Wednesday, September 1
Kia ora Room 9 and whānau,
If you didn’t see the message on Hero, Wednesdays are screen-free days. Here is the message again:
On Wednesday, 1st September, we enter Alert Level 3. We hope that you have been able to adjust to the different challenges of lockdown, and that you have had opportunities to enjoy the very special moments of family time.
As a school, we have made the decision to join many schools across New Zealand in having a Wellbeing Wednesday. On this day, there will be no new digital learning set.
This will be a day away from more formal digital learning. Students will have an opportunity to learn offline and engage in a range of non-digital activities. They might be tasks that your children would like to do together or alone, or they might want to do something else entirely. Suggested activities will be posted on the class blogs.
This day is an opportunity to support students and teacher wellbeing. It is a time to recognise and focus on emotional wellbeing in these challenging situations. We can all do this by providing opportunities to connect, be active, notice, keep learning and give.
Staff will use this time for marking work and to prepare and organise resources for the next few weeks of online working ahead.
An example of what you could do at this time.
I would like to offer some other screen-free ideas as well:
Pāngarau
Here are some maths-themed games that you can play with a regular pack of cards:
Maths Snap (from https://nzmaths.co.nz/content/snap)
Race to 100
Flip a card and add its value to a running total. Jack = 11, Queen = 12, King = 13, Ace = 0). The first person to 100, without going over, wins!
Tens Go Fish
Each player gets five cards. The remaining cards face down in the middle as the "Go Fish" pile.
Now each player looks for pairs of cards in their hand with a sum of 10. Each player places all pairs with a sum of 10 face up on the table in front of them. Next, each player draws from the “Go Fish” pile to make sure they still have five cards in their hand.
To begin, like in the regular Go Fish game, players take turns asking each other for a card that they want. However, instead of seeking out pairs of the same card, players want pairs to make the sum of 10. For example, if a player has a 5, 3, 2, 4, 9, they might ask for a 5 so they can "make 10."
If a player gets the card they asked for, they put the pair down on the table and pick up a new card from the deck. If they do not get the card they asked for, the player must "Go Fish" and pick a new card from the deck. If the new card from the deck makes 10 with a card in the player's hand, they put the pair of cards down, and get another turn. If they still do not get the card he wanted, play passes to the next player.
If a player runs out of cards, they pick up two new cards. A player's turn is over when they can no longer make 10.
The game is over when there are no more cards, or no more pairs can be made.
Literacy
The reading challenges and writing challenges from previous blog posts are perfect for screen-free Wednesdays.
If you have watched a movie or movies during lockdown, you could do a movie review and share it with me. I will create a blog post for “Room 9 Movie Reviews”:
You don’t need to print this out. You can use the same categories and write it on paper, take a photo of it and email it to me later.
STEAM Challenges
If you can’t open the link in the heading, here are five fun activities that you can try. For these challenges, your group can be people in your bubble, but you could also do them by yourself. You can also take photos of your challenges and share them with me so I can create a blog post for “Room 9 STEAM Challenges”:
From Twinkl.com
Wednesday is also a perfect time to begin the Hauora Challenge, if you haven’t already started it.
