The week in review

Its been a super busy week, dominated by the filming for our class Manaiakalani Film Festival movie!  It took all day to capture the content we needed and the editing process has only just begun!  I didn't realise how tiring the day would be.  Despite being extremely well planned some things you just can't plan for - the child that has "nerves" and needs comfort and hugs to encourage them to give it a try; the children who are just so happy that they can't do an unhappy face; a scene with five actors and actresses where they don't all do it 'right' at the same time!  That is where the editing is going to have to be clever!  BUT, despite all the small issues that arose, all my learners had fun and all were involved!  In fact, on Thursday morning (the day after filming) all I heard was "can we film again today Mrs Belt!"  A sure sign they enjoyed the experience.

On Thursday we wrote about our filming experience in the green room - that is one of the things I love about our planning - we are flexible enough to latch onto things that happen which provide exciting motivation for our writing.  This week for instance, we've written about the filming experience, our weekends, the spouting outside our classroom which was getting fixed and the All Blacks - thats an exciting week of experiences, combined with rich language for all the learners!  Every week (in fact every day) is different in the classroom - you never know what the learners are going to say or do, or when they will make that crucial next step in their learning.  Its not hard to love the job I do and to look forward to going into work each day!