Monday, September 30, 2013

Melville Intermediate - Selwyn House in Minecraft Presentation

Earlier this term, inspired by 'Room with a View' from the Figure it Out, Mathematics Curriculum Geometry Level Three Books - although we adapted it slightly.  Those of you familar with the teaching resource will know that under the material listed it suggests a speaker phone.  We put a twist on it, and used our Aotearoa Quadblogging Buddies, Tawa Intermediate and Selwyn House to communicate with by leaving comments on their blog and then responding to them.   This allowed us to refine our questioning technique and also improve the use of mathematical language that our students were using, this worked for both us and our buddies that we were working with.

We started with a two dimensional grid model, refined it with responses from our buddies, converted our two dimensional grid to a three dimensional sketch, contacted our buddies about the sketch, built a three dimensional cube model based on the sketch, and finally constructed the finished classroom in Minecraft.

We then contacted our buddies to show them the results.  Elizabeth, one of the Room Five students filmed this video explaining the process.  You can see some of the screenshots in the process here.
 
  ElizabethMinecraftExplanation from myles webb on Vimeo.

From a teaching perspective a week long project stretched into four weeks however the students were engaged, they were collaborating with other students form across New Zealand and they used Minecraft in a constructive way.  The producing of the final Minecraft model was the quickest part of the whole project.  We completed models of two out of three of our Quadblogging buddies and will continue posting the results during our term break and early next term.

Melville Intermediate - How do they celebrate Halloween in Ireland?

While its the school holidays in New Zealand at the moment, and our students are currently expreiencing the break between third and fourth terms of friends around the world are continuing to post and publish.   'If Only the Best Birds Sang' is a wonderful second grade site from Ireland that we've had the opportunity to collaborate with repeatedly this year.  You can see some of the collaborations with their class here on this site, such as when we first made contact with them, sending us gifts for St Patricks Day, or our Question and Answer Session for Cultural Diversity in TermTwo.

Recently we saw that they had begun getting ready to celebrate Halloween, which is coming up later next month.  We weren't sure exactly how much Halloween was celebrated in Ireland until this fantastic post was made on thier site, so much detail and wonderful information.  We'll be sure to spare this with our students when they return to school, and it would have fitted perfectly with our 'Cultural Diversity' work this year.  Thanks so much for the great post!

Sunday, September 29, 2013

Melville Intermediate - Ski Trip Recount Day Two

This recount was written by Chloe from Room Five and is about the Melville Intermediate School Ski Trip (Day Two) that took place in Week Six of Term Three.


We all woke up and we got told to get into our snow gear we were all in our snow gear we had some breakfast and I had bacon an eggs it was nice. We all brushed our teeth and we went to get our hired gear witch was our boots, pants (if need), snowboard and wrist guards and everybody had done all made it down we had to have a lesson we went for a run down the mountain we had a 2 hour lesson it was tiring we had finished our lesson and we got to go anywhere in Happy Valley.   We had some lunch it was chips, ham and chesses buns and biscuits. Then we got to go back out snowboarding we ended the day with having a last ride on the magic carpet. The magic carpet is like a little escalator but with NO steps. We went back up the chairs lifts and dropped off our hired gear and went back up the to the  top with our boots and snowboard and everyone got up the lodge we were locked out so Mr Keegan rang Jodi who was in her office so she ran down the steps and unlocked the door. We all went and ran to our rooms got dressed cause we were all wet from the snow everyone got change we hanged out for about half an hour then it was dinner time we had spaghetti bolognaise and like it we had about 10 minutes and most people played foosball and we had pudding we had fruit crumble and ice cream we all ate it we had half an hour till bed we were playing I dear you and taking pitchers and videos. Then it was time to go to bed that was the end of day 2.

Friday, September 27, 2013

Melville Intermediate - Room 15@Tawa Intermediate in Minecraft

Nathan G and Daniel have been working on this virtual map of Room Fifteen, Tawa Intermediate School.  They are part of the Lumpy Space Princesses from Room Five.  Earlier this week the group completed a two dimensional grid map of the Tawa Inatermediate classroom folllowing detailed discussion and a first attempt at drawing the classroom.

Today Minecraft was used to construct Room Fifteen on the basis of the grid map.   The buidling took place between 9:00am and 9:30am from start to finish.

This is what Nathan G wrote about the activity:
this is me and Daniels idea of room 15 at Tawa Intermediate. we built this on mine craft with clues from the students in that class. the first picture is a view from above the cloak bay, and in the second picture it is a picture from the white board. behind the wall paintings is the cloak bay.

