My class is awesome!!!!!

In the novel Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney we have just read a scene called the independent study. In the book it is essentially where the teacher gives the class a topic, leaves the room for an hour and comes back and looks at the work they have achieved. Taking a leaf out of the Kath Murdock book we decided to leave what we had planned for the morning and give it a go. We spoke about the task and also how it related to our U-ROCK values which is really what this activity is about. Most specifically it is about How well children can work together in a class setting with no teacher input. 

I have to admit I was a little worried about how this could go but I was confident with how our class has been running this year and that they could achieve this task hands down, if they wished.

So, I left for 20 minutes. I did have a secret pair of eyes just in case there was a need for teacher assistance but it was not required. On returning after 20 minutes I arrived to children working cooperatively, heads down brainstorming and drawing, bouncing ideas off each other and from different groups. It was amazing to watch your class running like clockwork and the children not needing you to achieve their tasks. There is a great amount of pride I experienced when watching them. In hindsight I only wish I had set up a video in the corner just to show them and our followers how awesome they are and to show others that there is no barrier to children achieving when they put their minds to it.  
 

Kahikatea's Silly Olympics

As a rev up to our inquiry unit this term the Kahikatea team decided to have a silly Olympics to coincide with the London Olympics. This is what we did. First, we split into 8 countries.

 We made flags for those countries....

Then we made chants...

 Then we had our Olympics. Some of the events were the tarp pull, the bucket run, the caterpillar crawl, dress up sprints and the Weet-Bix eating competition.

Diary of a wimpy kid & U-ROCK

 

We have just started reading this book as a class and are looking at it from a few different angles. We are looking at the writer Jeff Kinney's style and the way he has set out his book. We are also looking at the way he has used personal voice. We have also tied in our U-Rock values and we are doing character descriptions of the main characters.