IBTV #3

Commonwealth Games day - Wednesday 24th September

Dear parents and caregivers,

Next Wednesday we are a having a school Commonwealth Games afternoon from 1.00pm - 3.00pm. We will move around different activity stations across the school together with our buddy class. Each class has been given a different country to represent, and M13’s is SOUTH AFRICA.

Children are encouraged to come dressed in costume, in their country’s colours. We’re really looking forward to a great afternoon!

Nga mihi,

Amy and Megan

Anna Jackson - Island Bay poet

A few weeks ago we read Tuatara by Anna Jackson for our Poem of the Week. 

Tuatara

Anna Jackson

In a country with ridges

up and down its back

lives the tuatara

wearing mountains like the land

moving so slowly

it hardly seems to move at all.

The sun goes whirling

round the world

and winds blow west

and winds blow north

and grasses grow

and trees grow higher

and people come

and they admire

the tuatara sitting still.

It hardly seems to move at all. 

Anna Jackson is a local Island Bay poet, and Paula Green from Poetry Box, a poetry blog for kiwi kids, connected us with Anna so we could interview her by email. She's going to come and visit us at school next term.

Here are our questions and her answers:

Tuatara questions ~ Anna Jackson’s answers

• What's your favourite part of Tuatara?

I think what I like is the way most of it is one long sentence all about the rest of the world moving, then when you get to the tuatara again, the sentence stops.  Then there is just one still sentence at the end, a sentence the same as one before.  This seems like a good way of capturing the stillness of the tuatara, compared to the rest of the world.

• When you were writing it, what was the first image that popped in to your mind?

I think the back of the tuatara looking like mountains. 

• What inspired you to write about a tuatara? Why did you write the Tuatara poem?

I was writing about New Zealand animals and birds.  I have poems about moa, kokako, huia and takahe as well.  I think I like the takahe one best of the bird poems.

• Were you observing hills when you wrote Tuatara?

No, I just thought about them.

• What do you think is the best word you used in Tuatara?

I don’t think any of the words are very special, apart from the word tuatara!  It isn’t about the words, the words are just doing word-work, making us think about the things they refer to. 

• How long does it take to write one poem?

It depends a lot.  Sometimes just a little while, ten minutes maybe?  But often a lot longer, because I keep working away at it and changing the words.  Sometimes I will come back to a bit of poem I started months ago, and turn it into a new poem. 

• What's the most recent poem you've written?

It was one about Susan Sontag, who is an essayist I saw a film about.  She was very frightened of dying and so I wrote about that fear and all the ways we have to not be frightened.  And I thought about my hens and how good they are at just being happy every day and not thinking ahead, so I wrote about them in the poem as well. 

• How long have you been a poet for?  

Since I bought a typewriter when I was twenty-something, so more than twenty years!

• Are your poems/stories sometimes sad?

Yes, sometimes they are sad and sometimes they are about being sad.  One is about being so sad, when the person tries to talk an ocean pours out of her mouth – like crying from your mouth.   One poem I wrote made me cry when I wrote it.  It can be consoling to write a poem when you are sad though.  You might still be sad, but you can still be happy about having written a poem.

• What is the first image that you can think up in your mind? 

I can always think of my hens!  But do you mean a metaphor, or something imagined?  I can imagine the construction cranes I see out of my window nodding their heads up and down and walking across the harbour.

• When did you start writing? What age were you when you started poetry? 

I think when I was at primary school I mostly wrote stories.  But they were short, so you could call them poems.  Some of the poems I write now are like little short stories. 

• Where do you get ideas from? What sort of things inspire your writing?

From talking to people.   I think of things to say, and then some of the things I say in a conversation I turn into a poem.  A lot of people say really clever, funny things all the time, but they don’t write them down to make poems out of them.  Sometimes they turn them into facebook posts instead. 

• Do you edit your work? How many times?

Sometimes a poem comes out right the first time, but sometimes I edit it over and over.

• Where do you live? (I heard that your next-door neighbour is Lucinda!)

We live in Jackson street Island Bay and we are very lucky because we have Isaac and Lucinda for neighbours.  We have an orchard that we share and Lucinda helped plant the trees.  In the weekends when I sit out in the garden, the hens come running up to be with me, and so do Lucinda’s cats, Storm and Cedric.  Then there is a lot of drama, because the cats love chasing the hens, and the hens hate being chased, but they keep coming back because they hope I will feed them, and the cats keep hanging round because they like to be stroked. 

• What do you usually write about: animals, plants and land? 

I more often write about people and the things people say.  One poem is about being an envelope and wondering where I’ll be sent.  One is about walking past a dog and the dog’s sleeping owner, and thinking about how the dog won’t be able to tell the owner about me when I’ve gone.  Some are about going to films, some are about having parties.

• What is your strategy to write such nice and easy poems?

I think anyone can write a nice and easy poem!   One poet I like is Frank O’Hara.  He used to write about things he saw in his lunch breaks.  People said it was too easy so why did he bother?  But his poems are so sweet and funny, all the things he saw and what he thought about them. 

• What makes you happy?

Playing with Lucinda’s  cats and finding bugs for my hens.  Having dinner with my family – my son Johnny is twenty and was living in Auckland but now he has come home and lives with us.  That makes me happy. 

• Do you like writing for children or adults?