This is what Daniel wrote about the acitivity:\
Me and Nathan G design on minecraft what we thought what Room 15 at Tawa Intermediate school looked like from the inside. The first thing we had to do was create a 2D model of Room 15 then create a 3D model of Room 15 out of small blocks then the final step was was creating Room 15 on minecraft which took only 45 mins.  

We also completed this task mapping Room 8C from Selwyn House in Christchurch, the details of that post are here.

Thursday, September 26, 2013

Melville Intermediate - 3d Modelling in Minecraft

We're fast approaching the end of term in Room Five, and we've attempting to complete our Drawing to Scale/two dimension to three dimension/modelling of another classroom.  As you know we've completed the task with Selwyn House and were trying to currently complete this task for Room Fifteen at Tawa Intermediate - we've set ourselves a deadline of tomorrow, the last day of term, and have been busy working in all four Mathematics groups to complete the task.

These are some of the screen shots from the Minecraft creations of 8c Selwyn House, Room Fifteen Tawa Intermediate and Room Five, Melville Intermediate Schoool.

Melville Intermediate - Inter Intermediate Basketball Recount

On Tuesday the 24th of September the Girls and Boys Basketball teams from Melville Intermediate went to Te Awamutu for the Inter Intermedidate Tournament.  Our first game was against Fairfield Intermediate.  They didn't turn up so we had to verse people from other teams.   Our second game was against Morrinsville Intermediate, we won that game and in the end the score was 12-8.   We were able to ge those points in the last minute.  Our third game was against Berkly.  We lost by miles but still stuck in the game.  Our fourth game was against Matamata Intermediate and we defeated them.

Our semi-final was against Cambridge Middle School.  We won that game, but it was a close game, because they were undefeated and we beat them and the score was 15 to 12.   Now in the finals we had to verse Te Awamutu Intermediate.  At first we were in the lead but then Te Awamutu fought back and they were in the lead by one point.  In the last two minutes we got more points then the points came 20 to 17 to us, so 'hurray! to us!"

Recount by Leseli, Room Six.

Vs. Cambridge Middle School 24/9/13 from myles webb on Vimeo.

Highlights from the Cambridge Middle School Semi-Final which Melville won 15-13. Cambrdige are in the light Blue and Melville are in Red/Green.

Melville Intermediate - NZAIMS 2013 Recount

On Sunday 15th of September the Melville Intermediate Girls Basketball team went to Tauranga to compete in the NZ AIMS Games.   Later that night we went to the opening ceremony.   The opening ceremony was cool. 

Monday was our first game was against Aquinas College lost by 1 point.   We won our other games later that day against Dio from Auckland and Kristin School from Aukland.  It was tough but we still got back up and won our games 40-10 against Dio and 35-28 against Kristin. There were a lot of fouls  in these games.

Tuesday we played Saint Cuthberts College from Auckland and Northcross Intermediate we won both of those games. There were a lot of rep players which made it difficult but it was challenging and fun for our team. We were excited to win those two games.  The other game on Tuesday was against Tauranga Intermediate this was a tough game and they played really well against us and unfortunatly we lost 35-19.

Wednesday we went to bayfair shopping center,because we only had 1 game late that day.we played a very hard game losing to Te Kura Te Koutou, who eventually won the whole competition.  They beat us 12-60.

Thursday we playerd off for 7th-8th place unfortunatly losing against The Knox school from Australia.  We thought that we would have won this game however we were only just behind at half time and the game ended up very close.   The Knox ended up winning 23-28.

We tried our best and played hard to represent Melville Intermediate  at the nationals.  Overall we came fourth in our pool which we were happy with and there were 17 teams in the competition altogether.

Report by Nichola and Icis from Room Five.


Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Melville Intermediate - 3d Modelling Room 15 @ Tawa Intermediate

Today we got back into one of our Mathematics activities that were completing before the end of term - the mapping of Room Fifteen @ Tawa Intermediate School.   This process has been a bit more drawn out than expected but thats because of the challenge that has been posed by a classroom that dosen't have a traditional set up.  What Room 15@ TIS are is extremely active online, so today the 'ban' from our classroom teacher was lifted allowing our students to look online at everything they could find.  We've had some wonderful questioning prior but we spent this morning looking at Room Fifteen from an online perspective.  The students then compared this to their notes that they'd taken, the feedback from the students that they'd received and reworked the maps that we've already been working on.  The group that was told in the first round of mapping was the closet, the Lumpy Space Princesses, were able to refine their model and then start constructing Room Fifteen in Minecraft.

Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Melville Intermediate - Inter Intermediate Waikato Basketball

Today in Te Awamutu Melville Intermediate School competed in the 2013 Waikato Inter Intermediate Basketball competition.  The Melville Intermediate Girls team started off the day with a tight game against Morrinsville Intermediate.  Morrinsville were leading for most of the game before Melville were able to take the lead with two minutes remaining a register a win 12-8.  Melvilles next game was against Berkly School, who blew Melville off the park.  Berkley dominated the game winning 6-22.  Melville then needed to defeat Matamata Intermediate to qualify for the semi-finals.  Another tight game saw Melville edge Matamata 10-8, Melville duly qualfiying for the semi=finals.

In semi-finals Melville had to take on the unbeaten Cambridge Middle School.  Melville Girls put on a huge display both offensivly and defensivly.  Melville took an early lead which stretched out to six points at one stage, although Cambridge were always in touch.  Cambridge closed the gap in end but by this stage it was too late Melville winning 15-12.  In the other semi-final Berkley were eliminated by Te Awamutu Intermediate.

The 2013 finals beckoned and up against Melville were Te Awamutu Intermediate.  It was another exciting encounter with Melville establishing an early lead before a Te Awamutu fightback.  Te Awamutu finally took the lead with three and half minutes remaining however Melville struck back and scored an impressive 20-17 win.  This was Melville Intermediates first Inter Intermediate competition win in 2013 and they were very happy to successfully defended the Waikato Schools title which we won last year.
  Vs Te Awamutu Int Int Finals 24/9/13 from myles webb on Vimeo.
This is highlights of the final filmed by Reid from Room Twelve.

Monday, September 23, 2013

Melville Intermediate - Bianca's Japanese Blog

Bianca, one of our Room Five students is currently experiencing Japan as part of our school trip along with three other students from Melville Intermediate School and our Deputy Principal, Mrs Bleakin.  Bianca has created a blog to write from while she is Japan.  You can view it by clicking on the link here.

Melville Intermediate - Vs. Northcross Intermediate

Filmed by Davy Grace this is highlights from the Melville Intermediate (in red/green) Vs. Northcross Intermediate (in blue) game from the second day of the 2013 NZAIMS Basketball Tournament.   Northcross came into this game having lost, like Melville Intermediate to Aquinas College by a solitary point.   The game would decide fourth placing in Pool B.   Melville, who had not defeated Northcross in this competition took a small half time lead which they were able to convert to a 35 to 19 win.   Filmed on Tuesday 17th September 2013 from ASB Baypark Arena.
  Vs. Northcross Intermediate 17th Sept. 2013 from myles webb on Vimeo.

Melville Intermediate - Imagine, Create, Illustrate

Imagine, Create, Illustrate MIS Show

On Tuesday 17th September 2013 there wawhen its a show called Imagine, Create, Illustrate it all started at 1.30pm when the people who have paid for the show went into the hall and sat on the stairs and got ready for the  show to begin. After 5 minutes a man was talking to us about his childhood then he was doing a play about us when we were 3 yrs old  it was really funny because he poured water all over him and then after that a lady tought us how to draw aacarrot, apple a monkey and said just a little bit of detail can change the whole art work or drawing. I really enjoyed the whole show and I would say it was worth $5.  Report by Wattana Room Five.

The lady was drawing  cartoon figures and she was teaching us how to follow somone while they are drawing the same picture . The man told us to write somthing random about your figure I chose to say somthing about a volcano and a jungle . While that time I really enjoyed my time there as they really taught me some new skills with my art and writing skills .

report by Harry from Room Five.  The art in this post was created by the students who were inspired by the show.   The performance was at Melville Intermediate School on Tuesday 17th September 2013.

Saturday, September 21, 2013

Melville Intermediate - Vs. the Knox School

On Thursday 19th September 2013 Melville Intermediate School played against The Knox School from Melbourne in the 2013 NZAIMS play off for 7th and 8th.   Melville Intermediate are in their traditional Green/Red uniforms.   The Knox School are in the white uniforms.  This was filmed by the Melville Intermediate School bench during the game.  Thanks to Whaea Dotty.  Final score was The Knox 28 Melville Intermediate 23.
Vs The Knox School 19/9/13 from myles webb on Vimeo.

Melville Intermediate - NZAIMS Games Review

Melville Intermediate Schools Girls Basketball team returned from the NZAIMS Games in Tauranga on Friday afternoon.  The team competed with teams from throughout the country during the week.

