I breathed in the fresh night air, waving my torch under my face as I waited for the countdown. Taking my place, I smiled. This was going to be interesting.
“THREE, TWO, ONE--- GO!!!” once the countdown was done, us then-rabid animals of Year 7 students sprinted off into the almost pitch black, somewhat dangerous darkness of the diverse forest. I wondered if this what it was like to be blind. Except for the ‘occasional’ tree, and the little white lights dancing like frantic, white fireflies. Now that it was all on, we weren’t the predators. We were the prey, and the parents were the predators. I gasped as I tripped over a thick tree root, getting a good taste of the loose earth beneath my face. Spitting in repulsion, I wiped my mouth and continued (and also struggled) to climb up the side of the damp,almost slippery hill. “SPOTLIGHT!!” I whipped my head around. Whew, it wasn’t me. Despite the fact the chances of getting caught by a parent were dangerously high, I continued to scramble up the hill, and made a fair bit of noise doing it. A sharp, snapped stick poked me in the arm. I held in what was about to come out of my mouth at that moment. I took a short, very well deserved break, breathing in more of the night air and getting to know the area. After another few minutes of gasping, tripping, and eating dirt, the flying fox tower was in my sights. I laughed quietly, making my last scramble for the top. It was all on this now. I had to make it. I had to! You could only imagine my relief when my dirty fingers touched that post. “You made it!!” a voice said. It was someone I knew, maybe Finn. I plonked down happily, my head hanging down to greet the disgusting-tasting dirt as I began waving my torch again. Last night for a homework activity, I went on a website named twittermagnets, which consisted of a blue background with little word magnets, which you put down on a three-line grid to create sentences. It allowed you to submit your sentence to Twitter for whatever reason, swap words to replace them with others and view your feed if you must.
Despite being very simple in nature, I think this site has some advantages, like being easy to work with and being very simple. But with everything with advantages, there is disadvantages. I think the disadvantages of this website is the fact that’s it’s really only a blank blue screen with words you use to make sentences, the option to submit and share them and use other words then the ones you got by swapping them, and nothing else. It doesn’t really teach you that much if you think about it. However, if you really, REALLY need to use it during school and class time, I would use it if working with young children from about five to six, or with children who are slower learners than others, like children with disabilities. Kaea This internet site is an online dictionary with learning activities aimed at younger children aged 8-10 years.
Positive:
Minus:
My Thoughts: I liked the variety of activities; however found that there were too many distracting side line promotions. While there were different levels for different stages of learning, the vocabulary was limited, for example when I typed in the word 'big' it only offered simple synonyms such as huge rather than the more complex synonym 'leviathan', 'herculean' that I enjoy using. I personally wouldn't use the site and I don't think it would be helpful in class as it is not up the the standard of work that we do. By Hannah We were pretty lucky today to have 6 of the Highlanders visit us. Isabelle and Josh were the hosts for the assembly and asked some pretty searching questions. It was fun finding out more about the Highlanders and we wish them all the best for Saturday night's game. Well done to Vini for being our star of the week. Our focus this week was Kindness. Vini received lots of nominations for his kindness on camp, helping others and being aware of others. Well deserved Vini!
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AuthorHi, I am Anna Garthwaite, the teacher of Room 3. I have been a teacher for a few years now - since 1994! I have taught both here in NZ and overseas in England and Kuwait. I am married with 2 children, Ben and Harry. Archives
December 2014
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