Student+Learning

**Our art focus for the term has been to learn how to draw a self-portrait. We used sketching pencils and looked at how artists draw the human head. We then drew our head and shoulders and added our facial features such as our eyes, mouth, nose and lips. Drawing our nose and lips was the most challenging. When we finished drawing we outlined with black vivid and painted. We then dyed our names and added a border using kowhaiwhai patterns. This is Conor's. We are all so proud of our work and it looks great around the walls of our classroom. Pop in and view the others. It is like walking around an art gallery.**
 * Self-Portraits** [[image:Self-Portraits_2012_013.JPG width="680" height="946"]]

**Me Poster**

** To begin the year we made a poster with information all about ourselves. This is Lily-Ana's. Come in and read about our favourite foods, books and activities. Swimming ** **We spent the first four weeks of the term swimming. On completion we carried out a self-assessment. We had to state what skills we had acquired and what our next learning steps were. Ms Ewer took photos of us on our fronts, backs and diving. We added swimming quotes to our work. This is Simonne's. Come on in and have a read.** **Some of the quotes are very funny. You are sure to get a good laugh.** ** Lenten Crosses ** **We have written our promises to Jesus on these Lenten crosses. We have been trying very hard to carry them out for the six weeks of Lent. Our class promise has been to pick up the litter in the playground. That is our service to Jesus and God.**

**Holiday Writing**

**Our first writing focus for the year was to write a recount of our holidays. We had to write about specific things that we did including what we ate, saw and played. Ms Ewer published them for us and we then illustrated our five favourite parts. This is Liam's. They make great reading as we all did a great variety of things and our illustrations depict this. Come on in and have a read. You will be blown away.** **Palm Sunday**

**Palm Sunday is celebrated on Sunday the 1st of April this year. We have been learning about the excitement of Jesus riding a donkey into Jerusalem and the crowd cheering for him. We drew these pictures showing the crowd waving palms at Jesus. We learned how to draw our buildings so they look 3D. We chose skin colours to depict the dryness of the desert. This is Ella's. We have displayed our pictures in the church so everyone can enjoy them at our Palm Sunday School Mass on Saturday night.**

**My Special Place**

**We are now part of Enviroschools. Our focus for this year is "Me In My Environment." We have chosen our favourite special outdoor place. Ms Ewer took a photo of each of us doing what we love in our special place. We then wrote why this special place is important to us, how it makes us feel when we are there and how we would like others to treat it. This is Orla's. Come on in and find out where our special places are around the school.**

**Harold and Life Education**

**On the 29th and 30th of March Harold came to visit us at school. We were very excited about seeing him again. We took our class giraffe, "Mr Lange," to catch up with his old friend. They had a big hug and a kiss. We learned what foods are best for us to eat. We had to group foods into three categories - food that comes from animals, food that comes from the ground and ingredients. Here we are sorting the foods into their correct groups.**

**Autobiographical Poem**

** We have learned to write an autobiographical poem. It is a poem about yourself and reveals things about you. It does not rhyme. You start with your name, then 4 words that describe yourself, followed by who you are the son or daughter of and sister or brother of. Then you state 3 things that you love, feel, need, give, fear, like to see and dreams. You finish by stating where you live and your last name. This is Kayla's autobiographical poem. Our poems are accompanied by our detailed illustrations. To read more poems and see others' illustrations, come on in to Room 1 and have a read. They make interesting reading. ** **Statistics**

** Alongside numeracy this term we have focused on the Statistics Strand. We have been learning about probability and how to carry out a statistical investigation. Ms Ewer guided us through how to carry out a statistical investigation step by step. First you start by writing a question that you wish to investigate. Then you decide on your categories and who you are going to survey. Once the survey is complete you tally the results in tally marks and write the totals. The next important step is to make a key. Once that is completed you display your results on a variety of graphs such as a column graph, pictogram, pie graph and strip graph. The final step is to make a statement on the favourite or least favourite. Once we completed our first with Ms Ewer's guidance, we had to carry out a second investigation to practice the skills we had learned and the habits of accuracy, correctness and thinking. This is Quinn's independent statistical investigation. Come on in and see the variety of investigations we have carried out. ** **Goals** ** Goal setting is an important part of learning. This year we are trying out a new system. We have each got a laminated goal sheet. As we set a goal or achieve it we add it to our sheet on a small piece of paper. So far we have set ourselves a basic facts goal. We hope to set ourselves an IKAN, handwriting and spelling goal before the end of the term. ** **Habits of Mind** The **Habits of Mind** describe the kinds of 'thinking habits' we need to have in order to be successful as possible at solving problems. By problem I mean any situation where the answer is not immediately apparent. Like most 'habits' they need to be practiced regularly in order to become 'second nature.' The process of acquiring and putting knowledge to use in response to a problem posed is critical to the success of learners. A successful student will be armed with a range of mental habits that allow them to understand problems, find information to help solve them, create information to help solve them and ultimately to act on it.

The **Habits of Mind** describe the thinking processes that allow students to be far more successful than ever before. Training a student's mind to think using the **Habits of Mind** will allow them to solve academic problems successfully, solve social problems successfully employing the **Habits of Mind** and will act intelligently when faced with difficult problems or questions.

There are 16 Habits of Mind. Room 1 will be focusing on 12 of these over the year. They are Persist, Make It Right, Stop And Think, Listen, Create And Innovate, Try New Ideas, Work With Others, Be Clear, Use 5 Senses, Think About Thinking, Ask Questions and Go Wow!

Using the **Habits of Mind** improves standard of work presentation, quality of work content, student concentration, attitude to challenges, ability to relate effectively with others, ability to listen, speaking skills, independent problem solving, ability to work with others, creativity, ideas, questioning and self-worth.

We are focusing on being correct and accurate, stopping and thinking and being creative and innovative. I have noticed a marked improvement in the classroom already. The quality of the childrens' work is quite outstanding for this time of the year and their independence to solve problems and think for themselves is improving.