“Every year I get excited to see what this kit will bring, and every year I am amazed at the great activities that inspire learning and writing. I reuse the resources every year. Well done School kit and Warehouse stationery. We loved using google earth to plan our journey and learn about New Zealand. We received our parcel yesterday and had great fun finding out about our partner school in Havelock.”
“It is such a neat experience to be matched to a school. The children enjoyed looking them up online on Google maps and preparing writing to share with them. Children are very inspired by having a real audience. The naughty poems were the highlight. Writing these was lots of fun. We got great ideas for publishing from other teachers on the facebook page and included these in our kit.
I found my children got a lot of mapping experience through creating the Book of the Rd Poem and they enjoyed using the glasses. However I didn't feel this really was a writing kit with this exercise and the postcards. I applaud you for using te reo but it needs to be easier to follow, rather than different vocabulary for different chidlren. The instructions for the postcards and book of the rd were very involved and confusing. The poems were too complex for them to grasp. It was a lost opportunity to learn the structure of a particular poem. Sadly I don't feel my students learned anything about writing although we spent a lot of time preparing these sections.”
“This was a fantastic way to motivate students by introducing them to different ways of crafting a poem. It helped them step out of their way of thinking and looking at using a range of tools to brainstorm ideas and put them together. Thanks School Kit, Warehouse Stationery and NZ Post for supporting this!”
“We love get NZ writing but actually found this task quite hard at the beginning of the year. It was abstract and above a lot of kids understanding. There are so many awesome writing activities, it would be great to chat with people about next year's one. One suggestion - a good old penpal style letter to students across New Zealand. The cards could have a big picture on the back instead of a slogan. The front of the card could be something like an add to sell your sibling. Other ideas 10 things you will find in my pocket. Loads of ideas.”
“Thank you so much for this fantastic kit! The 3D glasses were SO COOL but also the prep and clever planning for writing. My class made some really cool poems! This helped so many of them realise they could actually complete a fun poem when they would have run a mile before!”
“My students found the postcards too small to write their 6 line 6 word sistenia's on. They enjoyed the just to say poem but found the sistena's difficult to understand and write. We had 2 cards missing from our paired school.”
“A fantastic kit, thanks School Kit! It was great for my students to explore some different poems and have a chance to write their own. We had some fantastic 'Just to Say' poems which were hilarious and had my kids begging not to share them with their whānau. The favourite activity was the mapping activity, we sure had some interesting ways to get from Rangiora to Auckland including a pit stop in Bluff. Looking forward to receiving our buddy classes poems soon!”