The first up game against Aquinas College from Tauranga resulted in a narrow 27-28 loss for Melville.  Following this Melville were able to defeat Dio School from Auckland 40-10 and Kristen School from Auckland 35-28.   Day two saw three crucial games.  In the first Melville were able to come up with a win against St Cuthberts College 35-4.   

The secong game was against unbeaten and tournament hosts Tauranga Intermediate School.  Tauranga had been in dominating form, undefeated after four games, although Melville Intermediate had managed to defeat Tauranga at the quarter final stage in both 2011 and 2012.  This year it was not to be, an awesome defensive display from Tauranga combined with some decisive counter attacking saw them take a commanding 2-24 half time lead.  Althogh Melville Intermediate were able to peg Tauranga back in the second half the gap proved too much for Melville to bridge, Tauranga winning 38 to 19.

The final Tuesday game, Melvilles sixth in two days saw us take on Northcross Intermediate who had a single defeat.  Melville played their game of the tournament defeating Northcross 34-19.  That left a final pool game, against Kura o Te Koutu from Rotorua.  Melville came up against the eventual New Zealand and NZAIMS Champions who were in dominate form and who beat Melville 12-60.

This left Melville having a play off game in the tournament for 7th and 8th place against The Knox School from Melbourne.  Melville were hoping to finish with a win, however again it was not to be and in another very close game Melville were defeated 23-28, finishing 8th (out of 17 teams) for the 2013 nationals.

At the finals prizegiving Chilo Heurea from Melville Intermediate was named in the 2013 NZAIMS Tournament team in recognition of her outstanding play and leadership.  This meant she was recognised as one of the top twelve players in New Zealand for her age.

Our warmes congratulations to our friends at Koromatua School from Hamilton who were runners up oin the Boys and Girls Competition.   We would also like to acknowledge Kura O Te Koutu who were worthy champions, the first school to achieve this honour twice.

Sunday, September 15, 2013

Melville Intermediate - NZAIMS Games Starts Today!

From today until Friday Melville Intermediate are one of 193 Schools competing in the NZAIMS Games in Tauranga.    The New Zealand Association of Intermediate and Middle Schools Games is the elite sport competition for Y7/8 students in New Zealand, which Melville Intermediate has competed in for the last five years in Girls Basketball.  We are one of 18 teams in this years competition while the games themselves not only have teams from New Zealand but Australia, including the Knox School from Melbourne who MIS defeated in the 3rd/4th play off last year, and the Cook Islands (in Netball). 

Mr Webb is the manager of the Melville Intermediate School Girls team and will be onsite in Tauranga for the week of competition, we will have a limited posting schedule on this site during this time (although we are going to try and update live from the tournament and post the results online here).  We will be returning to our regular posting schedule from next week and we will be replying and making connections again.

Saturday, September 14, 2013

Melville Intrermediate - Special Assembly Performances

These two videos are the other two acts from Melville Intermediates School Assembly on Friday 13th September.  The acts are performin next week locally.  This video is Trinity from Room One who is performing 'Titanium by David Guetta'.  She is assisted by Raven.
Trinity @ Assembly 13/9/13 from myles webb on Vimeo.
The other act that was making their performance public was Kayla from Room Tweleve.
Kyla Ave Maria @ Assembly 13/9/13 from myles webb on Vimeo.

Friday, September 13, 2013

Melville Intermediate - Makere, Trinity and Raven @ Assebly 13/9/13

This coming Thursday students from Melville Intermediate School will be performing at a local Hamilton Cafe, Fresca to entertain the customers.  As a warm up to the performance the acts that are going to be performing to the public gave a special display at Assembly.  This was recorded by Kayla from Room Five and is Makere, Raven and Trinity preforming 'I don't wanna (talk about it)'.  Recorded on Friday 13th September 2013.
Makere, Raven and Trinity @ Assembly 13/9/13 from myles webb on Vimeo.

Thursday, September 12, 2013

Melville Intermediate - Ski Trip 2013

Melville Intermediate - School Ski Trip 2013

This week nine students from Room Five, Melville Intermediate were lucky enough to participate in the School Ski Trip to the snow.  This is a recount written by Chloe from Room Five, about day one.

On Sunday we got to the school and there was one person there.   Then I got there and after about everyone started to get there.  Nearly everybody was there.  Mr Keegan told us to be at school at 1:30pm and he was seven minutes late.   We went into his room and he called out everyones name and everyone was there so we loaded up in our cars and said goodbye to everyone and off we went.

