Maui Comic Strips

We looked at a Story Library book that had various Maui stories presented as comic strips. We decided to retell our favourite maui story as a comic strip. We created our comic strips first as a story board, then dropped our pictures into kidpix to colour them in. We then imported our kidpix pictures into comic life and added our text and speech bubbles. These are the comic strips that have been completed so far.

Tivaevae Art

As part of our culture unit and geometry, we looked at Tivaevae patterns. We talked about symmetry, repeating patterns and use of light and dark colours.

The Girls in the Kapa Haka

We read Girls in the kapahaka by Angie Belcher. We looked at the structure of the book (a bit like this is the house that Jack built) and added a new verse (sentence) of our own. We then created our page in kidpix and made a book.

Our Culture

We have been sharing our cultures with the class. Our class comes from a variety of different cultures. We decided to celebrate and inform others about our culture using comic life. We had to search google images for pictures relating to our country, flag, traditional activity, food, clothing, what its famous for, designs, and a greeting. We took a photo of ourselves using the capture feature and had to create one of our pictures using kidpix.

Maori Art

We have been creating Maori Artwork using a variety of skills. First we had to weave a mat as a background out of either flax or coloured paper. Next we created a design based on Maori symbols. We then layered this design using 3 layers. It was quite challenging and has taken a long time to complete. Here are some finished pieces of art.

Making Poi

Today we made poi. We made them out of wool, plastic bags, newspaper and dacron (pillow filling) It was quite easy, the hardest part was tying a knot and knowing how to plait!

We will be learning some simple actions with the poi.

Toka Tu Moana

Our school watched a performance by Toka Tu Moana. We were dazzled by their skill at poi, haka, taiaha, and hand games. Their performance was based on a legend of how the seasons came to be. The main character was Maui who was very cheeky and very vain. After the show our Diving Deeper Maori group learnt the Haka.These are some pictures of the show.

Culture Day

The school held a Culture Day today as part of our immersion on Cultures. We started the day watching a virtual marae DVD that takes you on a tour of a marae and tells you the tikanga (protocol) of a marae.
We then went to our school hall to take part in a powhiri. We were the manuhiri and were welcomed on by Kowhai Whanau. We then were the tangata whenua and welcomed Rimu Whanau. During the rest of the day we had a rotation where we did titi torea, art and made ika harakeke (flax fish).

We have been learning about different language features to make our writing more interesting. Some children have made keynotes to use as a teaching resource or an assessment to see if children know what a simile, alliteration, onomatopoeia or metaphor is. Click on each slide to find out.

We went on the Hero Factory website and created our own Super heros. We made up ID cards for each of our heros.

Silly Similes

We have been learning to use rich language to make our writing more interesting to read. We used photo booth to take silly pictures of ourselves and thought of a simile to describe ourselves. Enjoy our movie.

We were inspired by Room 10's descriptive writing. In groups we brainstormed nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs that described our animals. We then looked at language features like similes, alliteration and onomatopoeia that we could use to also describe our animals. We wrote our own descriptions and used comic life to present our work creatively. Please enjoy.

Balloon Racers

Last week we had a homework challenge to create a balloon Racer. We have learnt that they work on Newton's third law of motion. The air rushes out of the balloon backwards and pushes the car forwards in the opposite direction.
We had a competition to see which car was the fastest, went the furtherest and was the most creative.

The children were very creative, and all the racers were made out of recycled materials.
Enjoy our photos.

Forces

Mrs Pene found these cool interactive activities on the BBC website that help teach you about forces, friction and magnetism. You can click on the website address below to find the other activities about forces and magnetism.
Click on the picture below to find out about friction.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ks2bitesize/science/physical_processes/friction/play.shtml

Gymnastics

This term as part of our movement theme we have a special gymnastics coach, Ben. We have been doing some really challenging activities. Mrs Wendt was surprised at how many children can't do a handstand, cartwheel or backward roll. We need to practise these movements at home.

Experiments

We have been carrying out experiments that test Newton's Laws of Motion. We made parachutes and balloon rockets.

Our Mums

Please read our thoughts about our mums. Happy Mother's Day!

Simple Machines Interactive Site

Click on the picture above to link to a cool website

where you can learn about simple machines while

you play games

Movement Experiments

We have been undertaking simple experiments to look at the types of forces that cause movement. We have learnt about gravity, friction, push and pull.

Movement Immersion

We are studying Movement this term. We had a wheels day and Jump Jam as immersion activities in week 1.