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

Term 4 Week 4

Boost 2

There are only a couple of Boost sessions left for the year so we haven't started any ongoing projects.  We have returned to working on social skills and group work.

Today we learned about what empathy is.  We talked about how empathy is really thinking about how someone else is feeling.  First we started thinking about what it would be like to be Mum, what would Mum be thinking about and feeling.  It took a while, but the boys really started thinking about what Mum's take on life is.  They talked about what it would feel like as Mum, driving them around to sports, thinking about work, finishing work at home, feeling frustrated when the kids aren't listening!

Then we thought about when we have done something silly that we regret.  Without naming what we have all done (and everyone has something to feel regret about) we thought about what it was like for the other person.  We tried to empathise with how that person would have felt or thought.

Empathy is really important, as it guides our behaviour towards others.  It helps when we think of the bigger picture and how we affect how others are feeling.

We put this to the test with a game of speed chess on the giant chess board.  Teams of four played chess with only ten seconds to make each move.  The challenge was to think about the other team members and how your move may affect the others, and we also worked on genuinely thanking the opposition for the game.  

Term 3 Week 7

Boost 1
We had a break from movie making today, and had some creative thinking games.  These games concentrated on thinking of lots of different things in a time limit.  The children thought it would be easy, but it's not easy when you are under pressure!  We also had a technology challenge, where the children had ice block sticks and string to hold a marble out from a table as far as they could.  

Term 2 Week 8

Boost 1.
In the last couple of weeks Boost 1 have been holding interviews with some people who have been involved with Sacred Heart school now and in the past. It is the 50th jubilee of Sacred Heart school this year. Today we are editing our interviews with imovie. By editing our interviews were cutting bits of it out.
By Jacob

Term 2 Week 3 - Boost 1

This week we finished our first movies.  We added transistions to our video clips last week, and also added titles and subtitles.  This week we added sound to our movies.  We added voiceover and sound effects.  

These videos are the first videos that the children have made at Boost, and the children learned a lot about editing, and adding sound, that they would do differently next time.

Term 2 Week 2

Boost 2.
Today we reaquainted ourselves and the boys talked about what they wanted to learn more about this year.  The overwhelming majority wanted more creative thinking and inventing, so there will be a lot more technology challenges and creating things this year.

To reignite our creative thoughts, we looked at some Rebus puzzles.  A rebus is a word puzzle put in a cryptic way to represent a word, phrase, or saying.  The boys did these today, can you figure them out?

Boost 1 - Term 2 Week 1

Welcome back to Boost for 2012.

Today the children were reintroduced to each other and the new children learned about what Boost is all about.

This term we are working on videoed interviews about Sacred Heart School, for the Jubilee, and the first things that we learned were the 5 big mistakes of Amateur video.

Firehosing – moving the camera around too fast, instead of panning nice and slowly.
Jogging – Carrying the camera while walking, and having jumping pictures as a result.
Lighting – if you subject is in front of the light/sun, then you won't be able to see the front of the subject, it will be in shadow.
Noseroom – leaving space in front of the subject's face, so it looks like they have room to move. 
Headroom – Filling the viewing frame with the subject.  Don't have the person's head right down the bottom of the screen with dead space above.

This is the video that we watched, explaining these mistakes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etVxvl6mcJ8&list=PL7A7E273FAC181113&index=3&feature=plpp_video

The children then worked in pairs/threes to use a video camera to show these mistakes and how to fix them.  Next week they will be putting this footage into a small film to explain their work.

Term 3 Week 2

Boost 2.

Welcome back to term 3.  This term we are working self management, and self soothing.  This helps us to better manage our emotions when we are upset.  We played a few team games that involved being out of your comfort zone and thought about what was 'going on in your head' when you were really frustrated, and what did you do to get out of that headspace.

We also continued our chess, learning about castling your king.  When you ‘castle’ your King, the unmoved King will either move two places to the right or move two places to the left. Immediately following the King’s move, the unmoved Rook closest to the moved King will then “jump” over the King and will land on the immediate open space next to the King. When you castle your King, you must make sure that there are no pieces, either yours or your opponents, on any square between your King and your Rook. Also, once the King has moved, that piece can no longer castle the rest of the game. 

On Monday 5 September there is a chess tournament at Donovan school, which we will attend.  We read through the rules of the tournament, and made sure that we were all using those same rules when we play here at school, even shaking hands with your opponent after a game.

