St Joseph's Oamaru

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Wednesday 30 July 2014

List of Recommended Books

Thank you Timothy for this list of recommended books

List of recommended books:
5 and up:
Narni of the desert (antelope series)
The Twits, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, etc       Roald Dahl
When we were very young                                          A A Milne
Winnie the pooh                                                          A A Milne
Milly Molly Mandy                                                                        
The Little Match Girl, etc                                             Hans Christian Anderson
The Brier Rabbit series                                                Enid Blyton
The Faraway tree series                                               Enid Blyton
The Little House on the prairie series                           Laura Wilder
Lion adventure                                                            Williard Price
The famous five series                                                Enid Blyton
The Secret seven series                                               Enid Blyton
The twins at St Clares series                                        Enid Blyton
How to train a dragon series
Black Beauty                                                               Anna Sewell
101 Dalmations
What Katy did series                                                   Susan Collidge
The Railway children                                                  E Nesbit
Heidi
A little princess
The secret garden
Redwall series                                                             Brian Jacques
Robin Hood
Anne of Green Gables series                                       Montgomery
The Chronicles of Narnia                                            C S Lewis
Kensuke’s Kingdom           (and other titles)               Michael Morpurgo
The Hobbit                                                                  JRR Tolkien
Star Wars
Harry Potter series                                                       J K Rowling
Percy Jackson series                                                    Rick Riordan
TinTin
Asterix
Footrot Flats
Garfield,etc
Rangers apprentice series
Nany piggins                                                               R.A Spratt
The magic tree house series
The 13 story tree house                                               Terry Denton
My story series
My royal story series
My New Zealand story
Bear grylls mission survival series
Boy vs beast series
Zac power series
Amulet series
The secrets of Droon series                                         Tony Abott
The magic school bus series




10 years and over:
The silver sword
A series of unfortunate events                                     Lemony Snicket
I am David                                                                  Anne Holm
The diary of Anne Frank
The Heaven Shop   (12+)                                            Deborah Ellis
The Parvarnaseries  (12+)                                           Deborah Ellis
Pennies for Hitler
Hitler’s Daughter
The boy in stripped pyjamas
The Lord of the Rings                                                 JRR Tolkien
White fox                                                                    Gary Paulsen
Hatchet series                                                              Gary Paulsen
Fox man                                                                     Gary Paulsen
Soul surfer                                                                  Bethany Hamilton
Eragon series
Children of the lamp series
The house of secrets series
Skulldugery pleasant series
Robin hood
Treasure island etc.
Wereworld rise of the wolf
Little Women                                                                      
The borrowers
The Kane Chronicles                                                  Rick Riordan
Heroes of Olympus                                                     Rick Riordan
Crusade                                                                      Elizabeth Laird
I am the great Horse                                                    Katherine Roberts
The Tapestry series                                                     Henry H Neff
The Belgariad series                                                    David Eddings
The Malloreon series                                                  David Eddings
The Elenium series                                                     David Eddings
Around the world in Eighty days                                Jules Verne
Sherlock Holmes series                                              Arthur Conan Doyle
The ring of five series                                                 Eoin McNamee                                  

13yrs and over
The Serpentwar saga                                                 Raymond E Feist    
Conclave of Shadows                                               Raymond E Feist    
The Hunger Games                                                   Suzanne Collins

The maze runner, The scorch trials, The death cure  James Dashner

Saturday 26 July 2014

Deep Learning for the Book Reviews

This is the rubric which will guide deep learning for the book reviews due at the end of week 3.  To get to extended abstract thinking there will need to be a good understanding of the plot, the inference in the book and how the book relates to the wider world.  You will need to have done some creative thinking to link these things together and use your logic to imagine what the writer was hoping people would get from the story.

It is a very rare story that is written just for people to have fun.  Even Captain Underpants was about Dav Pilkey's own experience of being a child who loved to write comic books but couldn't fit in with the school environment of the time and how he loved playing with words but didn't always get it right. His message is there's more than one way to do things and some people who look like they don't fit in or can't get things right, may in fact be very creative people with something different to offer.  So he felt the education he experienced should have been more flexible and inclusive - that's the message I get from Dav Pilkey in Captain Underpants.


Monday 21 July 2014

Term 3 Overview

TERM 3 OVERVIEW

Specific plans and more information can be found on the class webpage if you are.  I particularly suggest checking the maths section for things that need to be known by the end of year 7.  https://sites.google.com/a/stjoseph.school.nz/manuka-clas/home
We will have covered all of these but continued practice is very important.  There will be workshops this term to help parents with numeracy learning at home.

The first half of term 3 will be about gathering lots of ideas and stimulation so that the children can once again pursue their own inquiries in the second half of term.

In week 1 we will be learning about child poverty in New Zealand as part of our literacy learning.  The culmination of this is the children will be submitting an informed response to a nationwide survey about child poverty in New Zealand.  

In weeks 2 & 3 we will be learning about world peace as part of the Peace Foundation's initiative for Peace Week.

Week 4 will be a consolidation week.

In week 5 the year 7 & 8s will take part in science experiment learning stations where they will have the opportunity to do several experiments and we will be taking them to the Otago Museum where they will learn about the cultures that New Zealand settlers have brought to New Zealand to make the special mix which is the Kiwi Culture.  They will also have a learning session on explorers and time to investigate the Discovery Zone.  There will be a letter going home about this on Monday which needs to be returned by Friday.

We hope that there will have been sufficient input for each child to hone in on something they want to explore further for their own literacy-based individual research projects in weeks 6-10.  During this time we will also be reading novels.

The main focus for maths this term is measurement and geometry.  I will also be teaching the children standard written forms and calculator skills.

The HOMEWORK focus for weeks 1-3 is to write a book review about the book  read over the holiday and to complete any maths practice work not completed in classtime.

If you haven't had access to a computer that's OK but congratulations to the many children who have made interesting blog entries over the holidays. The maths holiday homework will be marked on day 1 so please make sure this returns to school with the children.  The solutions to the extra problems (for children who chose to do them) are now available on the class blog, below the links for holiday learning: http://stjoesmanuka.blogspot.co.nz/ 

Cross country is in week 4.  On Wednesday this week I will introduce the children to some self-monitoring practices for cross country.  From thereon in we will do some cross country practice every day.  Please wear PE kit on Wednesday and Friday but have a PE top and trainers in school bags from Wednesday until cross country in week 4.  If the PE top is in the wash a soberly coloured t shirt will be OK to keep in the bag.

Sunday 6 July 2014

St Joseph's in Minecraft part 1



On the last day of term Mrs Patterson set the challenge of making the school on Minecraft.  There are several versions in progress.  In this video we see part of the Intermediate department created by Nina, Daniel, Ben B, Zach and Mannix and added to by Antonio.  I wonder will other people be making more parts during the holidays?  Which version will look most like the school?  If you are going well with your versions see if you can video them and email them to me to share.