lizzzyyy051

Kia ora koutou...  The challenge we have is to explore Genius Hour. I have often found it enticing, dabbled a little, but I couldn't quite see myself following the rules correctly. Tonight I read the following blog post: Idea Starters for the Genius Hour Classroom   and what sweet relief! In the comments there was a thread about research and one comment struck a chord: " it’s a gra ssroots movement without a lot of rules about “how to do it.”"  Now regardless of whether this is correct or not it has give me a sense of freedom... no more feeling like I need to have a bunch of lists and criteria etc. I can have the focus on pursuing a passion and that's OK. A focus on creation as opposed to consumption works for me too.  I feel that this will meet a need that I haven't addressed fully for some of my tamariki this year fully. I am hopeful.  The lists of possible areas that may be explored are appealing too:  human ingenuity health and social education env...

Today is Day 7 of the giftEDnz October blogging challenge and the theme for today is finding your tribe. The inspiration was this beautiful post https://spark.adobe.com/page/ABPCjywrC2gRO/. For me, finding your tribe is all about belonging and as a teacher it is my job (and privilege) to create an environment that engenders this. So I thought I would share some of the ways we work in Room 5 to build a learning community that embraces belonging. A couple of years ago I was at a Teachers Matter conference (please check here for information about the Jan 2019 conference) and I heard Adrian Rennie speaking about his classroom practice, I got a lot from his work including the use of a class chant. I created the chant below a couple of years ago for the class and it is handed down from one class to the next now... it is part of a Room 5 tradition. This poem/chant covers our expectations, or qualities of Room 5 learners (including myself), rather than use rules. We spend time unpacking w...

A couple of years ago I wrote a post entitled ' Do you think you are better than everyone else'   where I recounted a story from my childhood that does haunt me even now (over 30 years later)... it was a tiny moment really but the words cut deep and created a loop that pops up from time to time. At the moment I am participating (a little!) in a blog challenge with giftEDnz and I am also in the midst of school holidays so a LOT of personal reflection is going on. I have also started reading Brene Brown's book 'Rising Strong' as resilience is a topic I am interested in and I love her work, it has got me thinking about vulnerability again and facing my own demons. I am not gifted but I think that the moment I had as a child could be one some of our gifted and talented tamariki experience, the words (and the venom they are delivered with) might be different but the damage done could be similar. This is the moment (click on the link above for more):  'I was one of th...

I have been particularly lax with my blogging this year (and possibly last year too) so I have decided to take on the giftEDnz October blogging challenge to get me back on track and consolidating some thoughts... who knows there could be some gems that arise in it all as well!  Today's topic:  The late Rita Pierson said that “Every child needs a champion.”  How can    we be champions for our gifted and talented students in particular? For me a champion is the person that is prepared to stand tall for others when they haven't the resources at the time to do it for themselves. If we are to be a champion for our tamariki, particularly our gifted and talented tamariki, then we have to be prepared to stand tall for them especially when they are marginalised or lack the resources to do it for themselves. In order to do this we need to know our tamariki- know what switches them on and off, know their social and support networks, we need to observe (with our heart...