Our latest tidy-up song: Happy

In M13 we always have a tidy-up song to dance along to as we tidy the classroom. For a long time we would get tidying as soon as we heard the first strains of the Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra's version of Cry Me A River.

But now we've changed over to HAPPY by Pharrell Williams. Just see if you can stay still while you listen to it (bet you can't!)

Happy
~
It might seem crazy what I’m about to say
Sunshine she’s here, you can take a break
I’m a hot air balloon that could go to space
With the air, like I don’t care baby by the way
~
Chorus: Because I’m happy;

Clap along if you feel like a room without a roof, because I’m happy
Clap along if you feel like happiness is the truth, because I’m happy
Clap along if you know what happiness is to you, because I’m happy
Clap along if you feel like that’s what you wanna do
~
Here come bad news talking this and that, yeah,
Well, give me all you got, and don’t hold it back, yeah,
Well, I should probably warn you I’ll be just fine, yeah,
No offense to you, don’t waste your time, here’s why
~
[Chorus]
~
Hey, come on (happy)
Bring me down; can't nothing bring me down
My level's too high
Bring me down; can't nothing bring me down
I said (let me tell you now)
Bring me down; can't nothing bring me down
My level's too high
Bring me down; can't nothing bring me down, I said
~
[Chorus 2x]
~
Hey, come on, bring me down… can’t nothing…
Bring me down… my level's too high…
Bring me down… can’t nothing…
Bring me down, I said (let me tell you now)
~
[Chorus 2x]
~
Come on

Jamieson's rocks and minerals

This morning Jamieson carefully brought two boxes of precious rocks to school.

Everyone chose their favourite one:

Francesca: "I like this one because it has patterns coming out from the middle"

Breea: "it's nice and smooth; really really smooth."

Amelie: "I like that crystal because it's quite shiny and I like the shape of it."

Breea wrote a poem about it:

Right and white
for everybody
sparkly and rough and hard
a pinch of red
of wool on the head.
I'm gonna call it Mark.
It's pointy on the bottom.
It doesn't hurt too much
a little grazed on the inside
a little grazed on the out.
It's middle name is Sassy
and it cannot be changed
by the law of Wellington's mayor.

 Joe: "I like them because they're quite shiny and they glow and the colour fades together and they're quite unique."

Aliya: "I like this because it's big and shiny and you can hold it easily. And it can't cut people and it's interesting."

Cody: "I like this one because it's shiny and pointy on the top and it looks like it has real crystal."

Noah: "I like all the details of both of the carvings of the mouse and the crocodile. They're both really cool."

Jamieson's dad carved this mouse when he was five years old, and he carved the crocodile when he was only eight!

From the left, we have obsidian, silver in the middle, and rose quartz on the right.

This is a Maori spearhead carved out of obsidian. Cody wrote a poem about it:

Jamieson's obsidian

Shiny and bright
all black, curved and Maori
off the top of a spear.

Luca also wrote a poem about it:

Knife

Its smooth surface
glints like the sea on a dark moonlit night.
I turn its crinkled lining up to the light
and it turns a pale milk colour.
The knife.

This is a fossil egg. Laila wrote a poem about it:

An old man, old and young
was having fun
today.

One day an animal came out
out came a dinosaur,
a triceratops.

Mel wrote a poem about this rock; it's a polished piece of amethyst:

Shining bright
under the light,
it curves and swirls.
Cracks widen
and let out
happiness of purple.
Shining bright
under the light,
swirly whirly twirl.

The ginormous crystal | by Quinn

The crystal shines in the sunlight.
I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw it.
I said to myself, who brought in this crystal?
It is amazing.

Cross country day | by Ella

I woke up thinking it was a normal day. Mum called, “it’s breakfast time, Ella!” I stumbled out of bed. Charlie was chatting away about his lego ship.

“It’s cross country!” 
I shivered.

“It… it… it’s… cro…ss… country?!”

I picked the last blueberry out of my bowl.

“Yes,” said Mum as I put my bowl up at the bench.

After I had gotten dressed, brushed my hair and was getting my shoes on I had butterflies in my tummy. We arrived at school, did the roll, and got our bags on. You can do it! I thought to myself.

