Olly (the ragdoll cat) and Sid (the bearded dragon) spend some time with us

Today Olly the ragdoll came to visit us.  Some of our fabulous learners have been filming an ad to promote Paw Justice, which will be included in our hub movie and they requested that he make an appearance for filming.  Olly was very well behaved and enjoyed snuggles from most of the hub!  Keep an eye out for the Paw Justice video that's coming up to check out Olly in action.

Also, after school Damien, Jamie, Ben and Pauline (Jamie and Ben's Mum) stayed behind to get to know Sid a little better.  One minute Sid was sitting quietly on Damien's shoulder and the next he'd climbed onto the top of his head!  Take a look at Damien with a very friendly lizard in his hair!!

(As always, click the pictures to enlarge)

What do you make of this?

What do you make of this?  What message do you take from it, about spoons?  About our environment and they manner in which we consume/use things?

Sid loves beans!!

I found out this evening that Sid loves green beans!  They must be like lollies to him!!  When I put carrot infront of him he wasn't at all interested and apple did okay, but all the beans went down a treat.

I'd be interested to know why he went mostly for the beans... can bearded dragons see colour (maybe green's his favourite?) or do they have a keen sense of smell?  Let's find out!  Please share your findings.

Can you Scoop.it? Yes, you can!

Do you have an area of interest?  Something you spend lots of time researching and exploring?  You might like to watch this video...

Scoop.it allows you to become the curator (just like a museum or art curator) of an area that interests you and that you have real expertise in.

You might have an area of interest yourself (if so, tell us about it in the comments below!) or we could run one ourselves (maybe bearded dragons or student blogging?)

What a fabulous opportunity to share your interest and knowledge on a particular subject, supported by what other people are finding out.  True collaboration!

Fun infographics...

With the Reporters in our hub focusing so strongly on finding and presenting factual information (in the form of information reports), I've been doing some thinking...

What do you think of infographics as a way of visually displaying information? These certainly capture my attention and can be a great alternative to a full page of information.  There are times of course when an information report would be more appropriate, but I thought I'd bring your attention to them anyway.  Have a look at http://www.coolinfographics.com/ if you'd like to look at more examples, or search 'infographics' online.  Also Jaqui Sharp is running her own Scoop.it - take a look at the collection of cool infographics that she's found here.

What do you think?  What are the pros and cons of each?

Commas save lives!

This is a little silly but it caught my eye when I was surfing the internet tonight... what's the difference between these two sentences?  They look very similar but by adding just one comma, the whole message is changed.

I wonder who can work it out?

We love Sid, our Dragon!

Hi everyone, it's Courtney!

Today I came to school and there was a big surprise on the bench, but don't worry, it was a good one!  As you know, Sid came to join us today and we're really excited and happy he's here.

I came back after school because I wanted to drop off some more food for him.  Edwin and I Built Our Learning Capacity around feeding bearded dragons and found out that we could feed Sid the grapes, apples and carrots that I got him.  We cut them up into little pieces and he chowed down!

I enjoyed taking him outside in the sun and he seemed to enjoy getting outside.  He was very alert and interested in what was happening outside.

Here are some photos of me with Sid.  If you're in the hub, you're welcome to come and meet him too.

Courtney and Sid on PhotoPeach

Something's in the hub

Can you figure out whats in our hub?  It's small and spikey!

Its Sid! (Sydney)

Name: Sydney the Dragon (Siddy!)

Gender: Male

Age: Two

Colour: Sandy Brown and Yellow

characteristics: friendly, cuddly, cute, lazy

He's OUR FIRST CLASS PET !!!!!!!!!!!!!! And he's come all the way from Rotorua.  He's 2 years old and very friendly and hug-able ish (says Maddy) I say hes just hug-able  :)

By Damien H. and Maddy

(PS: Today Damien mentioned Sid is like a dinosaur which is very true!  Have a look at this fun video I found...)

Being Self-Aware: Assembly presentation

Talkng about Self aware goanimate style

Hi everyone - here's what we said at our assembly...


GoAnimate.com: self aware by FB and Jm


Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate.com. It's free and fun!"

