Construction

This week was pretty full on busy, we spent most of the week constructing our books. Yes, constructing! What a mission. Even though we had already practised sewing earlier in the term, I still had a few children trying to tie the cotton to the needle, and after much dithering, we decided it best if I work with each group separately to put the books together. Not one on one, but it sure felt like it. Covers had to be perfect size, and then we had issues with the binding strips we had made, some of them covered the titles or blurbs on the back, and had to be cut down. Each signature (only two pieces of paper, but back to back it was eight pages) was sewn after careful measuring and collating, and each book consisted of two signatures. These were then glued into the covers using Elmers Glue, which I had never used before but it was actually pretty good glue. The last book was put together on Friday morning, just in time for assembly, which was nice because they got to show them, and all the little juniors went, "ooooh."
We put together the set of books with identical covers, created with a collage of their calendar artwork, ready to send to Camellia for our Taking Action Project. They are all ready to post on Monday.
As far as our tension, it seems to have escaped the team's memory. No one has mentioned the fact that our premises should have been demolished due to the infestation of mutant ink moths!
I will have to write back from Dr Chris Arliss from the PDSIR and give them some more time, because I have a plan in my head about where this might go next term, and I guess if I really want it to go the way I hope, then I am going to have to make it believable!
Also, before I finish writing and put some pictures on this post, Leslee did use the video we filmed for my appraisal and her comments were so nice I almost felt like sharing them, but I wont because my name is at the top of the page (not Mildred!). Thank you, Leslee, you are such a supportive Principal, and you always make us teachers feel good about what we do, and appreciated!

Morgan figures out which text goes with which illustration.

Rylee and Jessica measure, cut and fold some card for binding the books.

The construction process!

Lucas measures and puts holes in a signature, ready to be sewn.

Rylee and Jessica sewing their books.

Brock threads a needle

Rylee helps another group

Proud authors!

Inside the completed books

I wish I could put every page on, they are so cute!

The whole set! These are the ones we are sending to Camellia, she is real, Gianni Amarmy is not!

Filming, Letters & More Dilemmas

It's been a while, I have to write regularly or I forget what we did, but reports took priority! Last week was meant to be my appraisal observation. It couldn't go ahead due to illness, but the kids had other ideas. They really wanted Mrs Allen to visit and see what we were doing, and suggested videoing the session. I was like, "no way, if I say something dumb it could be replayed over and over, and I don't want to be on video, and my voice sounds stupid!" Then I thought about it for 2 days.
I did film the session, with the flip, my voice, no footage of me though as it is all from my perspective from behind the camera. I probably did say some dumb stuff. And I forgot to mention Habits of Mind, which I use frequently, like every day, but didn't when I recorded the class. Typical.
It was actually a literacy session disguised as business, I made up a bunch of letters from various non existent people asking for a copy of their books. We had made just one complete set (for Camellia from EMR) with the same covers (different titles obviously) made up of a collage of their calendar art. The books were still not dry, glue takes ages.
In What If world we split into groups, it was funny because normally when we meet in the conference room they sit in a big circle. We met in the conference room and they all sat at the tables. Maybe because they were being filmed? They read the letters, then shared them with the rest of the team. I put lots of big interesting words in which they read aloud incorrectly sometimes, and it went ok. But one letter was from the PDSIR informing them that the bug samples we had sent were mutating and one was now as big as a seagull with teeth that could penetrate metal. The only way to get rid of any trace of this destructive bug was to demolish and burn the premises. Or fumigate at the cost of $37,000,000. And then it was discovered we had no insurance!
This dilemma gave them something to ponder while we wrote back to deserving recipients of our books. We decided to meet again and discuss the bug situation as we were pressed for time.
Out of five groups, three wrote to Esmerelda Tibble, a 6 year old with barely legible handwriting (I had to write with my left hand and make it messy to achieve an authentic style) whose sister was in hospital. One group wrote to Paige Turner from the Pretend Public Library, they needed books as their picture books had been destroyed by Old MacDonald's pigs who escaped the farm. And the last group wrote to Rowena Boat from Imagining Marine Reserves, because they thought it was a great educational programme. Poor Ed Ukate, Professor Brian Stein and Minnie Learner got nothing.
And Brodie chose to write to Dr Chris Arliss about the bug situation, asking for more time to make a decision about what we were going to do.
I would normally hate recording everything as I did, and I did feel nervous, even though I kept telling myself I didn't have to hand it in. But it was actually quite interesting to watch afterwards. The way the children behaved in role, things that you sometimes miss, my reactions to things children said, and how much or little some children were contributing, were all there to see. I think that even if I'd just done it for myself, to see the day over, I'd be no more or less reflective. But I can see how it would be helpful, especially if you wanted to focus on the behaviours of particular children, or to focus on your own methods of teaching.
The following day they children all wrote a separate letter each, pretending they could choose just one person from the list, but this time not influenced by the other people in their group.
Most of them wrote to Esmerelda Tibble.

Getting Technological

Although we have been doing lots of Mantle stuff, I haven't much to say. This week we have been working on our calendar art. I incorporated it into our Mantle as the class were given a choice of four options for this years calendar art. And they chose watercolour (yes, watercolour, again!) kina shells with black vivid for the outlines, inspired by something I saw on pinterest. What was cool about this was that they said they thought it would be nice to use kina shells as the subject of their paintings as it links to our Inquiry. So while I had some people working on their books, others were completing their calendars, and we pretended we had an extra little commission from the local primary school to paint some beautiful artworks for a fundraiser. The paintings came out pretty good, I reckon!
The technological bit has been trial and error, working out page numbering, putting text on the right pages in the right places, and gluing the book pages onto big sheets in the correct order so that they can be cut and stitched together and actually be in the right places! Long sentence, I know, sorry.
It has been a challenge, for me and for them. Some have added in extra bits like "The End" or patterned pages so that it all works out right. We also had to include a page with publishing details, and a pretend ISBN as we had discussed this earlier. We are getting there.
I had a bit of a dilemma though. They all want a copy of their books, we need to send one of each to Camellia from EMR and probably one of each for the school library (that's all in the real world), but realistically, that's a massive amount of printing ink and paper. The books are only A5 size, but printed back to back in full colour on A3 sheets is quite alot when you've got that many to do.
At the end of today, with most of the class at Sports Academy or singing, and my email inbox full of scanned and emailed illustrations ready to add text to, I had an idea. 
I took my original book that I finished all by myself because I don't practise Thinking Interdependently, and the remaining children, and off we went to the resource room where we tried reducing it down to half that size again. Printed on A4 uses way less ink and paper. The bell had gone and this group were so keen to see the outcome that they stayed until it had printed! And the result is an adorable weeny book.
Now for the cover designs!

It's like a puzzle, what page goes where?!!

Brodie adds the text to her groups book.

Jessica checks that the spelling and grammar are correct.

Ellie's calendar art. She is way talented!

Caitlin's art

Charise's art, love the paua!