Staff Meeting - Report Writing Workshop - Thursday 8th September 2016

- Complete the reports in Pages - templates for each class will be sent out - Calendar has details of when to save where.
- Have 6 reports to team leader by the end of this term.
- Be specific about what students can do.
- Don't be afraid to mention areas that they can improve in.
- Ensure that levels are equivalent through the report.
- The general comment is your opportunity to show how well you know the student. This is also where you can mention any notable achievements.
- Languages and Media are not given a section/level on the report - if you want to mention these areas do so in the general comments section.
- Student voice is given on the back page in the 'Take up the challenge' section. Get the students to carry out this task in Room 13 time on a doc and then send to you.
- Teachers must enter Tech Arts/Science levels when they receive these from the Specialist teachers.

Staff Meeting - PYP - Tuesday 6th September 2016

- Is the inquiry cycle the same as, connected to or different to inquiry?
- Which of the standards in C3 support the idea of having an inquiry cycle?
- How do we use the inquiry cycle at Berkley?
Books, Connections, Displays, Planning (SUP, Bubble), Guiding research, Used in Numeracy and Literacy (not explicitly)
Needs to be explicit in all Units of Inquiry
- Ask students "Where are you now? Where might you go next?"
- New Kath Murdoch Inquiry Cycle?

7 Misconceptions about the Inquiry Cycle

Expert Group and Home Group Activity

Looking at various Inquiry Cycles

The Power of Inquiry - Kath Murdoch

Cycle vs. Process???

Always reflecting

UOI Book Monitoring - Thursday 1st September 2016

Today we met as a team with Beth (the PYP co-ordinator at Berkley) to look over our UOI books and discuss how we could improve our practice. Here is a link to the notes I took for next steps during this meeting:

Book Monitoring Meeting

Staff Meeting - Te Reo - Thursday 1st September 2016

Staff Meeting - Mathematics Professional Development - Rachel Carson

"Art is a lie that makes us realise the truth" - Pablo Picasso

If you can design tasks that involve students using all parts of their brain you are doing a great job.



Problem Solving
- What level of cognitive demand are you placing on your students?

What does your classroom look like?
- Door angles
- Mathematical language
- Fractions or square roots on clock
- Is the area you are covering evident in your classroom?

Creating Artworks
- Using numbers
- Number patterns - Fibonacci Numbers TED talk

Golden Ratio - Pi

- Create a skyline

- Create a bracelet - different colours for each number

Times Tables 
- Take a timestable that you struggle with and lay out in pyramid form - connect together.
- Array wars - 2 dice and grid paper
- Array City
- Spiralaterals
- Multiples pyramid

Fractions
- Names - What fraction are consonants? What fraction are vowels?
- Names - Written on grid paper - what fraction of each colour is used in each letter?

Geometry
- Recreating artworks by Marc Chagall & Mondriaan
- Collaborative piece on window or floor
- Optical Illusions - Make your own using 10x10 grid
- Triangles - Angles - Triangle trees, Splitting page into triangles, star shape using centre line and dots joined to create triangles (what triangles have been made? What angles are there? Other shapes?)
- Create your own protractor using a paper plate
- Tape across table or board to measure angles.
- Straight lines - parabolic curves - multiplication facts
- Circles and Ovals - Wassily Kandinsky & Marc Chagall - Exploring language
- Circles and Ovals - Circle art by each child and then cut into pieces - improper fractions, symmetry, translations
- Cutting up magazines and exploring shapes
- Strips of paper - How many folds do you need to make to create a star? Art by Ben Nicholson - Can students recreate or draw this 3D drawing
- Paper cubes then draw on isometric paper
- Position and Orientation - Turning figures and drawing shadows - Artist - Alberto Giacometti
- Scale and Ratios - Plastic 6 shrinks in the oven - Place over picture and then bake
- Translate, Rotate, Reflect - Create a shape - Draw shadow at different times - What are the features? How do they change?
- Translational symmetry - Camera, Google, Drawing, Present - NZMaths Into the garden unit
- Tessellation - What proportion has certain colours? Look at reflection and symmetry

Measurement
- How big is my heart chain?
- Collaborative piece of Art and then measure longest/shortest line
- Origami

Measurement and Geometry
- Scale factor using minions or a shape - What stays the same? What changes? Look at centre of enlargement
- Artist - Jeff Thomson - Create a woven structure - How long do your strips need to be to make your way right around? Area, perimeter, volume?
- Creating towers - Inquiry using square routes
- Inquiry - What ratio of liquid is going to give you the biggest bubble - cost, art, brand
- Create a centrifuge - How much paint:water? Time? Length of string?

Statistics
- Time and Temperature of water inquiry
- 3D graphs

Probability
- Packet of starbursts
- Makeup pads and paint - What is the probability that you are going to get a certain colour?

Music and Maths
- Water in cups - Fractions
- Notes

An Interesting Read - NZ Herald

An interesting read about the new STEAM concept that our Year 9's will be participating in next year.

Mathematical Thinking Project - University of Waikato

Today I had the opportunity to participate in conversations revolving around what mathematical thinking is needed for beginning teachers in their first two years of teaching. It was a really rewarding experience, as I got to chat with other beginning teachers and listen to their thoughts and things they had learnt/discovered this year in their teaching. This experience brought about questions, such as:

- How can we incorporate mathematical thinking/skills into other areas of the curriculum effectively?
- How can we explicitly model/make students aware that they are using maths during these learning experiences?
- What are the benefits of cross curricular learning experiences in regards to our assessment of data/making links to the National Standards? How can we use the information to make judgements of progress in our individual students?
- What is the most effective means of providing feedback during math experiences, so that students may reflect on their learning?
- How can we ensure that students know where they are at with their mathematics learning and create student agency within the classroom?

Here is the presentation that Hayley (a fellow BT) and I put together for this afternoon's professional conversation.