This last week in Year 7 and 8 we have been focused on how to identify a theme or themes in a story. I love to use picture books to get these ideas through so we started with The Lorax by Dr Seuss as it tied in nicely with our Growing things theme. 

Then just to be sure we had it sorted we used I want my hat back by Jon Klassen - if I could stop laughing enough to read it! Classes had a chance to discuss with a buddy or two then record their ideas about two possible themes on a shared Slideshow.

Shared Google Slideshows work really well for this type of work as it is super easy for me to whizz through and see who has got it - and who needs a bit of help. It is also great as the ideas can be looked at by everyone and discussed. 

I let students choose if they wanted to work independently or in a pair as at this point in the year they are experts on how and when to work with others.  

I always love the final term of the year, it is my term that once I have everything planned I let myself start my Next Year's List. I love to think about everything that has been achieved over the year, and then how to build on it and make it even better. This year I am pondering how to bring back better connections with overseas classrooms - I feel we have been a little isolated recently! There are so many global projects out there and I am enjoying finding them and considering how they will help my students grow in their learning.

The Time Machine Term 2 2016

For our oral language task this term we learnt and performed plays. Our theme for the term had been Imagination, so all the plays had a time travel, invention element. We used a selection of New Zealand School Journal plays and a couple of groups elected to adapt some of their own writing to create original scripts. To make it all an extra bit exciting we fired up the Time Machine - the cast went into the Time Machine, then with bubbles, sound effects and generous puff of smoke (from the fire extinguisher)they jumped out ready to perform!

Experience tells me that group work, especially with plays can be a little challenging for some students...so before we started and then as we worked we used this rubric to keep an eye on how we were acting as group members. This was also the self assessment sheet that was submitted into Google Classroom after the big performance.