We stated to listen to some songs.  I was in Bianca's car her car was cool.  We went to sleep (not the driver) casuse we were in the car for three hours.  We woke up and were there "yaaa".  Everyone saw a little bit of snow and some people started to have a snowball fight.  Then we had to get our stuff and carry it up a big hill wil lots of rocks.   Everyone was like "are you for real?" and Mr Keegan was like yup and we were like owwwwww.  So we all hardened up and we carried it up.  It was so hard we got in and we unpacked and we were called for dinner.  We went up the steps and Mr Keegan have some instructions and then we had dinner.  It was butter chicken. Then when we were finished w
e had to go back to our rooms and we chilled out there for a while.  About ten minutes later we went and had pudding.   We had Ice Cream, Fruit Salad and Chocolate Moose.   We all had tweny minutes until bed time so we had a few games and then it was time to go to bed.

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Melville Intermediate - Girls Basketball heading to NZAIMS 2013

Our Girls Basketball team is heading to Tauranga for the NZAIMS Games starting this Sunday.  We've spent the year preparing for the tournament playing on Tuesday nights at the YMCA on Pembrooke Street in Hamilton.  Our Girls team has gone on a thirteen game undefeated streak during term one and two, to playing games in the 'B' pool against Boys teams and Club teams.  Our final game on Tuesday took place against Flyers Lakers.   Earlier this term we'd been defeated 22-25 in a close tight encounter.   In this game Melville were able to dominate from the outset, taking a 25-6 half time lead, before winning 39-23.  Filmed by Maia and the bench.
Vs. Flyers Lakers 9/9/13 from myles webb on Vimeo.

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Melville Intermediate - Is THIS Room 15 @ Tawa Intermediate School?

As part of Geometry for Mathematics we are attempting to create scale maps of classrooms, we have already created maps of own classroom and Selwyn House School from Christchurch.  Both these experiences provided us with better questioning and reasoning.  However our newest challenge has really tested our students - a map of Room Fifteen at Tawa Intermediate School.   They've got some unusual learning stations and classroom set up (no teachers desk for instance!).  We orginally had a detailed description of the classroom provided by one of the students, Tom.  We then reworked that description with additional information provided in the form of questions asked through the Room Fifteen class page.  Today each Mathematical group in Room Five presented their version of Tawa Intermediate School - and as you can see from the videom, four different groups would appear to mean four different maps!
Is this Tawa Intermediate School? from myles webb on Vimeo.

Monday, September 9, 2013

Melville Intermediate - Tawa Intermediate: Mapping in 2d and Minecraft

At present we're engaging with the students from Room Fifteen Tawa Intermediate.  In the past two weeks we've completed a virtual model of Selwyn House, Christchurch.  We followed the same proces that were undertaking with Tawa Intermediate.   

We left comments to start with on the class or students blogs that we are engaging with.  We hoped that by leaving these comments we could construct a two dimensional grid model of the classroom.  The original inspiration for the task was 'Room with a View' from the Mathematics Geometry Figure it Out Books.   What we discovered from the task is that we really need to work on our questioning.  Sometimes we are asking questions that need to be clarified or more precise.  Sometimes we were asking questions but weren't clear enough about the information that we were looking to gain.

Based on the students responses we created a two dimesional grid map.  We then created a three dimensional version using uni-block cubes.   We then posted this online so our Aotearoa Quadblogging buddies could leave us feedback and we could modify the design if required.

We then converted this block map to a three dimesional model.  Finally we used Minecraft to build the classroom.  

With Tawa Intermediate we have discovered some challenging ideas - not every student has a desk, this is a new concept for the students to get their heads around.  We were also floored to hear that the teacher does not have a desk! In Room Five, Melville Intermediate we've got desk top computers - not so at Tawa Intermediate who have laptops and portable devices.  They've also got a wall dividing the classroom in two.  

Its been a brillant experience for the students of Melville Intermediate and its only just begun.  You can see some of the work in our modelling books here.

Melville Intermediate - Groups of Five

Saturday, September 7, 2013

Melville Intermediate - A Week until the NZAIMS Games!

Melville Intermediate is competing in the NZAIMS again this year, for the fifth consecutive year in Girls Basketball.   The tournament which starts in Tauranga next Sunday with whats sure to be a fantastic opening ceremony is the biggest students sporting tournament in New Zealand.  There are 193 schools competing this year!

