am really sorry about not having posted sooner. I will try even harder not to wait this long until I post again.

Kia ora my wonderful readers!

How was everyone's weekend? Mine was OK - not the best (I woke up with a cold and had to get a Covid test on Saturday morning), but not the worst either (the test came back negative, so I got to watch a movie with my flatmate on Sunday night, yay). There has been a whole lot of rain over the last few days, I hope that you are all keeping safe in your bubbles. 💙

Staying at home did not mean doing nothing though, and my brain was bubbling away with a lot of ideas for us to celebrate Fathers' Day. I am super excited to share this one with you, but first, I thought I would show you this video:

This one made me laugh a lot, but what about you? Did you get the question? If I tell you Sunday, what is the question? Here is a clue: this about what is happening on Sunday?

Alright, so are you ready?  Here is this week's big achievement for Room 2: we have a whole T-Shaped literacy unit about Fathers' Day! This should keep us pretty busy. If you would like to go and check it out, click on the image below:

We will be able to learn, create and share our learning journey around Fathers' Day. I wonder what you will create this week?

Have you come up with a goal for this week? My goal is to post again in less than 7 days. Do you think that this is an achievable goal? Let me know what your goal is in the comments below!

As always, I am sending lots of love and Aroha your way! ❤️

Sharing Room 2's reading log statistics

Wait, is miss Flo REALLY going to post on our class blog two days in a row?!?! That's definitely the first time that this has EVER happened. Hopefully, I'll manage to keep up with posting at least once a week... Fingers crossed! 🤞

What a stunner of a week already! Have you been outside to take a walk around your neighbourhood already? I can't wait to go outside for mine this afternoon.

Everyone knows how much I love spreadsheets and pretty graphs, but I felt like I needed a new challenge to keep me entertained over this new lockdown. I've been busy teaching myself how to use Google Data Studio, and I have figured out a way to display the data that I have been collecting with our reading log. And the best part is that this data report will keep on updating itself for as long as you all keep on filling in our reading log. Look at this, how cool!

You guys know how much I LOVE integrating subjects together, and I do think that I found the perfect way to mix reading and maths together. I am super excited about sharing this one with you all, and I can't wait to find new ways of using data studio to display our distance learning. 

I mean, it is still very much a work of progress. I would love to be able to add a filter for us to pick which Room 2's book review we want to read, but I haven't gotten that figured out quite yet. This should keep me busy over this lockdown! 🤭

If you haven't already, take a minute to add your reading of the day to our reading log. How many books can you read before the end of the week?

I hope you are all keeping well in your bubbles, and I am sending love and aroha your way. ❤️

Room 2's distance learning - Here we go again!

 Kia ora team!

As you would have probably noticed, I am not exactly the best at posting regularly. I thought we would do things differently this time (just in case I forget again... But let's hope I don't!). Look at the fantastic learning which has been going on in our socially distanced classroom over the past couple of days:

Why don't you try adding a comment under someone else's work? 

If you would like to find out more about what we have been up to recently, I encourage you to visit our class site which has been kept (mostly) up to date. Have you already had a look at our distance learning page? If you haven't, go check it out! 

I hope you are all keeping well in your bubbles, I cannot wait to see you in person really soon! Sending love and aroha your way. ❤️

Term 2, here we are!

Kia ora whānau,

Room 2 has been keeping busy this term!

We now have a word wall that we can use during writing time, and we have been making some art to decorate our classroom. We have been learning a lot about measurement. What a fun time!

 

Week 4 - Shenanigans with Room 3...

In Room 2, we are soooo lucky to be right next to Room 3. Especially on Wednesdays.

After lunch eating, we practice learning our family song together. What lovely singing!

We have been working hard on learning all the Casey the Caterpillar letters. To reward us, Mrs Fernandes gave us some playdough to practice forming our letters and writing our names.

Look how creative we have all been!

Week 3 - Our distance learning journey!

What an interesting two weeks we have had! We went back to distance learning for a whole 3 days. And let me tell you, our learning did not stop.

This year, we are doing thing a little differently at New Windsor School. We are planning conceptually around communities and how they are shaped by whakapapa, relationships and environments. Throughout the year, we will be looking more in-depth at our school's competencies (Confident, Creative, Collaborative, Respectful, Responsible and Resilient) and how impactful they are within a community.

For example, our community foci for this term are families and New Windsor School. In the classroom, we have been looking at what resilience looks like at New Windsor School for example.  

Lockdown has provided us with the perfect opportunity to look at what each of our school competences would look like within our whānau. We have been learning about our families, and here are some examples of what the students in Room 2 have come up with: 

Casey the Caterpillar - Letter formation

We use the story Casey the Caterpillar to teach the language and shapes around letter formation. 

Here is an example of how the letter c is called and "open mouth", and how we build on this shape to teach other letter shapes (a, d, e, etc.):

Below are Casey The Caterpillar posters, to help you use the same language at home:

Week 2 - Chinese New Year

This week, we have been learning about Chinese New Year. 

For Chinese New Year (on Friday), our lovely buddies from Room 6 baked some fortune cookies (well chocolate chip cookies!) to share amongst the year two classes. We've had so much fun spending the afternoon with Room 1 and Room 6. 😍

Thank you so much Room 6 (and thank you Mrs Dobbie too! 💚

2021, here we go!

What a fantastic start to the year we have had in room 2!

All the children were happy and excited to be back, and we have all made a lot of new friends. I am really looking forward to seeing what 2021 will bring our way... 😀