SOLO HEXAGONS

This week we have been using SOLO hexagons to look at the topic of RESPECTING OUR ENVIRONMENT and our thinking about it at different levels.

Assembly

Web Conference

Here is the Web Conference we were involved in on Tuesday morning. The video is password protected. Ask someone from Totara 1 for the code.

https://vimeo.com/282401188

Map my waahi

This week we are flying from Kerikeri in the far north, to New Plymouth (via Auckland). Then we will drive to Puniho pa for our virtual field trip.  You will learn how to use Google Mymaps to add content to a map.

Ballast - Maths Pickle

Today was a lot of fun. In maths, we have been investigating problems which are open-ended and don't have an immediate solution. These require a bit of perseverance and resilience.

The objective of the puzzle is to balance the ship...but first of all the students had to learn the rules...not easy when the teacher won't tell them! Letting the class slowly learn by making mistakes was fun!!!

Keep your eyes on the students' blogs to follow how the puzzles are progressing

Assembly

Welcome to our whole school Assembly



(Karakia)

This week we have been working on a beautiful maths puzzle. Dutch artist Pieter Mondrian is famous for creating abstract artwork based on geometric shapes.

Our goal was to 'paint' an artwork just like Mondrian, but every rectangle had to be different. Each rectangle also had a score-the value of its area. The goal was to make the smallest total possible for each sized canvas. We did this by subtracting the smallest value away from the largest.

In writing this week we have been writing Found Poems. These are a lot like a word collage. To create a found poem you can find words anywhere and rearrange them...we took our words from last week's school newsletter... here are some examples

Richard's 
Rata's
Summer's

Griffen's Acrostic Poem

We have just finished reading Theodore Taylor's book The Cay. Here are some of the artifacts we have created.

Assembly

We have been very busy this term. We have been out in the garden and planted many plants as well as making signs to make the garden even brighter.

A day in the garden Blog post

Te Ara Hauora Blog 1
Te Ara Hauora Blog 2

The Sombrero

The Ice Tray

Computer Science

We have been unplugged for our computer science topic. We looked at using a problem-solving task to brainstorm improvements. Our task was to make a boat out of tinfoil that would hold as many marbles as it could before it sunk. 

Video Album

Poetry

This term we have written a number of poems using a variety of poetic forms. We enjoyed Haiku and clerihew. Our task was to describe a member of the classroom in a fun way. 

Kyle H's

Alex's

Cori's

Kyle C's

Extension Maths

Kyle and Caitlin have been working on Trigonometry and Pythagoras theorem. Let's let them explain, shall we...?

Caitlins DLO
Kyles practical Presentation

Shantytown

Last week we went to Shantytown to explore Law & Order on the Goldfield. We dressed up and attended the Marsden Valley school, we were robbed on the train

and had a courtroom drama. The day was very much fun. When we got back to school, we wanted to write more courtroom dramas. Here is one by Caitlyn, Ben, Connor and Autumn