Time is up! Food in a day!

We have just completed a task that was set to be completed in approxiamately 50 minutes.  Some students are looking exhausted, some happy, some lost and some very frustrated.

We had to put together a presentation that would show what food we ate in a day with a conclusion or reflection on whether the food we ate was good for us according to the food pyramid.

Here's how the students felt about this task - having only 50 minutes to complete it.

-Confusing

-fun

-frustrating

-difficult

-hard

-under pressure

-alright

-'got my brain working'

-interesting

-complicated 

-challenging

-awesome

-easy

What did this task challenge to do?

-Get it completed!

-Focus on the rubric

-Pressure to get recording ourselves right

-Focus on the most important part of task - which WASN'T to make it pretty!

-making real attempts to finish

-challenged my mind

There's more to come!

Time is up! Food in a day!

Speak to me!

Zooming around, helping this and that child with things - now that I have a moment to reflect - they could have and should have fixed the problem they had independently! But time is ticking and I can't wait!

No it's not me being grumpy - on reflection I kept the 'Mrs T will fix it quickly' going, rather than get the 'student to work it out'. In our rush to get the job done, we are at fault causing our children to often not work things through to the end as we 'don't have the time' to wait around for it to happen?

Due to the 'rush' behaviour, I think it's helped the culture of pointing, grunting and incomplete sentences to rise. Now being more concious of the almost nil response or clear requests that need to be made when needing assistance, I am reminding myself and those I help to 'speak to me'. I've failed to pick this up often. I am making more of an effort to remind myself and my students that we must speak in a clear and concise manner to assist each other.

How have you been communicating in class? Have you found yourself in the same situation? Overcome it? Never had this problem?

Our favourite things to eat are treats

Yesterday we ran a quick survey in our class. Our goal was to find out what our favourite meal was - that included dessert.

Around 90% of our class chose fast food as their favourite meal. Burger King coming out on top.
KFC was a close second. A couple of students shared that Subway meals were their favourite.

We then had a close look at a food pyramid that you can find on the Harold website. We discovered that nearly all our food choices fell into the 'Treat' section, where the food is described as 'Sugary, sugary, fatty, fatty!'.

After some discussion we came to the agreement that we did not eat this type of food daily and so hopefully we were not in danger of eating too much sugar and fat.

Today we are going to look at what we actually eat everyday, using the food pyramid again we hope to discover that we have a more balanced diet than that that which was discovered with our favourite food survey.

Sonny Fai

Talanoa mai...o se tama e tausi aiga, o se tama e usita'i, o se tama e alofa...

At the moment Sonny is on the minds of many in our communities, in Aotearoa and further. And so he will be for a long time to come.

Samoan and further, this tragedy has caused many to come together to support and help the Fai family in any way possible. The Warriors have been at the forefront of this which is such a blessing to the family and to the New Zealand nation. Times like this whilst very sad, show the great people we have in our country. Whether it be management in the Warriors or a school mate to Sonny, a fan whose never actually met Sonny - people have been moved so much to do anything to help, and so they've turned up all over the place. The beach, at the family home, Warriors HQ, websites, tributes on youtube - everywhere.

Having been in the midst of family losses often, I know for a fact that presence of people alone comforts the soul. So the flow of people to the beach and family I believe have been a source of strength in this harrowing time.

I would like to invite you to share your thoughts, feelings in whatever language comes easy to you. Talanoa mai, o se tasi fo'i auala e mafai ai ona fesoasoani le tasi ile tasi.

Ia soifua, ona o Iesu.

Ulearn 08

Hi Pt England! I am preparing to go to Christchurch with other teachers from Point England. We are travelling to Christchurch this coming Tuesday evening. I have been given the opportunity to share with teachers from all over New Zealand about PENN.

We are very blessed to have PENN, and so it is only right that we tell other teachers and schools about all the wonderful things that come from having PENN. Mrs Lagitupu is going to be alongside me sharing with about 21 teachers the impact PENN has on the teachers, students and community of Pt England Primary.

We are both very excited about this upcoming event. We are going to invite people to blog on this site and also our school blogs about what they think of PENN. Of course they won't be able to do this until after Mrs Lagitupu and I have completed our workshop with them.

We will do our very best to show the teachers in our group how useful and effective PENN is. Maybe we'll be able to help other schools to start up their own news network!!

We'll be seeing you all very soon, we hope you'll get to read more from the teachers we will meet in Christchurch too.

Mrs Tele'a

Muddy Freezing Toes!

Alright, take off your shoes and sweatshirts and roll up your trackpants. Take off your socks. We are going for a run on the grass today for Cross Country training.

Could all the girls line up here to run said Mrs Lagitupu. Go! The girls went off then Mrs Lagitupu told the boys to line up. Go! The boys were off!

It was cold. My feet were muddy and yuck and slippery. I was passing Mr Palmer and my feet were freezing at that point. I just wanted to finish but I still had a long way to run before I would finish.

By the time I had finished, I had lots of mud on my feet. My toes were freezing and sore. I washed and got in my group then we did some stretches. It was a good run but freezing.

It felt yuck when the mud oozed between my toes.

Meshaq

Talanoa Mai

Talanoa mai. What does this mean? In Samoa these words mean - 'Talk to me'. This term is used when you are being invited to share you view or opinion.

In Talanoa Mai, we look forward to not only sharing our work but also inviting you to 'Talanoa Mai', talk to us and let us know what your ideas and opinions are on the various topics we will cover.

Talanoa Mai!