Algebra - Visual Literacy

We have been working through Algebra Puzzles. We know that accepting challenges and sticking with a problem helps the brain to grow. We have been making our own puzzles!

We came up with a co-constructed success criteria:

Include 4 or 5 pictures
The puzzle needs a good starting point
Make the puzzle 4 or 5 lines
It needs to include some numbers
We need to remember to do the multiplication first

It needs to be simple and clear

We are producing quality work!

Bug Algebra by Kyran

Ocean Algebra by Violet

Why puzzles in Maths?

1. They develop Critical Thinking skills so that you can problem solve in different situations

2. It exercises the brain. Practising these types of puzzles helps the brain to make connections. It helps your brain get used to focusing on a single problem.

3. It will help you to be a more successful Mathematician. You will be able to apply logic to work out Maths problems successfully.

Sarah Flannery, at age of 16, won the Young Scientist of the Year award in Ireland.

This is Sarah talking about Maths and the role her parents played in her own amazing achievements.
“My parents definitely let me see that mathematics was this beautiful subject. I think a lot of people never even hear those two words in the same sentence. So they gave that to me, and they gave me, through these different puzzles, where even I thought I couldn't start out on them, they showed me, no, you have lots of tools, and techniques, and ways to visualise, and get started, and you can do it.”

Ocean Algebra by Alice

Art Supplies Algebra by Olive

Frog Algebra by Henry

Plant Algebra by Kyran

Playtime Algebra by Raife

Sky Algebra by Marcia

Locky's Football Algebra

Christmas Zine

We have continued to pump up visual literacy. We know that our students enjoy to present their learning in different ways. Visual literacy has been a way to engage and motivate many of our students to communicate their ideas in creatively. This week, we made a Christmas Zine. It was wonderful to see the quality of the work produced. 

Ethan Q: On Wednesday the 7th of December we made a Christmas Zine in one day and it had 11 pages. First we all started on doing some doodles, word search and comics so it took us about to morning tea to get about half way done. It was very fun. After morning tea we kept on going until we finished and we all moved onto do different things. We made a word search for a song, an odd one out and many more things and stapled it together and there were awards for teamwork, creativity and encouragement and we got the award for teamwork. We managed to finish it at the end of the day. It was very fun and we named it 'Crazy Christmas.' Our group were Ethan.Q, Tui, Marcia, Samuel, Scarlett and Alice.

Raising a Reader - Visual Literacy Inquiry

Our Visual Inquiry learning/ reading has inspired us to create our own zines. 

This is us planning what we will include. 

We have stumbled across a great article in the New York Times, By Pamela Paul and Maria Russo, "How to Raise a Reader." This article has tips for parents about how to raise a reader at every age and stage.  

Some key points:

• Read throughout the day 
• When reading with kids, introduce your own preferences
• Respect the child's preferences
• Choose a range of books/ texts
• Don't make reading work, reading is fun!
• Format does not matter- comics can help students become avid readers
• A book about a computer game is still reading
• Some kids prefer non-fiction

We are all very excited about our ongoing Visual Literacy Inquiry. We have been reading a range of texts that have visual images or diagrams. 

We’ve been working on our reading comprehension skills, using some exciting comic and graphic novels stories. We are being reading detectives and learning to read both the words and the pictures to gather information. We are making predictions about what characters will do next, and inferring the reasons for their actions from the information we have. We are practising saying why we think these things by referring to the text for evidence.

Font and Colour - Visual Language

 In our mahi towards creating a school Zine we have been working on understanding colour and fonts with greater depth. These skills will help us to create high quality work for our Zine.

We have been learning about how colour can be used to make us feel a certain way, this is used in advertising all around us! For example, we had some thoughtful discussions around how the colour red can mean love but also anger. We recognised that characters in cartoons often have red faces to show us they're angry.  

We also have looked at the way in which colour from across the colour wheel can contrast and look effective.

We had a good dose of fun creating our own colour palettes which we have even named. 

We anticipate the work we have done this week will help us as we tackle the next phase of the Zine. Exciting times!

Zine (a work in progress)

We are ramping up our creative juices in a push to create content for the Zine. We have begun to make comics, diagrams, posters etc etc. We have LOVED having a go on Canva and creating some content using the programme. We are still honing our design skills and there will be more work on this in the coming weeks... Watch this space!

Information about our Inquiry from a previous post:

"Our Inquiry is called ‘Words and Pictures, Igniting the imagination’.

This Inquiry links to our school-wide Writing and Inquiry focus, creating a Zine which we can share with the Worser Bay community and beyond! We are beginning to work on different form of Visual Literacy and are learning more about magazines in general to generate inspiration."

We are using our on Visual Language Checklist to make sure what we are creating is 'quality work'

How Dinosaurs Became Extinct - Depicting Facts Through Diagrams

Our Inquiry is called ‘Words and Pictures, Igniting the imagination’. 

This Inquiry links to our school-wide Writing and Inquiry focus, creating a Zine which we can share with the Worser Bay community and beyond! We are beginning to work on different form of Visual Literacy and are learning more about magazines in general to generate inspiration.

We have been learning how to depict facts and knowledge through diagrams. We looked at the theories of how the dinosaurs became extinct then made posters to depict the facts that we wanted to share. 

Lunar New Year

Last week we found out more about the Lunar New Year with some help from some of our experts in the room.  The Lunar New Year is celebrated in many countries across Asia and is celebrated across the world. 

We learnt about the legend of the New Year. Each year is named after a different animal, based on an old story. The Jade Emperor called all the animals on earth, but only 12 came. He told the animals to have a race. The order they finished the race was the order he named the years in the Chinese calendar. Rat won the race, with the pig strolling in last.

We found out what our Chinese New Year sign is and the strengths that are linked to that animal. It is believed that a person's horoscope, personality, and love compatibility are closely associated with their Chinese zodiac sign, determined by their birth year. What is your shengxiao?

We created our own comic strips to retell the story.

By Lexi

By Willow

We found out about some other countries that celebrate the Lunar New Year. We also found out about New Year traditions from across the world. Like China, many countries do not celebrate New Year on January 1st. 

By Lisa and Ella

How do you celebrate the New Year?

Welcome Back to 2022

Welcome back to a new school year! We loved welcoming back our students last week after such a beautiful Wellington summer. We're excited about the learning ahead! We will be kicking off with an Inquiry ‘Words and Pictures, Igniting the imagination’, a study of comics and graphic novels. We are excited about connecting visual and written language and think that this will be really inspiring for our kids.

We have started to think about goal setting for the year. Last week, we chose a focus word for the year. This is a word that will guide us through the year ahead. This will sit on our shoulder and gently nudge us towards achieving our goals. The staff have also created a focus word for the year!

We know that setting goals helps us to stay motivated and feel success. We break these goals into small steps (kaizen steps). We have our "dream goals" then break these down into smaller steps. 

When goal setting, we use the "SMARTER" akronym. We think the exciting and rewarding part is REALLY important! 

Some goal setting questions for our students: 

What are your dreams? what are you passionate about? How will you grow a strength? What are your goals for Literacy and Maths? Other areas of the curriculum? What is something you need to work on? 

What are your goals linked to the flourish model?
Positive Relationships

Positive Purpose

Positive Emotions
Positive Accomplishment
Positive Health

Positive Engagement

The Flourish Model is at the centre of what we do at Worser Bay School

This term we have a focus on the Learner Attribute of being a goal setter. 

We have enjoyed spending time connecting and reconnecting with our friends. We spent time at the beach on Friday as part of Global Play Day. What a great way to develop and build Positive Relationships.