Chess Tournament

There is a chess tournament at Donovan School on Monday 5 August.   I would like all Boost children to enter this tournament, which caters for beginners to experts.  The tournament runs for the whole day and each child will play 7 games.  There is an entry fee of $15 per child.  Make sure that you look out for the flyer in this weeks newsletter for more information!

Term 3 Week 1

Boost 1
We had a great time in Boost this week.  This term we are focusing on knowing ourselves, and we began by looking at different personality types.  Allison Mooney was a speaker at the ILT teaching conference in the holidays and the four personality types that she defines are playful, peaceful, precise and powerful.  (for more information go to www.allisonmooney.co.nz/ms/pressing-buttons).

We discovered which personality type we are and talked about how important it is to have all four types in society. 

We then talked a little about James Nottingham's theory of learning.  He talks about the need for confusion for learning to occur.  If we are never confused then we never actually build on our current knowledge.  James calls this confusion 'the pit'.  We want to put learners (of any age) in 'the pit' because getting out of the pit can be tricky.  You need skills such as persistence, finding humour, remaining open to other opinions/learning and drive, to make sure that you get past that point of confusion in to figuring out the new concept.  When we get out of 'the pit' and the new learning makes sense again, that sense of achievement at getting there on our own is a proud moment.  According to James, this is where children gain the most satisfaction and joy out of learning, and I agree with that theory.

 

So, today we started some philosophy questions.  Discussion and justifying of ideas is a great way to get kids into the pit!  The question this week was 'What is a toy?'  I had a great time with this discussion and the children loved it too.  The kids defined what a toy was to them but their statements were challenged.  For example they said that a toy is something you play with.  I started throwing a pen around and said that I was playing with the pen, does that make it a toy?  The response was, no, a toy needs to be something that you actually play with like a doll or a toy car, you actually use your imagination when you use it.  I asked them if that meant that skipping rope was a toy because I don't have to use my imagination with it.  You can see that the discussion became extremely interesting, and the children were becoming more confused as they tried to define a toy.

I think next time I will have to video the conversation as there were so many great statements about the kids thinking.  e.g. 'I thought I knew what a toy was but now I don't!', and 'I am sooo in the pit!' 

Term 2 Week 11

Boost 2
Today we looked again at creative thinking, and the challenge was to make a freestanding structure that would hold a marble out from a table.  The winning team would have the marble furthest from the edge of the table. 
The materials used were:
8 Popsicle sticks
3 straws
small handful of uncooked spaghetti
1 metre sellotape
1 metre string
2 marbles.

The boys had 20 minutes to complete the task, and only one group was able to finish their structure in that time.  We then talked about the importance of time management!  They were then given another 2 minutes to complete their task.  Here are the results.

We then looked at some new chess programmes on the iPads.  Chess solitare is a great problem solving game.

Individual Inquiries

This term Boost 1 have been working in Inquiries of personal interest.  We have learned about using the internet, finding information, sorting information, and using Keynote to present our findings.

Term 2 Week 7

Boost 2.

Today we looked at the Habits of Mind as a whole, and the children tried to match the titles of each Habit of Mind with the definitions.  This was a difficult task for the boys, both the group work and the definitions were challenging, but with continued encouragement and support, we finished the task together.

Chess is always a popular way to finish the  session, and today we learned about strategies for getting out of check.  There are three main things to think of if your king is in check.
1. Can I knock off the attacking piece?
2. Can I put another of my pieces in the way?
3. Can I move my king?

We also looked at ways to finish the attacking game.  We looked at how we can use a queen and a rook, (or both rooks), to cut off whole lines of the board, and effectively corner the king into check mate.

Term 2 Week 5

Boost 1.

The children have now finished their 'finding out' phase of their inquiries.  Much of this work has been done independently, and the kids have realised how difficult it can be to stick to finding information that helps answer their big question.  Sometimes they have found really interesting facts or information and have wanted to change their focus.  The purpose of inquiry to to strive to answer a question, and hopefully change your thinking a little.  We can't change our question or topic because it was too difficult to find information, that is not showing persistence - it's taking the easy track.  Boost isn't about taking the easy track, it's about challenging ourselves to think harder than we would normally.

We used two programmes to help sort our information.  The older children used 'Inspiration' on the laptops, and the younger children used the iPads.  There is an amazing application on the iPad which is called SimpleMind+.  It is an application that makes it really easy to make mind maps.  The children were able to sort their information into sections of relevance, so that they can make a Keynote presentation about what they have learned.