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!

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.

Space Princesses @ TIS - slideshows

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.

Melville Intermediate - 8C's Helpful Video.

Those of you following along as our 'Room with a View' task has developed will have seen us develop our two dimensional model of 8C Selwyn House, Christchurch.  The language of Geometry and the directional use of language have been key features in our developing our understanding of their classroom.  Today we were very pleased to be aware of a video response to our short movie that we posted earlier this week.   Even better than that, instead of simply walking around thier classroom, 8C from Selwyn House has responded with their own two dimensional model of thier classroom! Thanks so much to our friends!

Melville Intermediate - Minecraft Collaborative Site

We've had a Minecraft craze sweeping Room Five at the moment - our students are very excited by the game and the possibilities.  One site that we've really enjoyed look at is from Mr Wood and his collaborative Minecraft Quest site.  There are currently a range of challenges and examples on the site with more still to come.  You can visit Mr Woods wonderful site by clicking on the link here.

Since the end of last week the students of Room Five have had an opportunity to take part in the quests that are listed on the site.  We're writing about our experiences completing the quests, taking screen shots of the 'build' and will be posting them on our class page later this week.

Melville Intermediate - Selwyn House inspire our writing

Today in class we were looking for an energizer with our writing.   We were looking for a problem to solve or something to contribute too.  Of course our class is signed up for AoteaQuadblogging with three other classes from around New Zealand and we saw that our friends from Selwyn House in Christchurch had posted their new unit of study - but even better, posted a Google Doc of a series of problem and how to solve them.  We took the problems, modified them slightly, and then used them as our writing task for today. 

8C ECC - slideshow

Melville Intermediate - Week One, Term Three, Commenting.

Between now and Friday you need to visit the following sites and look at the work the students have posted to start the term.  You need to leave at least one comment to one of the pages.  Remember that you comment must follow the correct format, that it includes your first name only, our class and URL that the comment reflects that you have read or viewed the post in detail and asks at least one question at the end of it.  All of the classes that are listed are on our sidebar of classroom links or you can click directly on the URL below.

Miss Tyler Smiths Class from South Africa have set up a number of posts and links to other sites.  Some of your had your inquiry from Term Two based around aspects of Egypt, they've got some great links to the BBC Pyramid Building Site.  You can click on their class page at this address.

Room Seven at Vardon School in Hamilton, New Zealand have been busy posting at the end of last term and always have some fantastic work and posts on their site.  You can visit their page to look by clicking on this link here.

Our Quadblogging buddies from 8C in Selwyn House, Christchurch have started their new unit of inquiry, and this term they are looking at 'Sharing Our Planet' although its only the first week of school they've already used Google Drive to share the starting of their unit., which is something that we are going to do this morning in class, just before interval.  

Mrs Mel B's class from Tokomaru School like us are doing Netball for Physical Education for the rest of the term, they're also very luck that they are having representatives from Netball Manawatu come and run the sessions with their students.  You can che here.
ck out what they've been doing by clicking on the link

Room Twelve from New River Primary School are looking at 'Cultures of the World' this term.  They've started by learning a Samoan Sasa and having experts coming in for the tutition.  You can read about that and see the pictures.

Finally we can't forget our friends from Point England School.   Room Thirteen are very good communicators and have a wonderful class page, as do the students and other classes.  You can view their work on 'Lifes a Stage' for Term Three by looking at their Immersion assembly here

Melville Intermediate - Tawa Intermediate: Individual Students Pages

One of our buddies from Quadblogging Aotearoa, Tawa Intermediate has a fantastic class page, but also the students have wonderful pages of work too.  We are looking at questioning and interviews this term for writing so the task is straightforward.  

• View several individual blogs from Tawa Intermediate, choose one piece of work that you enjoyed.  
• Leave a comment to the author of the piece of work.   

The criteria for the comment is that it is constuctive, reflects on the piece of work and you will need to ask three open questions about that piece of work from reading it.   You will need to draft these questions prior to publishing and have a second student from Room Five to check the questions before you publish.

Remember to use the correct format for leaving the comments that we have agreed upon.  You are going to be required to do a follow up post for your portfolion on this activity so make sure that you take a screen shot of the post.

Melville Intermediate - Blogging Can Change things!

On Friday at our School Assembly our Principal, Mr Cooke, mentioned changes that were being made to the Melville Intermediate School Tuck Shop/Canteen as a result of students research and preparation.  This is the first time in the last few years that the menu has been changed and one of the key reasons for the change is this site and those people who contributed to it.  Earlier in the year we put a series of posts online asking for school menus to compare to ours.  We had a great response from so many of you from New Zealand and overseas.  We then became involved in a process of filtering, selecting and choosing improvements that could make to our menu.  Its taken some time but we were excited to hear on Friday that our menu will now include the first new item Lol Drinks.  Its just a small step and there's more to follow but its come as a direct result of our visitors, those who contributed to our asking and the students.  A great result all around.