Our amazing assembly

Hi.On Friday 23 of September Hub 3 had a assembly the first person to talk was Finn he was talking about being self aware. To be self aware you must know your strengths, weaknesses and your new ideas. Then the 7 thinking self people came on and explained each of the 4 thinking self colours. They are Blue, Red, Green and Yellow. Then we had all sung a song called Haere Mai. We all sung great!!

One group that was making a difference in society was the S.P.C.A group which included Dani, Maddy, Alex and Craig. Following after that was Courtney and Hana sharing with us about their breakthrough which was making a cookbook. Continuing after was Damien H talking about the amazing initiative home learning k-nex project. Last we had a short video of the most of the school going to the airport to welcome our adopted team Samoa.

Meet the newest member of LH3 - Sid the Bearded Dragon

Hi everyone, I hope you all had a great weekend!

We jumped in the car and drove all the way to Rotorua to pick up a very special little guy...

Sid has been settling in well at my house.  You wouldn't believe it, but his main tank was even bigger than we'd imagined and we have to make another trip back to Rotorua to pick it up!  For now Sid's living in his holiday vivarium (that's what a lizard enclosure is called - I've been doing so much interesting learning already around 'beardies') but we'll sort our his big viv next weekend.

He can't wait to meet you all!


...and look at what I found (posted by someone else) - gorgeous!

It's our assembly tomorrow!

GoAnimate.com: Learning Hub 3 Assembly! by sarahholland

Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate.com. It's free and fun!

If you can make it, we'd love to see you at school at 9am.

Shout out to Durango, Colorado (and everyone else!)

Durango, Colorado readers - please tell us about yourselves!  We've noticed a lot of hits from your area and would love to know a little more about you and the area that you come from.  Please reply with your comments...

...and isn't it exciting to see so many international visitors to our blog overnight!  It's great to see that the fabulous learning we're doing is helping other people to learn - last night people looked at our learning around the Rugby World Cup, Food Chains/Food Webs, Ecosystems and Tagxedo (not to mention just generally checking in on our blog.)

Sick Science: Magic Rollback Can - why do you think it works?

Hi everyone - I noticed that Steve Spangler (the cool science guy) has put some new videos up on his YouTube channel.  Take a look if you're interested in science... it would be fabulous if you gave any a try, to pop your findings up as comments.

Have fun!

Maddy's favourite poem - No by Thomas Hood

No! by Thomas Hood from Sarah Holland on Vimeo.

If you'd like to read 'No' for yourself, you can do so here.

Parents/Caregivers: Logging into KnowledgeNET/Learning Journals (by Ben)

Hi Hub 3 whanau,

Many of you are frequent KnowledgeNET users and really make the use of the Learning Journals at Stonefields School... but for those of you who need a reminder of how to login and leave a comment, or those of you who are new to the system, check out Ben's fabulous instructional video. 

Didn't he do a great job of explaining it!

Over 9,000 hits to our blog!

Well done everyone, we're fast approaching 10,000 hits to our blog which is pretty impressive (or at least I think so!)  You've all put a lot of effort and thought into this blog and it's your wide variety of posts that have made it what it is so far.  I've seen one of our buddy blogs will be celebrating hitting 20,000 page views in a year by throwing a party - that could be a great goal for us too!

What could you do to help get us closer to that target?  It won't be easy but we can do it!!

Dani, Maddy, Craig and Alex are famous!! Check them out in the newspaper...

Hi everyone - how exciting is this?!  Our cupcake brigade are in the local newspaper for their fabulous effort in making and selling cupcakes a few weeks ago.  They'll fill you in with more information shortly but I couldn't resist sharing this with you all while we wait.

A special thanks goes to Paton too - Paton wasn't officially involved in the cupcake selling but very kindly baked and donated a whole bunch of yummy cupcakes, helping to make a difference to the SPCA!  Thanks heaps, Paton!

Hi everyone, Alex and Maddy here! We were really exited when Miss H told us we where going to be the newspaper.  Above is the photo of us in the newspaper.  We were in the newspaper because of our good cause (we did cupcake day for the S.P.C.A.  If you were not following the the blog posts we have done so far... you were following weren't you?  Because if you weren't following this is probably your first time on the blog so welcome to our lovely blog, anyway lets get back onto the subject!!) Then we sent an email to Amy from the newspaper and told her what we did for the S.P.C.A and today we discovered ourselves in the Eastern Bays Courier and now we're here.


