Incentive Day Term 1

Mr Madge believes in rewarding thoses students who do well consistently throughout the term. So at the end of term one we had our class incentive day, the theme for the day was games. To earn the right to participate we had to demonstrate over the term that we were able work well in the following area:

• Spelling
• Work Completion
• Followinginstructions
• Behaviour

It was great that most of us earned the right to participate. People brought board games, play stations, X-box, music and other games.
We had a connect 4 competition and Tei won, she is pictured below:

Those students who did not earn the right completed school work all day.They will be working harder next term, I'm sure.

Trying a new online tool for writing

We are trying a new online tool for writing. Here is Nakita's first attempt:
Nakita's first go

Personal Responses

We have recently begun looking in more detail at personal responses. We have used online mind-mapping tool bubbl.us to help us brainstorm. So far we have the following ideas. Can you think of any more that could be added, or, how the listed ones could be improved?

Zeros that do not affect the value

Today in mathematics we looked at zeros in numbers that do not affect their value.
When writing decimals one or more zeros can be added to the right of the decimal point, after the last digit, without affecting the value of the number.
For example:
4.2 = 4.20 = 4.200
2.5 = 2.50 = 2.500

Can you think of any other examples?

Compact and expanded form

One way to help us understand large numbers is to write the numerals in expanded form:

Compact form - 4326

Expanded form - 4000 + 300 + 20 + 6 or (4×1000) + (3×100) + (2×10) + (6×1)

How would you write 3452 in expanded form?

How do we do this for decimals? Easy!

Whole numbers			∙	Fractions/Decimals
Hundreds	Tens	Ones	∙	Tenths	Hundreths
	8	2	∙	3	7

We say 82.37 as “eighty two point three, seven”.

82.37 is the compact form.

In expanded form 82.37 = (8 × 10) + (2 × 1) + (3 × 0.1) + (7 × 0.01)

Or 80 + 2 + 0.3 + 0.07

Mathematics involving money

Close to all our hearts in year 7 & 8 is money. Today we were learning to:

• round money amounts to the nearest $1.00
• round money amounts to the nearest $10.00
• round money amounts to the nearest $100.00

Rounding down or up amounts helped us to estimate the cost of buying a number of items at the same time.

Can you round these amounts to the nearest $1.00
$5.85  $37.15  $58.35

Can you round these amounts to the nearest $10.00
$15.75  $87.99  $28.70

Can you round these amounts to the nearest $100.00
$367.75  $87.99  $549.70

Why would having good estimation skills help us?
You know roughly how much your spending (Courtney)
You know if you're spending too much (Crystal)
So you can budget with your money (Emily)

Formal English in room 12

Each week we complete language fitness activities. We are looking at the following areas:
Nouns; verbs; prefixes; suffixes; synonyms; antonyms; homonyms; homophones; abbreviations; contractions; singular/plural; adjectives; adverbs; pronouns; tenses; conjunctions; prepositions; comparatives and superlatives; phrases and root words.
Throughout the year we will be discussing the different groups above and adding examples. We are sure this will help us with our understanding.

Key Competencies success rubrics complete

We have now completed our Key Competencies success rubrics. We have a copy of each rubric in our topic book and have already assessed ourselves. The rubrics show us our next learning steps, and we used them as part of our goal setting. You can view the rubrics below.

10 Key Competencies Success Rubric

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Learning place value

In our mathematics class we have been reviewing place value. View our place value chart below.

Can you say these numbers out aloud?
a)34.52 b)567.324 c)1234.4325 d)45221.09873

Today Mr Madge spent the day with the Red Cross, updating his first aid certificate. He updated his knowledge about what to do to help others who may have been in an accident.

Buddy reading

We know that being able to read is very important for all age groups. This is why we go to rooms two and three for buddy reading on a Wednesday afternoon.


We have identified our feelings using the red hat:

• I feel OK with buddy reading (Maggie)
• I feel good with buddy reading (Nakita)
• I feel buddy reading is helpful (Izabella)
• I feel buddy reading is alright (Gabriel)

 We have identified the facts about buddy reading using the white hat:

• We go to buddy reading every Wednesday at 1.30 p.m. (Matthew)
• We help students from rooms 2 & 3 to pronounce words. (Jordan)
• Year 8 students help room 3 and year 7 students help room 2. (Mystery)
• We read the books to the students in room 2 & 3. (Georgia)
• We spend twenty five minutes buddy reading. (Ezekiel)
• We all have our own reading buddy. (Kaea)
• We can read inside or outside the classrooms. (Nakita)
• We take turns reading with our buddy. (Ngaire)
• Each buddy reader has their own book to read. (Nancy)

We have identified the benefits using yellow hat thinking below:

• It helps the buddies read and spell. (Antoinette)
• It will help the buddies to read better, so that when they come to the senior school they will think the reading in the senior syndicate is easy. (Chase)
• We can help our buddies get a better education. (Kaea)
• It can help buddies get to know older students. (Tei)
• It helps the teachers in room 2 & 3, because if we didn't go there, they'd have to work with each student one by one. (Nancy)

We have identified the weaknesses using black hat thinking below:

• My buddy gets sidetracked (Korowai)
• My buddy talks while I'm reading (Nakita)
• After a while of reading to my buddy, she gets bored and loses attention. (Rachael)
• My buddy is shy, so she doesn't usually read. (Matthew)
• My buddy runs off when I'm reading. (Ngaire)
• My buddy doesn't read even when the teacher asks her to. So I don't know what she can do. (Nancy)

We have created some new ideas to improve some of the weaknesses using green hat thinking below:

• Get books buddies are interested in (Kaea)
• You can give buddies the books to read if they are talking while your reading. (Ezekiel)
• You can use expression in your reading to keep buddies interested. (Kody)
• You can encourage buddies to read, and model reading first. (Matthew)
• Ask buddies to sit down and be quiet. (Nakita)
• Get the teacher to sit down with them, so that they do read.

Below are some photos of us working with our buddy class:

By Room 12

Learning Basic Facts In Room 12

Basic Facts In Room 12
In room 12 we have a basic facts program. We have charts, A through to E. We each started on chart A, which is addition, and we are all now on separate charts.
Each morning Mr. Madge calls the roll and then we move onto basic facts. On each chart there are 6 columns, A through to F. Mr. Madge calls out a column which we all do, no matter what chart we are on. We have twenty questions on each column and we have 3 minutes to answer them and record the answers in our books. Mr. Madge calls out the answers for all the charts, which we mark, and then we fill in our score record sheet. We each have our record sheet glued into our books and we colour in the score we got. When we get four 20/20 scores we move onto the next chart. When we have completed each chart we start again on chart A, this time with 2 minutes to complete the set of questions. After 2 minutes its 1 minute, and then 30 seconds.
Chart A is addition, chart B is subtraction, chart C is multiplication, chart D is division and chart E is them all mixed together.

Interested? View our programme below:

Basic Facts Instructions

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By Mystery

Write as a ...?

In room 12 we have been learning about different writing forms and who might use them. Below are a list of possible writers. What type of writing forms might these people use? Who would be their audience? What topics would they write about?

We have used some of the above writers to help us as 'writing starters'. We'll share some of our writing soon.