Melville Intermediate School have a particularly proud tradition in this competition - winning the Girls competition in 2009 and making the semi-finals every year since finishing third in 2011 and 2012.   Currently we are the only school to have achieved this feat.

The team (and Mr Webb) will be onsite at the tournament for all of the week from Sunday 15th September to Friday 20th September, Mr Webb as manager of the Melville Intermediate School team.

We have confirmed games against Aquinas College, Dio College (Auckland), Kristin School (Auckland) on Monday 16th, St Cuthberts College (Auckland) Tauranga Intermediate, Northcross Intermediate (Auckland) on Tuesday 17th and Kura O Te Koutu (Rotorua) on Wednesday 18th. 

This site will still be posting for that week and as much as possible we will be updating the games as the results come to hand.  If you are present at the venue and would like to say hello, please do so, all games are at the TECT Arena at Baypark Stadium.

Thursday, September 5, 2013

Melville Intermediate - Cross Country Highlights

Today Melville Intermediate held their 2013 Cross Country race at school.  Both year groups competed in Boys/Girls races looking to win house points for our team competition.   The races were held at 9:00am and 10:00am and Room Five had the first highlights online by 11:00am.  This video was recorded by a number of Room Five students on Thursday 5th September 2013.  Edited by Bianca and Kristal from Room Five.
CrossCountry2013 from myles webb on Vimeo.

This is Harry from Room Five's recount about the School Cross Country.
It was the day of the Cross Country.  My legs were shaking like a dogs tail.   Mr Keegan blew the horn.  "Hang on, hang on - that was just a test".  "What?" I said.  Then the horn went for real everybody was pushing and nudging.  Someone pushed me over.  I got up and kept running then a few seconds later I stood on a giant thistle! Ouch! I stood in a spot picking the thistles out of my foot but I kept on running.    Suddendly I was approaching the giant Melville High School field, it was huge! As I was starting to get to the end I spewed in the bush but then I kept on running the last straight.  "Yus!" I said but someone was behind me so I sprinted my legs off then I crossed the finish line.   All the girls were squealing like babies, Katipa wrote my group down.   I was dissapointed in myself but after all that had happened I still finished the race.

Melville Intermediate - Cross Country 2013

This morning the Melville Intermediate School Cross Country was run between 9:00am and 10:00am.  The entire school took place in racing in Y7 and Y8 Boys and Girls.  This slideshow is from the event and more details will follow.

Wednesday, September 4, 2013

Melville Intermediate - Art Technology 2013

In Art for Technology we are doing 'Fantastic Creatures'.   First before we did anything we had to draw a part mural from 'Where the Wild Things Are'.   Once we had done that we had to make and design out own creature that was 'Fantastic' and they had to made from recycling materials mainly bottles.   An example is that some people have made some dinosaurs and I have made a sea monster.  We had to paper mache them once we had the design so that the model was strong.   The photographs that we took from Art Tech are by Owen and Josh and show the design process.

Tuesday, September 3, 2013

Melville Intermediate - Tesselations @ MIS

We've currently looking at Geometry for Mathematics.  One of the topics that our group the Lumpy Space Princesses took a digital camera around the Melville Intermediate School grounds looking for evidence of Tesselations.  They then took photographs of what they thought were tesselations, do you agree? What makes a pattern a tesselation?
Tesselations @ MIS on PhotoPeach

Monday, September 2, 2013

Melville Intermediate - 8C Selwyn House in Minecraft

We've been working on our Selywn House School models for the past week and a half in Mathematics for Geometry.   Those of you who've been following us with the series of posts will know that we originally used the Figure It Out Books 'Room with a View' as our inspiration for this activity.  We modified it slightly - we used blogging comments to start constructing our maps and when we didn't get enough information we went back and left follow up comments.  The allowed us to create our two dimensional models.  We then used this to create our block models of 8C Selwyn House, we then collaborated with them and modified our designs.  The final stage in this process, from two dimensional model to three dimensional model was for our students to use Minecraft to create a three dimensional model of the classroom.   This is Elizabeths model of the inside of Selwyn House, Christchurch.


This is what Elizabeth wrote about the task:

For Maths, Mr Webb asked us to choose a class, ask them some questions that would get us information about what there class looks like, and draw out our version of what we think the class looks like from the information that we got back from them. I chose 8c Selwyn House and asked them about 32 questions. I wanted to get as much information as I could so I could get the classroom exactly right. I ended up getting it wrong but I don’t mind because it was really fun to draw the classroom and create it on Minecraft. Here are my screenshots: