Boost 2 - Term 4 Week 4

We have been busy making our own chess sets over the last few sessions.  The boys have been making their chess pieces out of self drying clay and today they started painting them.  I am so impressed with the concentration and focus that the children have shown in this.

Boost 1 - Term 4 Week 4

Last session we talked about teachers.  Students get feedback a lot, but teachers generally don't, so we thought about all the different teachers that we have had and then wrote down the things that we really liked about them and things that we weren't happy about them.  There were no names of course and we got some really interesting feedback about what 'makes a good teacher'.  This was then put up in our staffroom for the teachers to see, and the teacher's loved reading it!  We then made a small questionnaire to ask the other children in the school what they thought a good teacher should be like, and the Boost kids surveyed the children in Rooms 5 to 9.  

Today we collated that information and learned about the importance of recording everything, even if you don't agree with it.  Each answer had to be documented for the research to be authentic.  The children were quiet surprised at some of the findings and it was really interesting to see the responses.  Then they suggested that they also question Rooms 1 and 2, then the whole school would have been asked, so this afternoon they took their questionnaires to the junior rooms. They then collated this further information and saw that Room 1 and 2 have a very different view of school then the senior classes.  For instance Rooms 1 and 2 wanted help with their writing and the older kids mainly wanted help with their maths.  This collated information will again go into the staffroom for the teachers to see.

After this was finished we started talking about the Pay it Forward phenomenon.  I showed the children a couple of short clips from the movie and this helped to explain what 'paying it forward' means.  At this time of year especially, people start getting stressed and tired and focus on the negative, and paying it forward forces us to look for ways that we can help others and find that kindness in the world.  The challenge for all of us this fortnight is for us to pay it forward 3 times if possible.  Help someone in a big way, help them do something that they could not do by themselves.  Random acts of Kindness can be found everywhere.  We will talk about what we managed to do next session.

Boost 2 - Term 3 Week 3

After the success of the recent chess tournament, we are sticking with the chess theme and making our own chess sets.  The boys are all very excited about this and there was lots of noise and chatter when deciding which theme they would go with.  Once they decided on a theme we talked about the characteristics of each chess piece.  For example the Queen is the most powerful piece on the board.  She can move fast from one end of the board to the other and she is tall, so when we choose a character for our Queen piece, they need to have the same characteristics as the original piece.  There is a lot of critical thinking going into justifying the reasons for their choices and the boys are learning that they can't just choose any old character, it has to be relevant to the chess piece characteristics.  So far we have a dinosaur set (herbivores against carnivores), a Star Wars set (classic black versus white), a transformers set (autobots against deceptions) and a minecraft set (monsters versus players). 

Today we started on our chess boards - the boys learned how to change the board around to ensure that they kept their lines nice and neat.  We also started making a prototype of a chess piece each to check for correct sizing on the board.  We will continue with the boards next session and begin modelling our pieces as well.

Boost 1 - Term 3 Week 3

Welcome back to term 3.  Our whole school has been learning about different aspects of change.  Change in science, change in art and colours, change over time. 

This term we are looking at change in the form of perspectives.  The fact that different people can react totally differently to exactly the same event is a big concept, and one that I believe is vitally important to know.  Supporting this concept is the fact that we can alter or change our own perspective on the same thing over time.

Last session, we looked at two different artists, Claude Monet and Pablo Picasso.  Monet painted in the impressionist style and Picasso painted in the cubism style.

Important facts about how these artists viewed change:

Monet – often painted the same thing over and over at different times of the day.  He was fascinated with the changing light and this is reflected in his may different paintings of the same subject.

Picasso – painted many self portraits, each one different to the other.  These portrayed Picasso's differing moods and thoughts at the time of painting each one.

There is also change in how they perceived the world and represented it in their paintings.  Monet and Picasso both painted portraits of women, for example, but their paintings are extremely different to each other.  

We started last session by making our own simple artwork by following exactly the same instructions.  The children worked independently and listened to a set of instructions, to complete their abstract artwork.  At the end of the task the children compared their artwork which was all very different.  This is because each individual put their own perspective into their work.

We have seen that different people have different perspectives on things, and now we are learning that we can also change our perspective of something.  Each child decided on something to draw, and we are now replicating that drawing but using changing art techniques.  We have an initial sketch, a piece where the children were only allowed to use straight lines, a pointillism piece (using only dots and primary colours), and a piece where they were able to use any colours but the correct ones.  We are starting to see that the same picture can change dramatically depending on what technique we use on it. 

Today we continued with the different techniques on the same piece of art work.  We drew an abstract design, then divided the paper into four, and the children are using a different technique on each quarter of their artwork.

Boost 1 - Term 2 Week 3

This week has been another busy one for Boost 1 children.  We learned about different film shots and techniques to use in their video.

 

These are the videos that we watched, to help us with our film making.
 
Rule of Thirds video
Film Making Techniques
5 Deadly Sins of Amateur Video

With the different shots and techniques in mind, the groups planned their short video using a storyboard.  Each step of the story had to be planned, including the camera angle (birds eye view, worm view etc.), shot (close up, long shot etc.) and technique (macro, rule of thirds).  This took most of the day but the detail in these plans means that there is more time filming next time.

I have asked the children to talk within their groups about what props they might need to bring next fortnight.  They also need to decide where this will be filmed within the school.

Some groups will need bike/scooter/cart, helmet, costume etc.
One group will need a large size (in pixels) photo for their background to their claymation video.

Boost 2 - Term 2 Week 1

Today I posed a problem to the boys.  A lot of people don't realise that there is a school here, as it is not as visible from the road as a lot of other schools.  We need to make some type of signage to make sure that people know that we are here.

First we looked at our present sign, and the boys immediately noticed that it wasn't very noticeable.  The gardens are growing up in front of it, the sign is difficult to see.


We took photos of the front of the school and the boys used one of these photos to plan where they would put a sign or two, and we estimated how big the signs would have to be.  We then went out to check our measurements to see if they were a good estimate.  We discovered that some of the measurements were just too big, so we had to change our plan.

 

The boys have been asked to come up with a new design for their ideal sign and we will share these next Boost session.  We will use these designs to come up with a proposal each for Mr Forde to look over. 

Boost 1 - Term 2 Week 1

Welcome to Boost 1 group for 2013.

Welcome to our three new students to Boost 1.  This takes our total this year to 8 children in our group.

This term we have decided  to enter a competition with Safe Kids New Zealand.  The children have decided that they all want to make a video for this competition and today we looked at the criteria for the video they will be making, we thought about our favourite activity that needs a bike helmet and then the children were split into groups to begin planning their video.

You can find all the information about this competition here:
http://safekidscreativequest.org.nz/about-creative-quest/

This fortnight, the children need to be watching TV advertisements and asking themselves these questions:

What kind of music are they using, and why?
Are there any logo's or pictures that are being used?
How many people are in the ad?
What colours to they notice, what makes these noticeable?
What is the message of the ad – is it clear?
How are these ads different from all the others?     

If they could jot down some of their findings and bring them to the next Boost session, that would be great.

The judging criteria for this competition is:
Creativity
Message Clarity
Originality
Effort