New Canteen Menu 2013 - slideshows

In Room Five we have two School representatives Damien and Wattana.  This is what Damien wrote about the process of getting the drinks added to the menu:

My new canteen list is made out of other canteens around the world I asked schools if they had canteens and the results were huge. The Melville Intermediate student councillors needed ideas for more food and drinks that appeal to other students. So I and Wattana added some new foods to our Canteen list from other schools of the world. On Friday the 17^th May we went to our student council meeting in the school library and we presented our work of the proposal of our Canteen list Mrs Patterson agreed to some of it but overall it was actually pretty good. But the Lol drink was overall the best item on the list by far and the best school canteen list was from BALMORAL school.

Melville Intermediate - Quadblogging Survey for our Quadbuddies

One of the classes in our Quadblogging Group, Selwyn House, have had the brilliant idea of putting up a google doc as a way of getting to know the rest of the quad.  Damien and Wattana from Room Five have already been there, done that, which is wondeful but the rest of Room Five are going to fill the survey out on Thursday and Friday.   The link to post from Selwyn House is here.

Melville Intermediate Vs. Irn Bru

This afternoon in class Mr Webb posed a challenge to the students of Room Five - we are looking at cultural diversity and have made a great connection with Scotland, but we needed something more.  Not far from our school is a shop called 'Celtic Connections' where they sell a range of all things Scottish, so Mr Webb went there at our schools lunch break to track something special down for the class.

They did have haggis but they also had Irn-Bru  Mr Webb purchased some for the classroom.  We examined it in class, reading the label and looking at the information about it.  We then looked online about Irn-Bru and found out that it was the number one soft drink in Scotland and that in Scotland it is more popular than Coke or Pepsi.

As a class we made predictions about what we thought that it would taste like based on the ingredients and what it said on the label.  We compared it to drinks that we knew about other similar drinks that we have in New Zealand.

Then it was time for the taste test.  Each student had their own cup, was given an amount of Irn-Bru to try if they wanted too.  Everyone in the classroom of 26 opted to try some Irn-Bru.  We then had a round of Irn-Bru trivia with the answers contained in the videos that were posted to us by Lochardil Primary School Class P6/7. 
 
  R5VsIRNBru 2013 from myles webb on Vimeo.

Melville Intermediate - Mrs Moore and Techie Kids Teach Us Snapguide

The Techie Kids is one of our favourite student sites and last week they created a post about using Snapguide as a way to create things.  We've created similar guides in the past with procedural writing, but haven't used it before - and Jacqueline, one of the Techie Kids created a post about drawing a cartoon elephant.  We were up for the challenge so Room Five followed Snapguide and Jacquis post and these are the pictures that we came up with.  We'd like Jacqulene and the Techie Kids to judge the picture that they think is the best, that followed the steps as mentioned by Snapguide, and tell us who she thinks that the winner is!  The Melville Intermediate School Room Five student who wins will receive a prize in the classroom.

CartoonElephantJune5 - slideshow

Melville Intermediate - Video Collaboration with LochardilPrimary

Mr Webb wasn't at school on Friday, he was with the Melville Intermediate Girls Basketball team competing in the Kaitoa Middle School Basketball Tournament at the Sports Dome in Rotorua.  When the team returned Mr Webb found a stunning link through our class page! Our new friends from P6/7 Lochardil Primary School  from Iverness in Scotland have already replied to Jamie from Room Five questions with some wonderful comments.  Elizabeth left a further set of questions and Lochardil P6/7 have responded with a wonderful video answering our questions.  You can view their class page here.


Our orginal collaboration started with Jamie who located their class page with a google search - Jamie from Room Five left Lochardil Primary School their first every International comment, even though they'd had over 20,000 visitors! They responded to Jamies questions with some exceptional answers, and then asked us a set of questions so we in turn answered some of thier questions by
creating this video. P6/7 Lochardil Primary then responded to Elizabeth from Room Fives questions by creating the video at the start of this post.

On behalf of Melville Intermediate School I would like to thank all the students and staff of P6/7 Lochardil Primary School for their fantastic collaboration, we've done some in the past but the students of Room Five (and Melville Intermediate) are going to be so excited when they see this on Monday morning in class. Thank you.

Melville Intermediate - Jamie (and Melville) Famous in Scotland!

We've just started our work on Cultural Diversity which is our unit of work for this term.  Each of our students is researching a culture and as part of that culture is going to condcut an interview with someone from a different culture.  Jamie from Room Five is looking at Celtic/Scottish culture.  Earlier this week Jamie used google to locate some class pages from Scotland and left a comment asking for some assistance with her research questions.  The original post with the questions is here.  Its fair to say that she has been thrilled by the response and as a class we are very excited.  Jamie has recieved some wonderful feedback and we've discovered and made some wonderful connections with classes and students around the world. 

We'd like to thank everyone that has responded already to Jamie and in particular we'd like to thank the staff and pupils from P6/7 Lochardil Primary School in Scotland for their simply awesome response to Jamies Questions, which you can read by clicking here. 

