The Raincoat Challenge

Team Building

In the beginning of Term 1, the learning coaches decided to give the learners a team building challenge.   In groups of 5-6, they had to design and make a raincoat out of 10 plastic bags and some tape.    The raincoat had to be made strong enough to withstand a running test, and also water-tight so that the model would remain dry during the 'rain' test.  

It was a lot of fun and many of the learners enjoyed getting to know each other during the process of making the raincoat.  Unfortunately for many, their design skills were not the best and as a result, many of the models got very wet.   

Perhaps we could have this same design challenge at the end of the year.   I wonder whether their designing and making skills will have improved - what do you think?

Curious Playing

Our #Oresome Playground

Monday 28th August was a great day.   In fact, it was an #Oresome day because the long wait for our playground finally ended.  The fences came down and the play began.    

Through out terms 1, 2 and 3, we have been watching the work in progress - from the concept plan...

Then the construction...

And finally, it was completed!

This week, we are celebrating Curious Playing.   Sonny, Ahaana, Manveer and Brian H have produced a movie that demonstrates some areas of 'Curious Play' occurring in our playground and multispace.   They look forward to receiving your feedback.

What inspires the Learners from LH6?

We sure have done a lot of learning this term! But before the holidays start, the learners were think back to recall something that has truly inspired them up to now...

Have a read of LH6's collaborative inspirational poem to find out what has had the greatest impact on our wonderful, curious learners. Click on this link to look at every line of our poem.

Preparation for Learner Led Conferences

Over the next 2 days, the learners will be taking part in a very important meeting - the Learner Led Conferences! During these conferences, the learners will be bringing their parents to a meeting with their Whanau Learning Coach. Using their Learning Pathways as a visual prompt, the learners are going to share some of the learning they have taken part in during iDevelop, iExperience and iExplore.

If the Learning Coaches are honest, it has been a little challenging to get the learners to take responsibility for getting their Learning Pathways ready. However, over the last few weeks, several learners have managed their time more effectively and have created some sensational reflections about their work during Term 1 and Term 2. We can't wait to take part in the conferences and hear what they have to say!

The last step was preparing the learners for the actual meeting. The Learning Coaches modelled how the learners are expected to introduce their parents to the Learning Coach, and vice versa, and what it should look like when the learners are discussing the work on their pathway. Below, you can see the learners were asked to practise how the LLC should go amoung their Kagan groups. One learner shared their work and the other 3 learners acted as Learner Coaches to feedback on what went well and how their meeting could be even better if.

We look forward to seeing all the learners and their wonderful parents in the Learner Led Conferences. Let's see how passionately the learners share their work at OrmPS!

Challenging Chess Competition!

On Friday 30 June, these five superstars bravely entered the Auckland Girls Chess Tournament. With Miss Love, they left at 8:00am in the morning to arrive at Mount Albert War Memorial Hall for 9:00am. Once there, it was clear that the competition was very popular indeed! Below you can see just how many girls from a variety of Auckland schools loved chess and wanted to prove their chess capabilities...

Every girl took part in 6 rounds in the tournament. If you ask then, our lovely learners will definitely tell you that every single competitor was definitely very confident at chess, so it meant that our girls found their games quite challenging indeed! However, all the girls respected their partners, introduced themselves politely and displayed great sportsmanship throughout the day. We had a lot of fun and most girls won between 1 - 3 of their games! 

Another chess tournament will be coming up soon... we wonder who will represent OrmPS in that one?

Exceptional iExplore Presentations

It's that time of the term again!

The majority of our inquisitive learners have completed their iExplore presentations and are presenting to the whole Habitat, or small groups.  In term 1, the learners truly impressed us with their outstanding abilities to share their new knowledge, so the Learning Coaches weren't prepared for the fact that this term they'd be even better!

There were some star presentations this term that covered a whole range of intriguing topics. The whole Habitat learned all about the Titanic tragedy, a type of airplane, how to play the keyboard, a famous pop artist, how running affects our bodies... and the list goes on!