The bus pulled up. The closer we got the more nervous I got.

3 hours later…

3…2…1… GO! Suddenly everyone zoomed past leaving me behind. 7…8…6…5…4! 4^th!  I have never run this fast before!

“Here come the bushes!” I was in the forest now. I stumbled over a big root and I hurt my ankle. I kept on going. The air smelt musty. I felt a pain going down my back. Then I saw a clearing and heard people clapping. Tenth now. In a few minutes I was over the fence and had crossed the finish line! I waited for Sophia and clapped when I saw her.

Kaitiaki of the stream - literature circle

One of our reading groups read Kaitiaki of the Stream, and then ran a literature circle discussion about it. Literature circles are a way to think about a piece of writing in different ways. Each person takes on a different role: Discussion Director, Connector, Illustrator, Word Master, Passage Picker, and Summariser. Then the Discussion Directors lead the discussion about the piece of writing. Have a look at some of our thoughts about this School Journal article.

Click here to download an MP3 of the article.

Peer mediator play: Mel, Laila, Jamieson, Sofia

Peer mediator play: Niamh, Brendan, Jamie

Peer mediator play: Cody, Breea, Dot

Peer mediator play: Tama, Peta, Francesca, Nolan

Dressed for dance - writing prompt

what can this man hear?

see?

smell?

taste?

touch/ feel?

what might he be thinking?

doing...?

will you write in the 1st or 3rd person?

Photo from the Guardian's 24 hours in pictures

10 lessons The Arts teach - Elliot Eisner

1 The arts teach children to make good judgements about qualitative relationships. Unlike much of the curriculum in which correct answers and rules prevail, in the arts, it is judgement rather than rules that prevail.

2 The arts teach children that problems can have more than one solution and that questions can have more than one answer.

3 The arts celebrate multiple perspectives. One of their large lessons is that there are many ways to see and interpret the world.

4 The arts teach children that in complex forms of problem solving purposes are seldom fixed, but change with circumstance and opportunity. Learning in the arts requires the ability and a willingness to surrender to the unanticipated possibilities of the work as it unfolds.

5 The arts make vivid the fact that neither words in their literal form nor numbers exhaust what we can know. The limits of our language do not define the limits of our cognition.

6 The arts teach students that small differences can have large effects. The arts traffic in subtleties.

7 The arts teach students to think through and within a material. All art forms employ some means through which images become real.

8 The arts help children to say what cannot be said. When children are invited to disclose what a work of art helps them feel, they must reach into their poetic capacities to find the words that will do the job.

9 The arts enable us to have the experience we can have from no other source and through such experience to discover the range and variety of what we are capable of feeling.

10 The arts' position in the school curriculum symbolises to the young what adults believe is important.

from http://news.stanford.edu/news/2014/january/elliot-eisner-obit-011714.html

How wolves can change the land

Today we watched this clip (again) about how wolves changed the land in Yellowstone National Park. We are learning to take notes, so we watched it five times, adding keywords, diagrams, and ideas to our notes each time we watched it.

Here's our glossary:

and an example of some notes:

The Happy Song by Elizabeth Mitchell

There’s so many things that make me happy

I could go on and on

Radishes, cabbages, holding hands

And getting packages from my friend John

Horses, birthdays, popsicles

And watching my dog play on the lawn

There’s so many things that make me happy

I could go on and on

Strawberries, bare feet, swing sets

Watching my baby brother yawn

Climbing trees and not skinning my knees

Grilled cheese made by my uncle Don

Butterflies, pretty birds, rainbows

And frogs sitting on a log

There’s so many things that make me happy

I could go on and on

When I’m feeling frustrated,

Mad or just a little bit sad

I can think of my list of happy

And then I get so very glad

There’s so many things that make me happy

The list goes on and on

But now I wanna know what makes you happy

I bet your list is just as long

Popcorn… cartwheels… baseball

Pancakes… turtles… penguins

There’s so many things that make me happy

The list goes on and on

There’s so many things that make me happy

I could go on and on                                                 x3

I could go on and on

Here's the song on vimeo: The Happy Song