Thanks for reading!  Bye bye

Applying our Understanding of Division w/ fraction answers - Ben and Samo take the lead!

The last few days in maths the Cool Calculators have been taught by both Miss Holland and Miss Yang which has been a great experience.

Here Ben and Samo took over from the teachers to really show their understanding with the help of their group. 

Check it out!

Getting feedback on my information report on Make a Wish (by Alex)

On the 13th of September I did my conclusion for my info report and we learnt that I should go and repeat the important thing that I have said in my info report and not say anything new because that's what happens in conclusions.

The feedback has been really good because when it's somebody your own age they understand your writing and what you mean, sometimes even better than our teachers.  I have enjoyed getting feedback from the other learners in my writing group.

Today we tried recording my conclusion while Miss H and I talked about it.  I liked getting feedback like that because it's good when other people notice something that you don't and talking about it let me think about it and concentrate on reading it.  I think it was good to record that conversation because it tells other people what I've been learning and also because I can listen to it again and sometimes it's hard to remember what we said.

Here is our discussion:

... and here is one between Miss Holland and Dasha.  Remember this is our first time trying this.  Do you think this would be helpful in your learning?  Or do you prefer to have written feedback?

Presenting to the Orakei Board

On the 7th of September 2011, my principal, Miss Martin said that I could go to the Orakei board and talk about why we need shade, because we needed a bit more money to get the shade of our choice. So I spent my Wednesday morning practicing what I was going to say and getting the presentation ready. I was feeling a mixture of feelings, excitement, nervousness, pressure, and honored because out of everyone, my principal picked me to speak to the Orakei board.

By 5.45pm I was ready, In clean uniform looking sharp and ready to present. One of the Board of trustees came to pick me up and take me to the meeting. When I got there, I saw the Orakei board sitting at the front, and all the other presenters in the other seats. We had to wait before it was our turn but that was fine because I listened to all the other presenters and they all had ideas and plans of their own, whether it was building a new sport arena or maybe they needed some funding for their community.

Then finally, it was our turn...

We had to speak and in front of them and show them our presentation, they listened carefully, took some notes and after we finished they asked us some questions.

In the end I think we did good and it was a great opportunity I that will never forget, I feel very comfortable now speaking publicly. Over all, I think speaking publicly is great because you have more confidence in yourself, which is really important because you can't expect to go past high school and university without speaking publicly. And speaking with confidence is even better and easier.

By Fatima

Maths with Fractions

Hi we're Finn and Hossain,

Today in maths we used chocolate for fractions and we had to solve out how everyone would get the same amount of chocolate. Everyone got to eat the remainders of the chocolate. When we started remainders and fractions, it was hard to solve out how each person would get the same amount of chocolate and no more left behind.  With the remainders it was hard because we had to use our multiplication skills. We were thinking if we could go higher in our fractions because when we were using chocolate it was getting easier and easier for everyone.

Here some photo's of us eating and cutting the chocolate with Miss Holland and Miss Yang.

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

Student Blogging Challenge: Week 1

Hi everyone, I hope you had a lovely weekend.

As you know, the Student Blogging Challenge has begun!  The first activities are all about you - click here for more details...

The first thing we need to do is to make sure that our 'Meet Us' section is updated - if you haven't completed this yet, catch up with me throughout the week and we'll get it done.

We've also been asked to each comment on their blog answering the following questions:

Why did you join the blogging challenge?

What do you hope some of the activities include?

and What do you hope to get out of the challenge by the end of ten weeks?

... there's also a great suggestion list if you'd like to mix up your avatar - why not have a go at designing another so you can swap between two?

Be sure to check out the Student Blogging Challenge blog to see the rest of the activities (such as, visiting other blogs to comment and making a tutorial video.)

Leave us a comment here so we can all see who's involving themselves.  This is an exciting opportunity to get to know other students all around the world, build friendships and increase traffic to our own blog... go large guys and have fun!!

How did you celebrate the RWC opening? (Please tell us!)

What an exciting evening it was!  Read more about the television audience here and be sure to leave a verbal comment, telling us how you celebrated.