I like it when children like the poems I wrote for adults.  I was pleased when I heard about children reading the Pastoral Kitchen book, which is one with a lot of animal poems in.  And I wrote a book called “Catullus for Children” which adults and children read.  It is about primary-school age children.   I don’t write many poems just for children. 

• Do you do anything other than write poems? Are you just a poet or do you have another job?

I do have another job.  I work at the university, writing about books and giving lectures about books. 

• Do you think you will always be a poet? 

Yes!

by Jamie

Suddenly an ear-splitting roar shook the canopy of trees around me. The mighty jaguar was on to me; I imagined his fangs tearing at my flesh. I hid in the bush, hoping he wouldn't find me.

I peeked out and a flash of black shot past me. Little frogs jumped around in the canopy of trees. 
"A poison dart frog," I thought.

There was a hissing sound up in the trees as a tree snake dropped down. It looked at the bushes and slithered away stealthily.

The freezing cold water | by Nolan

I shuddered as I dipped my foot into the freezing cold water. For some reason I thought it was hot although I was shivering. A whistle blew. I regained my senses and swam. Everyone was 1 lap ahead. Anyway I came second in the end. But of all the races, 1st, yay!

So after that I searched for my mum. I knew she was there. Finally I found her. The first thing I said was, "Can I go home?"
Obviously she said, "No, it's only halfway through school!"
"Awww!" I moaned.

30 minutes later, on the bus, I felt relaxed and relieved but tired.

My cousin | by Jet

Me and my
cousin,

what do we do?

We like playing basketball
like some dudes
getting three baskets in a row.
Did you know?
That's me and my bro?!

Reach's presentations | by Tama

Tears were one step away from my eyes; I was grinning like an idiot. All the people were staring at me. I pressed play; I shut my eyes and blocked my ears. 1 2 3. Time ticked as slowly as a turtle. After what seemed like forever, it stopped. I opened one eye; people were clapping. Maybe this stuff wasn't so bad.

Afterword

I wasn't actually sharing; well, it's complicated. I was playing a Puppet Pals video about navigation, instead of actually sharing, but one thing was sure, all those things were true.

It was about compasses, maps, stars, and one of the most famous people in history, Captain Cook.

I really enjoyed other people's, so thank you George, Tim, and any other person from Reach who is reading this.

Marina's story | By Mahinaz

I take one last look back at our house. I try to remember the whole house and the stuff in it. I hope Gleam and Glow are okay in their fishpond. I think I will miss the big oak tree because I remember when I climbed it. The flower garden was growing very well and very high. I'll remember the back window and the wooden house. I feel sad for two reasons, because I don't want to leave the house and I don't want to leave Gleam and Glow behind. Another reason we are sad is because we have to look for Dad and find him and then help him. I hope we find Dad very quickly.

This was written after reading the beginning of Gleam and Glow, a story of a family forced to flee in the Bosnian conflict. This piece is written from the perspective of one of the children in the family.

Model-making resources

Dear Parents and Caregivers,

M13 are creating models of their designs for protecting/improving the land at the Island Bay Sea Wall or the South Coast Kids’ Bike Track. They have planned what resources they need and have discussed who is able to supply their resources for their model-making. If possible, could they please bring this to school tomorrow so we can get cracking?!

Nga mihi,

Megan and Amy

2D and 3D shapes and our reflection on giving feedback

We are learning about 2D and 3D shapes at the moment. We are trying to make connections between 2D and 3D shapes, and to identify what the 2D cross-section of a 3D shape would be...

To explore 3D shapes, we have been using isometric paper to help us draw cubes.

Last week we started by learning about Little Boxes together with our learning buddy.

We also discovered some new language: vertex, vertices, edges, faces...

We've been using multilink cubes to help us create and visualise the drawings we're making.

At the end of our lesson, we have a gallery walk where we have a look at each other's learning, and then we give feedback to other kids by writing them a star (something they've done well) and a wish (a next step to work on) on a sticky note.

Today we had a few issues with giving each other feedback so we had a problem-solving session after break. We put on our (Edward De Bono) black and yellow hats to help us. After we identified the problems, we talked to our learning buddies about solutions then shared them with the class:

What were the problems?	What are some solutions?
Some people had too much feedback while others didn’t have enough.	Share out feedback evenly; look at other people’s learning.
Some people didn’t give a star and a wish.	Make sure you give both a star and a wish; get your sticky notes ready with a * and a à first.
We couldn’t understand the feedback.	Think about it before you write it down; ask your buddy, “does this make sense?”
Some people weren’t listening when we asked them to be fair.	Listen. Think about others’ feelings.
Some people gave conflicting feedback.	Read the other feedback first; make sure your writing makes sense.
Some people repeated feedback unnecessarily.	If your ideas have already been said, say something different/ go to someone else’s learning.
Some kids were arguing over who got to give feedback.	The first person who gets there gets to write the feedback.
We got feedback on the wrong learning.	Write the date on your learning. Does it matter? It might still be useful feedback.
Some people weren’t listening to the teacher’s instructions.	Make sure you are listening yourself; encourage others to listen. Follow instructions – if you don’t hear, ask your buddy. Ignore distractions.
	Take your time; do it properly.

We're pretty good problem solvers! We're looking forward to our next gallery walk and feedback session so we can put all of this in to practice.