Creative report writing on invented animal.

The Zambie by Zayne.

A Zambie is a cat like animal. It has slimy skin and long feathers so it can glide. It's so strong it could move a huge rock. It has good eyes and it can see through fog and it can see in the darkness. It only needs water when it's slime comes off but it will regenerate its slime on its skin. They are very  rare. You would be an millionaire if you owned one. They live in the jungle and they sleep in the bush to keep camouflaged but their skin is dark green.  The slime on their skin is green. Sometimes it is unfriendly to humans  but only if you annoy it or attack it. It only eats leafs and vegetables.

SOLO taxonomy hand signals

We use SOLO taxonomy to assess our writing and show us where we are and what our next steps are. Students of all ages can use SOLO levels, rubrics and frameworks to answer the following questions:

• What am I learning?
• How is it going?
• What do I do next?

SOLO Taxonomy (structure of observed learning outcomes) provides a simple, reliable and robust model for three levels of understanding – surface deep and conceptual (Biggs and Collis 1982).

At the prestructural level of understanding, the task is inappropriately attacked, and the student has missed the point or needs help to start. The next two levels, unistructural and multistructural are associated with bringing in information (surface understanding). At the unistructural level, one aspect of the task is picked up, and student understanding is disconnected and limited. The jump to the multistructural level is quantitative. At the multistuctural level, several aspects of the task are known but their relationships to each other and the whole are missed. The progression to relational and extended abstract outcomes is qualitative. At the relational level, the aspects are linked and integrated, and contribute to a deeper and more coherent understanding of the whole. At the extended abstract level, the new understanding at the relational level is re-thought at another conceptual level, looked at in a new way, and used as the basis for prediction, generalisation, reflection, or creation of new understanding (Hook and Mills 2011).

                        Couper and Keeley using given success criteria for Instruction Writing to make a                                                           rubric showing the steps at each stage.

Lots of petting for Brownie

peace poetry

                                                        

                               My Peace Poem

Always be friendly

You have to say no more wars        

Now peace starts with me.

By Nathan        

                                   

Article about us in the Southland Times.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/southland-times/news/82979546/st-teresas-school-pupils-celebrate-schools-peace-week

Front page of the Eye today

SOLES FOR SYRIA

http://www.soles.org.nz/

On Thursday 11th August, we will be having a shoe less day for Syria.

From our headgirl Teneille:


"Tomorrow we are having a Soles for Syria day where we will not wear shoes for a day and give a donation. I contacted the students who are running it and said we are going to take part. They want to raise $50,000 for Syria. "

Soles for syria

This week is NZ Peace Week. The theme for this is Dialogues for Peace.
The Peace Foundation New Zealand, started Schools' Peace Week to educate people of the consequences of nuclear war and to campaign for a world of nuclear weapons. The date of Schools’ Peace Week commemorates Hiroshima Day on 6 August, and Nagasaki Day on 9 August. The event has become increasingly popular in New Zealand and abroad each year and students are engaged in various activities, which promote peaceful practices in our schools and communities.  By making small changes we are able to empower people to create a safe world based on justice and human rights as well as to build a sustainable environment and peaceful relationships.
We have been making peace jigsaws which will link together to show unity. We will also design a mural which will be painted onto the school wall in Term 4. Yesterday Joanne from the Express newspaper came to interview us and take a photo. She was amazed at how much work we were doing around the theme of Peace. We also made posters to show what a peacemaker and a peacebreaker is. The children are trying hard to be peacemakers in our classrooms.

Pugs

Pugs
They are from China they where bred to be a guard dog. They have a mark on their forhead that was mentioned to say 'Prince'in Chinese. Some say they are the cutest dogs.
And they are. It costs over $1000 to get one and medical costs are expensive. Sometimes their eye balls can pop out. If you see them doing that you just have to put them back in and not go to the vets but it happens a lot in one day you will have to. Sometime they will stop breathing because of their flat face. If you want to see more go here 
http://pugtips.com/health-issues za/  and that's my report for pugs.
By Couper

Insect hotel

The juniors have built an insect hotel to attract bugs to our garden.

Dougal listening to Tiare read.