Meg and Dasha's Break through: Woman's Refuge

Hi everyone,

Over the past few months, we have been working on a break through. Our break through is to donate second hand things that are still in good condition such as clothing, toys, books etc. We are going to donate these things to Woman's refuge. We have decided to choose this charity because we have been informed that the woman and children leave their  houses without any items. We thought that this is a good charity to support because it said on their website they said that they need children's books, toys and clothing. Today we sent an email to Woman's refuge and told them what we were going to do and how we were going to make a difference to them. We are waiting upon the email to make sure that this is what we are going to do. If you have any suggestions please leave comment.

By Meg and Dasha

Keeping up with the news (NZHerald)

Hi everyone,

I've been sitting here tonight, exploring the New Zealand Herald which I often like to do, and have found two articles that I'd like to share with you all.

On Monday we watched the video about Josh, which got me thinking more about how we can make a difference in society, by really making use of our own skills, talents and capabilities... I came across a link to this site which creates kitchen utensils for blind people.  Imagine how challenging it could be to bake and cook, without having your eyesight.  Things that we take for granted, like finding the right measuring cup and using it to put flour into a mixing bowl, could be very difficult to do without your eyesight!  Well this company makes things a little easier by making measuring cups that have different bits on them - people can feel for different patterns which helps them to recognise when measuring cup they've got - clever huh!  There's a very clever egg separator, a measuring spoon and a device that makes the mixing bowl bigger which would be very useful to stop spilling flower over the side of the bowl!

I wonder, if you have a talent for design - is there something you could invent to help make the world a better place for certain people?

Another article I read that I wanted to share with you (just for fun) was one about recent moon pictures...

These amazing photos taken show the tracks that the moon buggy left (over 40 years ago) and the buggy itself if you look really hard.  It's been estimated that the tracks will remain for between 10 million and 100 million years, before they're eventually entirely covered by moon dust - I can't even begin to imagine that long!

Showing off our blog

 

What was the highlight of our day? We got to show off our blog to some teachers from an intermediate school in Tauranga! They came all this way to see what's happening at Stonefields and we felt so special to be able to show them our awesome blog.

We use the blog to show people all around the world what we've been doing in Hub 3. We show us successes and sometimes our challenges, and we use it as a way of sharing videos and photos sometimes. We love sharing our achievements and sometimes helping other students to learn from our learning... that makes us feel happy and bubbly knowing we've helped someone else.

We felt like we are appreciated and very proud to be chosen to share our blog and it was cool to be able to be leaders like that. Mrs Panapa took a photo of us sharing so we might be able to show you that soon.

Thanks for reading, have a great day!

From Ruby and Dani.

Student Blogging Challenge - the count down has begun...

Hi LH3,

The Student Blogging Challenge isn't far away as some of you know and will be a great way to improve our own blogging skills and communicate with other students from all over the world - how exciting!  Each week a new challenge will be put to us (starting this Monday the 12th) and we've even been lucky enough to hear directly from the organiser, Miss Wyatt, on our 'Meet us' page.

We've been buddied up with two classes - one from America (Ms. Black's fifth grade class) and another from Canada (Mr Carson's seventh and eighth grade class) and we'll be getting to know them better as they start back at school and get into their blogs (I wonder - why do you think they're only just starting school now?!)

There are heaps of other amazing blogs that we've been given links to though, so if you'd like to have a read of some others, visit this site and feel free to have a look around.  If you particularly enjoy some of those blogs, please include their URL (website address) as a comment on this post and I'll put them on our blog roll (the list of blogs we love reading.)

Keep an eye out for more details on the challenge!  Who's excited??

... Happy Feet begins the journey home

Remember Happy Feet, the penguin all the way from Antarctica?  Well he's on his way home now - let's follow his journey and keep our fingers crossed for the little guy.

Click here to see how he's getting on thanks to Google Maps.

This is the Tangaroa - the ship Happy was taken to the drop off point on.

Bring on the Rugby World Cup!

Rugby World Cup - Samoan Welcome - Stonefields School from Sarah Holland on Vimeo.

On Thursday evening some of the LH2 and LH3 learners were lucky enough to welcome the Samoan Rugby Team to New Zealand for the Rugby World Cup!!  Have a look at the video we made from the footage...

... and check out Damien H. as an All Black!

Stay tuned for more...