Fri-Yay- time for fun drawing time at our Syndicate Google Meet!

  FriYAY was a lesson on... draw to learn about the Māori Octopus with Anton the Whale Man.

Interesting facts about the Māori Octopus include:

1. They are often found on shellfish beds where they have lots of homes.
2. The pupil is shaped like a semi-circle.
3. They belong to cephalopods (heads with legs).
4. Their head is a big, bulgy pouch called the mantle.
5. They have a syphon (funnel) which is a tube to help pump water around.
6. They have 8 arms (pods meaning arms/legs).
7. They have webbing in between each arm.
8. They have 3 hearts.
9. They have suckers on all their arms, 2 rows of suckers on each arm, small teeth around the top of each sucker.
10. Their mouth is like a parrot's beak.
11. They are the brightest (smartest) of the invertebrates.
12. They change colour when they dream.
13. The species name is Macroctopus Maorum.

Lockdown Challenge- Create a Face using Household Objects

 

Miss Ribotton came up with this Challenge for the students to do over lockdown. I can't wait to see what the children come up with! I created a slideshow with the task so that children can collaboratively add to this slide and we can see instant results.

How to insert a picture into blogger comment....

I remember in the DFI that we were given a link to be able to comment on someone's blog and leave a link in the actual comment. This comes in handy when we are teaching remotely and want to give out awhi for quality blog posts! 

At Belfast School our school-wide reward system is using awhi. So if you want to know what to do, read ahead..... 

 All you simply do is: 

Copy this into the comment    <a href="insert URL here">Insert display text here</a>

and then replace the part, insert URL here with the URL of whatever you are trying to link in. Be it an image, doc, or whatever.

Give it a try and see if you can add something to my blog post below!

What are you? Poem

 Our class has been looking at a Poem called 'What are you?' We examined the poem and looked at the language features that it had that made it stand out. Things such as alliteration, similes, metaphors and juxtapositions. For those who don't know what a juxtaposition is, it is where two things are placed together with contrasting effect. For example- 'silent scream' or 'soft concrete'.

Here is the Powtoon that I created using the 'What are you?' poem format.

Surf to Turf Belfast

This year I have organised an event called the Surf to Turf. The children have been busy training over the last 6 weeks. Early morning bootcamps (7am-8am) with the support of the NZ Institute of Sport. Belfast Community Network have been providing beautiful breakfasts for the students. Next Wednesday is the actual event which involves the children running 5.1km, undergoing some physical challenges and then the finale being the kids pulling a fire engine up the Belfast Rugby Club driveway. Looking forward to seeing the children's successes next week! 

Google Certified Educator- Level One

 Super excited that I was able to achieve my Google Certified Educator, Level One. It's great as now I can join my Syndicate Team with the Certification. Thanks to Manaiakalani for supporting us with the DFI and also giving us the skills required to be able to sit this exam.

Google Certified Educator Exam and DFI Day 9

Today for me was all about sitting the Google Certified Educator Exam and hopefully joining my colleagues in the Year 7/8 team at my school with this achievement.

If you would like to know more about becoming a Google Certified Educator, check out this link here.

I must say that some of the parts on the exam I flew through and there were a couple of questions where I did have a wee bit of a panic. I marked them for review and then at the end was able to go back and complete them. I think it was more of a panic around running out of time that made me feel like I couldn't answer the question, opposed to not being able to answer it.

Being on the online DFI has been an amazing experience for me for a number of reasons:

* I was able to connect with a wider range of facilitators and gain useful learning and expertise from each of them

* I was able to connect with other teachers and see what they are doing in their classrooms and with their learners

* I have further developed my toolkit with useful tools, tips and smarter ways of doing things

* I have the rewindable learning material that was shared on the agenda's, that I can go back to at any stage and revise what was taught, and reflect and adapt my practice

Where to next?

For me I want to continue to share the things I have learnt with staff and students at my school and in my interactions with others. I want to look further into becoming a Hapara Champion Educator and to look at other opportunities where I can lead and develop as an educator and a person.

Thank you to Manaiakalani for the support you have provided over the course of the nine week DFI and a special thank you to Venessa who has been so amazing to work with. You have been supportive, knowledgeable and an empathetic ear and it has been fantastic. Thank you!