Term 3, Week 2

This week we have initiated a student-led workshop immersion. Some LC4 students have run workshops before but many have not. We started this immersion by introducing our learners to three different graphic organisers and listing all of our passions, interests and loves. Then Lisa introduced us to a way that we could organise these ideas into what we could teach, what trips could we organise and what experts could we bring into our school.

Some examples of what the students could teach included:
Soccer skills, Te Reo, shading, Cuboro, Netball, Samoan language

Cooking, making pizza, playing an instrument, coding

Places we could visit:
Forests, zoo, air force base, SPCA, skim boarding at the beach, Disney Land, farm, ballet, kayaking, shopping, beauty salon

Once we completed all our brainstorming and organising we tried to write a lesson plan for the workshop. Many of the students found this more difficult than they imagined it would

Thoughts the students shared:
"I don't know what to write"
"I thought I knew lots about this subject"
"I don't know which idea to choose"
"I'm finding it hard to plan the steps but I'm not sure what the other steps will be"

As the week has progressed students have conducted research into their proposed workshops and have worked in small groups to provide and receive feedback and feedforward. We purposefully sought to put them with peers they don't ordinarily work with and they continue to find this an interesting experience.

Our next step is to help the students write detailed workshop plans that include all the necessary steps, in the right order and using the correct language. Once this is completed we will assist the children in building the confidence and skills to deliver their workshop, for some that will be very soon and others may take longer.

On Friday, Jack N and Grace both ran their workshops with 2 students from LC4 and 2 visiting students from Japan, they focussed on passing a basketball and hip hop dancing . Both workshops were enjoyed by all who attended and it will be great to see more students run their own in the future.

Hobsonville Point Market Day and Music Performances
On Wednesday the whole school went to the secondary school to visit the markets and watch several musical performances. Grace was part of the girls Pop Band with LC3 students and did a magnificent job performing in front of several hundred spectators, LC 4 students were full of praise for her voice and courage.

Fleur Beale Author Visit
A group of LC4 students were invited to return to the high school on Thursday for an author's visit. Fleur has authored many books http://www.bookcouncil.org.nz/writers/bealefleur.html
"Yesterday a group of 8 people went to the high school to meet an author called Fleur Beale. She started by telling us about herself and that she doesn’t like to do exciting things but likes to write about them. She then read us some of her book called Slide the Corner. Its about a  man who wants to become a race car driver but his parents don’t think it’s a good idea.

She gave us heaps of tips and told us where she got her inspiration from and I really enjoyed it".

The students shared that Fleur often will do research for her novels, if her main character is a racing car driver she will speak to racing car drivers. This is an aspect of writing we hadn't touched on but will have to try this in our creative writing in the future.