When sharing their new learning about Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, Samar and Sahar especially impressed their small group. All learners were incredibly engaged and all enjoyed learning about a different city around the world. During the reflection of 'what went well' (www) and how the presentation could have been 'even better if' (ebi), the LH6 learners asked to share the features of the girls' presentation that made it so successful. Hopefully they'll be able to use these top tips for their next presentations...

Scholastic Book Fair

A Visit to the Book Fair

We love books, and we love the Scholastic Book Fair!

It has been very exciting to see the transformation of our library space in OJC be transferred into a Scholastic book shop.   Today, some of the learners paid a visit to view the books on sale and write some of our favourite titles on a wish list.   

We can't wait to come back tomorrow when the 'shop' opens.

iReflect - Term 1

Today we used Padlet to record all the learning that has taken place during Term 1.   The Learners added their thoughts to this padlet and then used it to write their reflection on Term 1 learning.  Wow!  It's amazing to see how much we have packed in to 11 weeks of learning.

Holiday Freak Shakes

Interesting Reflections

This week, LH6 spent a little time at the end of a school day reflecting upon the last week. Learners were asked to collaboratively discuss 'what went well' (www) over the past few days, and how they could have been 'even better if...' (ebi). See their ideas above!

All the Learning Coaches were elated to find out about some of the learners' most enjoyable experiences e.g. being awarded Bumble for Star of the Day, or taking part in the Freak Shake Competition. On the other hand, the LCs were surprised to discover the many of the ideas for how to improve our Learning Habitat centred around activity in the toilets!

Both Learners and Learning Coaches found this exercise very valuable for thinking about designing experiences that the learners will love to take part in in the future (e.g. designing and making friends for Bumble/ sketching competitions), but also for how to improve the movement around our habitat in the future.

Excellent ideas LH6!

Daily 3

During iDevelop, we use Maths Daily 3 to help guide our independent and workshop learning.  As you can see from the image above, the three parts of Daily 3 are independent, with a partner or small group and writing.    During Math by Myself, we will be working on our own maths goals, with a focus on number knowledge.   We will be visiting the maths progressions on our Learning Pathway to see which areas need more development and understanding, and to also look ahead to plan our next steps.

Math Writing is a time to use our interactive maths journal.   Each journal entry will be a learning activity which will give us a better understanding of a concept, e.g. 3D shapes, metric measurement etc.  We will be able to refer back to our journal entries another time when we are unsure or stuck on a problem.  This should help us to become more independent learners!

Math with Someone is exactly that - with a partner or small group.    Yesterday and today we have been moving around in a rotation to learn and play a variety of maths games.  We were learning collaboratively!   Some capable learners were also selected to be the leader of each activity.   Their job was to introduce the activity and support us when we got stuck.  

Here are some photos of us during Math with Someone:

#Being Oresome

Collaborative Playing

The learning focus for weeks 1 and 2 has been 'collaborative play'.   At the end of week 1, Mr McNeil introduced this to us at our hui and we spent a little time in our habitat to unpack what it meant and what it would look like - both in the habitat and outside in the playground.   

It's often easier to get a better understanding of what something means if it is put into practise and we love to play so we didn't hesitate to put our thinking around 'collaborative play' into action and test our theory.   What better way to do this than to play a game together.   The object of the game was to keep a balloon off the ground.   We could use any part of our body to do this, except our feet - and we had to keep holding hands!

It sounds easy, but we had to move together if the balloon was hit outside of our circle.   Mrs Croll told us that at the beginning of the exercise, she saw groups stand still while the balloon drifted outside of the circle.  She also saw a number of groups break away when they stopped holding hands. After a little time, she saw a change in the way that we played.   We started collaborating more by talking to each other; working together to keep the game going.    

Collaborative Play is lots of fun!

Welcome!

New Beginnings

The beginning of the year is always exciting and for us, it's extra exciting because LH6 is going to be in the brand new learning environment of Ormiston Junior College (OJC).  

 Our empty learning environment

We started the term in Te Manawa because OJC were not opening their doors until Tuesday 7th February and although this was a small space, we all managed to fit in there quite nicely as there was not a lot of furniture.   

Moving day couldn't come quick enough and it was an #oresome feeling to finally climb the stairs up to our new space.    After helping our Learning Coaches carry up some of the resources, learning continued - now in our happy place!