Inferencing by The Brilliants

For the past two reading lessons the Brilliants have been doing a presentation on inferencing using fotobabble. 

We've been using the language from our Inquiry Model on this blog and you might be wondering what it's all about!  Here's a copy of the reading one (they'll all the same, it's just that the words that are especially helpful in each subject have been bolded to help us.)

This is what we did...

Building Knowledge.  First we brought what we knew about inferencing and found that all of us together had enough information to do it ourselves, though we found some more information and brainstormed together. 

Then we moved to Making Meaning, where we summarised it and considered how to organise it all. We negotiated what we would include in our presentation and who would say each part and we knitted some ideas together where possible. Then we began to plan and assemble our script.

Finally we moved to Applying our Understanding where we created our fotobabble. We created the script and applied our understanding by creating our own example of inferencing and we justified why it was inferencing. We solved the problem of writing our everyone's parts seperately by working off our original piece of paper. We also solved the problem of running out of time on fotobabble by taking out the dictionary definition we had - it was too long and we thought it actually made things quite confusing! We replaced it with our own definition which we thought was better anyway. We considered the possibilities of how to make a member of the group stay quiet (this was quite difficult) and came up with a solution to help them. Last but not least we applied what we learnt to our blog and recounted all the steps.

Break Through!

By Jamie and Alex

A visit from a Biologist!

On Friday, during the second block, Annette came over to share her insect presentation with us. Annette is a biologist from the University of Auckland and she spends a lot of time studying insects.

First she shared a Powerpoint about what types of insects live in different areas and told us how to classify if a creature is an insect or not. We learnt that insects always have 6 legs, 2 antanae and 3 body parts (head, abdomen and thorax) - which means that spiders aren't even insects! We also learnt that bugs are a certain type of insect, which means that not all insects are bugs! All of these creatures though are called invertebrates because they don't have a backbone, instead they have an exoskeleton (their 'bones' are on the outside instead of being on the inside, like the are with humans and animals.) We asked lots of good questions were able to answer some of the ones she asked us.

Then, we were tested on our knowledge. Annette gave us little containers that had creatures inside them. We had to decide whether the creatures were insects or just invertebrates, and note down special characteristics (exactly what they were.) Some of the insects were saw were alive! There was a big selection, including a monarch butterfly, a white-tailed spider (NZ's main poisonous spider), an earwig and baby cockroaches. We had fun trying to recognise what they were but some of us were creeped out by the live insects - especially the spider!

We were also shown a little bottle filled with alcohol and lots of dead invertebrates. These are known as pitfall traps. They are placed in the ground and the invertebrates fall into the trap over a period of days, and show the scientists the insects that are in the area. The pitfall trap that Annette showed us came from Motatapu Island and had lots of scary spiders (called arachnids.)

She also showed us a collection of insects that she'd caught and found herself, and that she'd pinned herself in a wooden box. They were all labeled and looked amazing.

We really enjoyed having Annette along to Learning Hub 3 and hope she comes back again. It was great to hear from a real biologist and it was clear that she knew a lot about invertebrates!

By Craig and Ben

Insects with Annette! on PhotoPeach

An Image in Time - Jamie, Craig, Fatima, Maddy & Ben

WALHT (We Are Learning How To): Write a interesting paragraph from a picture, using metaphor and personification.

This morning for journal writing we were doing a moment in time image.  It needed to include a metaphor and personification.  We chose between two images.  One was a globe with hands, the other was a rock climbing wall.  We hope you enjoy them.

When I look at the globe I think of each hand as a country and the globe as the environment.  Each time a hand comes away, a country stops caring, making it harder for the remaining hands to take care of it.  It will end up being a concrete wasteland.  If this happens the stars will never wink again.

By Jamie

It's Craig here - I've underlined the figurative language I used, can you work out which ones I've used where?

It all started when the universe ran over to our part of the solar system and popped a balloon causing a big bang.  That was the point when our part of the solar system was invented.  Then civilization started, they began to hold the world. Later on war was invented, civilizations crumbled making it harder to hold the world.  The Earth was beginning to feel like an anchor to the people who are still holding.  Later on in time our technology has begun to pollute the land and our environment.  More hands drop.  If one more pair of hands drop, our world will be a wasteland.   

By Craig

Standing alone holding the globe all by myself.  The globe felt like I was carrying a marble but the longer I held it, the quicker I realised I was holding a dinosaur sized globe.  I felt like giving up but the globe smiled as someone else helped me hold it.  I felt like a thousand weights lifted off my shoulders.

I felt like I did quite well because a couple years ago, I wasn't sure about metaphors and personifications.  Now I can write metaphors, personifications, and similes at ease.  Journal writing has helped me lot.  Journal writing is really affective because the teachers give you a topic to write about and you have to use figurative language.  I am looking forward to more journal writing so I can improve on my weaknesses.

By Fatima

As I steer at the rock wall it laughs at me. As I start to climb the wall I turn into nimble monkey creeping to the top.

By Maddy

As I am the great billy goat I am preparing to conquer this great big mountain and guess what, it laughed at me.  I think it will be a big challenge for me!

By Ben