Melville Intermediate - Lunches around the world!

We've had a fantastic collaborative response to our lunches request to our friends in New Zealand and around the world. It has started because our students want to change our own lunch menu and canteen/tuck shop.  We appealed for assistance from our friends.   We had some fantastic responses from Waimukau School, Mrs Bizy and Tokomaru School and If Only the Best Birds Sang.  Today we received some fantastic additional responses - we heard from our friends in New Town Kapai Kiwis in the United States, Open the Door to B4 from Reefton, New Zealand and The Techie Kids from Michican, USA.

We knew a little about the lunch system in the USA from what we've talked about with other classrooms before and what we've seen on TV shows and movies, but it was wonderful that Miss Lologa took the time to provide link with their lunch menus, and also on top of that, took the time to take some photographs from the lunch cafeteria today.  Thank you so much!

Our second exciting thing today was that Mrs Mackenzie, the teacher from the wonderful Open the Door to B4 Class page.  She sent us a fax this morning, it was a really interesting exercise for our class because we had students in the class who hadn't heard of a fax before and didn't know what one was.  We're creating a display in the classroom of all the menus and order forms that we've received.

Finally we received a lot of feedback from Mrs Moore and The Techie Kids in Michican.  What we loved about hearing from them was to clear up an issue about 'Canteen' which is what we'd asked  however in the United States of America a 'canteen' has a completly different meaning to what it does here in New Zealand, being a device that carries water as oppossed to a place to buy your lunch.

On behalf of Room Five @ Melville Intermediate School I'd like to thank everyone that has contributed towards our work so far, we haven't finished yet but to everyone whose contributed to our collaboration or helped in any way, thank you so much.

Melville Intermediate - Weather for the Techie Kids

Today in class we saw that we had a number of visitors from the Techie Kids in Michigan, USA.  We viewed their class page and saw that they were currently experiencing a significant amount of snow, and we asking for countries around the world to look at their weather.   We decided to answer their questions by creating a slide show of pictures around the school, research what the temperature is expected to be in the next week, what our conditions are at the moment and what is predicted, including the water restrictions that we are currently experiencing.  You can view their original post by clicking on the link here.  

Techie Kids - Weather in Hamilton, New Zealand - slideshow

We sent Jamie, Elizabeth, Jackie and Bianca outside to take the photographs above around Melville Intermediate School today to show the Techie Kids what the weather is like in Hamilton and created a series of videos for them explaining what the weather is like.

Melville Intermediate - Owen's Mystery Food!

 This mystery item belongs to Owen - he knows what it is, he likes to eat them for his lunch, but can anyone else out there identify what it is?

 We didn't have a successful identification from the students of Room Five, so is there someone out there who can help us? Or has Owen stumped our audience?

Owen is a new student to Melville Intermediate in Room Five for 2013.  Last week in class he was consuming a mystery item for his lunch.  No-one in class was sure as to what he was eating (although of course Owen knew) we were talking about who else would know? Do you?

Melville Intermediate - New Town Kapai Kiwis

Miss Lologa has been a big supporter of our class pages over the past few years.  She originally made contact with our class when she was still working in Wellington.  Now she is working in the United States of America. 

Her class have a wonderful class page here and have recently published a wonderful series of videos about inventions and innovations in North Carolina (where she teaches in the USA) and New Zealand.   You can click on this link to view the work.

To show you a wonderful example of their work, this some examples of their work.  This is only the second time in four years that we've embedded another teacher/classrooms work on this site - but it so deserves it.  If you have a spare moment please go and comment and view their wonderful work.

If you are a student from Room Five, Melville Intermediate School, and you are on the holidays if you go and leave a comment before the end of the school holidays at Miss Lologa class page, you qualify yourself for a special prize that can be redeemed once school starts in 2013.  Don't forget the regular Room Five commenting rules - it maybe the school holidays but the rules still apply.

Melville Intermediate - Can you help Qawiyya?

Although its the holdiays, I received this wonderful comment on a recent post from Mrs Nickersons Class, who are part of a global Christmas Project.  Mrs Nickerson and her class are relativley new to blogging but I thought that our audience might be able to help.  Here is Qawiyya's original comment:

Dear Mr. Webb, 

I'm a a fifth grade student from Princeton NJ, USA. My class is participating in a global project called Christmas Around The World. We are gathering information about the traditions from other parts of the world and the USA. I would appreciate it if you would ask your students to respond to our questions.

They can contact me through my blog on five alive or email my teacher, Mrs. Nickerson. Five Alive.

 

Questions:

Do you celebrate christmas? if not, what other winter holiday do you celebrate?

What are some specific traditions that your family has for this holiday?

What are some holiday traditions you have at your school?

Do you have a favorite holiday song?

Thank you for your participation. 

Sincerely, Qawiyya ( pronounced kuh-wee-ah)