How did the swapping of mail with another class add value to the GNZW experience? Good

“The box of stationery was great and the little box of items the kids loved. It is great to participate with another class and we love the whole concept of it. However the lesson plan about the postcard was really hard to follow and the end results were not great. It might have helped to have closer guidelines - like finish each line with a noun etc.”

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Posted 5 years ago

How did the swapping of mail with another class add value to the GNZW experience? It was motivating for my class that another class somewhere in NZ would be the audience for their writing - even more motivational when we worked out that it was a Christchurch class.

“I always love engaging my classes with these writing kits. This one was a bit hard for us. My Yr 4s were generally fine with it, but most of my Year 3s really struggled, as most of them are Level One writers. Because of this, and a small class size (not complaining!), we had trouble completing all the postcards. Despite that, the kids enjoyed it, we gained new writing skills (eg. re-arranging ideas for effect) and we had fun debating which of our ideas and opinions would make it onto the class poem poster.”

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Posted 5 years ago

How did the swapping of mail with another class add value to the GNZW experience? Gives an authentic audience and a ‘reward’ at the end.

“Schoolkit has been fantastic this term. It has given very prescribed skills like using a online dictionary and thesaurus, making anagrams etc to us but also we have been able to make the poetry work in our own way for our class. I could repeat these learning tasks over and over to continually benefit my learners.”

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Posted 5 years ago

How did the swapping of mail with another class add value to the GNZW experience? Real life writing experiences learning new words collaboration

“My learners had a fantastic time exploring sticky words and coming up with interesting ways to describe colours and objects. My only feed forward would be to make the letters on the postcards darker as some of my learners coloured in the shaded blue parts and it made the poster as a whole harder to read.”

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Posted 5 years ago

How did the swapping of mail with another class add value to the GNZW experience? We spent a lot of time creating our mail and making it exciting. We weren't impressed with the depth of language coming from our other class. It was very simple for a year 5/6 class.

“It was great to get the kit with all the bits in it. The poetry activity was extremely confusing for the kids even tho' we followed the process. It took up way more time than we thought even tho' we left some of the steps. Last year's was much easier using one language feature rather than an abstract poem. We got there in the end and delivered our parcel. More information about what the activity is before we sign up would help in future... it's a great way to start the writing year.”

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Posted 5 years ago

How did the swapping of mail with another class add value to the GNZW experience? Yes.

“I found the planning/guide sheet very hard to follow this year and struggled to know what to do until examples were put up on the Facebook page. The tin of objects was a good idea.”

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Posted 5 years ago

How did the swapping of mail with another class add value to the GNZW experience? It was great to receive the poems from our buddy school. They were obviously a rural school and us an urban one.

“A great start to my writing programme for 2019. We really enjoyed learning about nouns, adjectives and verbs in an authentic context.”

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Posted 5 years ago

How did the swapping of mail with another class add value to the GNZW experience? Essential. Gives purpose and authenticity especially to the class poster. My children are eagerly awaiting their parcel, which they don’t know arrived today, but as I was in the office for the day and not in class, they have to wait for tomorrow. I can’t

“Loved it. Found the poem format really great once you went through the process once. The objects in the tin were exciting and well thought out. We are now collecting other things to put in the tin as some kids love writing the poems so much. Found putting the postcard poster together challenging because of the font used, trying to recognise parts of letters was difficult because they didn’t look like standard letters, but we got there with a bit of help, thankfully I knew what it should say so could give them a starter. The class poem was as always lots of fun. The variety of things to research and survey the class on was spot on. Time frame was great, biggest challenge is always the teacher getting their head around it, but your guides and tips are great. I have done it for 3 years now I think, and will be until you stop doing them (which I hope never happens).”

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Posted 5 years ago

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