Here is an example of some of the quality student work we have produced in our class this year so far. Over four weeks, students worked hard to create a quality narrative and I have been blown away by the quality of their writing. Students also got the opportunity to craft some beautiful sumi e paintings. I know that at least for Annie she was hating having to use one colour, but it has really paid off as they have made some beautiful paintings of our hidden history.


 

Ashish has been exploring the cultural differences between Nepal and New Zealand to help him with his documentary that he is putting together for Land of Plenty. Students are exploring how people maintain their culture when they leave their homeland and come to a new place. In the unit this new place is New Zealand, and with lots of migrants at the school and in our classroom, including Bawi Tha, Bawi Cung, Ram Peng, Ashish and Mr Phillips, it means that we are able to draw on our own experiences and knowledge to help others learn.

In Room 16, we have been learning all sorts of interesting things we can do with Fractions. Yes, they are a bit "freaky" but we don't let that change us.








Also just as a check, would love you guys to complete this assessment if you feel confident with dividing sometime soon please!

We have been exploring this historical issue in order to create our own bloody and frightening historical fiction. I have been extremely impressed with the quality of the students in Room Sixteen's work.

Here is an example from Georgie Merry

"His hands sway back and forward as he moves, his skin papery underneath a well groomed bread and jagged jawling. Looking at him and his pale skin, the way his eyes reflect whatever is in front of them, creates a sort of elegance about him. His eyes remind me of my blue water tank in my yard when you open it, only my water tank is only a few feet deep and his eyes are fathomless"

Students have been focusing on creating

• vivid descriptions of characters
• painting the picture of a scene to give the reader a better idea in their mind
• interviews with the characters to make them more lifelike

I am so impressed with Emma's outstanding presentation of her learning about Heritage, she has shown a range of great sights of heritage in Nelson (or sites) and has made her own opinion as to what heritage is. I especially like how the camera zooms in to her own photographs of the places of heritage.
 Caleb has created a presentation that is a big improvement on his last presentation, I especially like how he has followed our success brief and has made a great personal comment on the issues around heritage. The quality of the thinking displayed is mirrored in the fantastic use of prezi.
 You don't come away from Jackson's prezi without learning heaps and being blown away. Jackson has clearly thought really hard about how best to show the hidden history of Nelson, and this prezi is as sophisticated and as sharp as they can get. A brilliant effort.

Bawi Tha has shown a great understanding of how places change over time, in his research he has found a variety of places in Nelson that have developed over time. I especially like how he found the old picture of the Christ Church and now the newer church. He also got his work in before everyone else, so very impressive effort. I think that this project could have been improved by Bawi Tha sharing his opinion on the buildings he had found, but that is something that he can work on next week.

I am looking forward to seeing more of these outstanding presentations of learning.

One of the things that is great about learning, is that you can often visible see the results. Take for example Finn's project. Last week, he used Prezi, but this week with the addition of some new skills that he has both learnt himself and had a bit of help with, his ability to share information using Prezi has massively improved. This is a great example of student work that is both informative and shows Finn's huge interest in the topic.

Students were finding out different aspects of the social timeline of the 19th Century. We had broken apart what social timelines meant. We saw that it could be race - as racism had big impacts on social relations during the period; women's rights- because women had to fight to be socially equals with men; or war, because wars impact on people.

Great work Finn and everyone else in the class who has completed such outstanding presentations of learning.


Great job Finn!
 How could Ram have improved this timeline? Does it show the way that things change over time? I really like the way that Ram's project zooms into facts and out. It seems really cool.
Great work  Ashish!
 When we showed this to the class, everyone was really impressed by Bawi Tha's research. He had combined a text he found in the library, with extra research in the library to back it up.


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Finding about social history was hard as we discovered on Friday. Because social history is diverse it has lots of parts to it. When we told each other what we thought social history could encompass, students said that

"The Treaty of Waitangi" 

"Women getting the Vote"

and

"Slavery being abolished"

all were aspects of social history. 

Social history is any history that touches on the economic, cultural and social institutions of a people. For New Zealand this can be as broad as impacts that laws have; especially for the Votes for Women campaign, and other political changes to NZ. 

When we look at wikipedia to explain it, because I know that is a key point of call for your research. I looked at the contents bar and it gave me a great idea of what social history is.

• 3.1 Demographic history
• 3.2 Black history
• 3.3 Ethnic history
• 3.4 Labor history
• 3.5 Women's history
• 3.6 Gender history
• 3.7 History of the family
• 3.8 History of education
• 3.9 Urban history
• 3.10 Rural history

So Social history shouldn't be as hard to search for after all, all we need to do with our search terms is to incorporate some of those key words.

Lets have a try

if we use the key words

19th century women's history

Lets see what results we get.

























Looking through this, we could go for the video. But if we look down the page using our skimming and scanning strategy we will find the 10 key dates in women's history- the 19th century. Its the 5th term in the google search, but it looks like it will be the best fit for the information we are trying to gather.

Have a go at searching by adding one of the social history trends that were above in yellow  to your google search of 19th century.

In my searches I found some great resources that can also help.

This site with a slideshare of information 
Slideshares or prezis can often be a treasure trove of information to help with searches and often easier than reading wikis. 

This timeline:
How does this relate to NZ?
























This great infographic about New Zealand economic development. How does is show that New Zealand was growing more resources for export? 
(export means to send resources from one place to another for profit)

Emily seems to have found some of the best bronze sculptures in this presentation. I was really impressed by its vibrancy and engaging information. I wonder what you think?

I love the way that Finn has used prezi, he has made the presentation zoom in really close and it seems really engaging. There is also a fantastic image that he has found of quartz mines, if you find a great image of a quartz mine to add to the prezi why not attach a link in your comment!?