From Mrs C
Hello everyone,
Can you believe we are here...the END of Term 2 and half way through the year!
The end of this term also marks the end of our time with Miss Zaffino. This is her final practicum placement for her teaching degree. We will miss her very much and wish her every happiness in what I believe will be a very successful career as a dedicated teacher. I know I speak for not only myself, but the children when I say we will miss the laughs and the fun learning. We truly have 'had a ball', 'lost our marbles' and 'lived it up'.
Congratulations and best wishes Miss Zaffino.
Sorry guys, it's back to just me after the holidays.
On that note, I would like to take the opportunity to wish everyone a safe and relaxing holiday. Your children work so hard each term and it is important for them to have some time to relax, unwind and have fun. Please ensure your child has some down time to enjoy the things they love.
English, Maths AND Everything Else, All In One!
You may have heard your child come home talking about 'Genius Hour'.Genius Hour is the way we have combined English, Mathematics, Science, HASS and so much more into one lesson!
So what is it?
Genius hour allows students to explore their own passions and encourages creativity in the classroom. It provides students a choice in what they learn during a set period of time during school.
The search-engine giant, Google, allows it’s engineers to spend 20% of their time to work on any pet project that they want. The idea is very simple. Allow people to work on something that interests them, and productivity will go up. Google’s policy has worked so well that it has been said that 50% of Google’s projects have been created during this creative time period. Ever heard of Gmail or Google News? These projects are creations by passionate developers that blossomed from their their 20-time projects.
I have taken this idea and modified for our class. The results have been so amazing and I am excited to make some changes for the better for our next round in Term 3 where we will be explicitly learning each concept before applying our knowledge.
Students start by brainstorming an area of interest, from this they develop a BIG research question or what we like to call 'a wondering'. They then decide how and what they will use to research their questions, taking notes and paraphrasing. The next start is creating. This is where students choose how they would like to present their information. We had Powerpoint slides, posters and even a model of the Big Ben!
The final stage is presentation. In this stage students must present their 'wondering' and what they found out along the way.
Below are some of the outstanding work presented during our first ever round.
We look forward to sharing more amazing projects in Term 3.
Happy Holidays xxx
Happy Holidays xxx
