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Monday 6 June 2016

STEAMS Day

The Senior school has kicked off what we hope will become regular events. 'STEAMS' days are there to provide extra support in our classroom practice around the teaching and learning in key curriculum areas that are sometimes given less emphasis in the Primary school classroom. STEAMS is an interpretation of 'STEM' which stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths. We have added the 'A' for Arts and 'S' for Social Studies. 
 Freya and Sharmaine get ready to make some 'Stixplosions'.
 Jessie and Lucie coding an Mbot through a maze.
There was an amazing variety of activities on offer for the day. Students were exploding things, making things, coding things, building things, destroying things, sciencing things, experimenting with things, acting out things. It was a really great day:)

We are on the lookout for any parental expertise in any of the STEAMS areas; where you might be able to lead a small group of students for an hour and a half block. Our next STEAMS day is on the 22nd of June. 

Our First Mystery Hangout


I recently met an Auckland teacher who has had his class participating in 'Mystery Hangouts'. His class had been 'skyping/Hangouting' with classes around the world and he asked if my class would like to have a go. In a nutshell, you agree on a set time to 'hangout' and then through a series of questions that can only be answered by 'yes' and 'no' you guess where each school is in the world.

The class loved the experience and there was a great buzz in the room as the children rushed to consult google maps and pass information onto the questioners etc.
Each child had a set role in the hangout. We had welcomers, questioners, Google mappers, runners, trackers, managers, Googlers, videographers, bloggers....

I loved how the Hangout meant that we had to work as a class to solve the problem. My favourite quote coming from the mappers who would shout out in gusto "I need a runner"(to convey information to the questioners). We developed key geographical and mapping skills and we had fun doing it!

 Photographing and filming the experience. 

Important mapping information being passed on. 

We are keen to try this again and I am in the process of organising some schools that are further afield than Auckland.