'Going Bush'

Yesterday Ben Murray and 8 other chosen people from our school went to the 2012 Enviro schools Expos and the theme was, as mentioned in the title, 'Going Bush'. It was at the Kiwi Museum. We all gathered in the meeting room and got our name/group tags. The leaders of our groups each got a clip board with our group name and the time table on/in it. Our group name was Tawa. 'Going bush' was all about pests to our native environment in New Zealand like weeds and stoats and rabbits, etc. We learnt that African Club Moss ( a type of weed,) is taking over our native moss. And for anybody who is curious, it looks like a lot of tiny, thin ferns. There were also some other action stations, and there we learnt about insects, lots of ways of catching insects and trees, types of trees, and what people used them for before packaged food came along. (Such as what fruits you can eat, what Cabbage trees are used for, etc.) It was all very interesting, and we all had a good time.

By Ben Murray.

Maori Movement

We used an ipad app to make a sock puppet animation to teach some of the Maori words for movement. Here is an example of one.

A PhotoCard from Tyson

Created using Bill Atkinson PhotoCard, now available free on the App Store. This email includes one JPEG attachment.

Wheels day

Yay today's the day...Wheels Day!! Every body was at school on their wheels rushing to class.There were also sorts of things with wheels like roller blades,skate boards,inline skates,scooters and bikes too. Then all of a sudden the bell rang every sprinted to class.When every body was inside they were talking about their things with wheels. Meanwhile the other whanau group was getting ready to have there turn on the course's. They were rapidly racing round the field and the court. During the other whanau groups time on the Courts we heard a bid gigantic humungous CRASH!!! Every body blazed over to the window like lightning bolts. There it was a little girl crying outside our class window. After that accident happened another whanau Group went to the courts and field but we heard no more crashes.Finally it was our turn. Every body put on their helmets excitedly then the rest of our whanau group ran out like a herd of cats and we were the mice. So while we were getting
chased we went to the courts to find out the rules and other things we needed to know about. There was one more thing the teachers said No helmet no ride! So we went off to ride our bikes and the other things we brought. We were having so much fun until ring ring ring the bell rang but our legs and feet needed a rest. It was time to have lunch. The fun was over!
By Jade and Ella

Location:St Francis Xavier

E-waste

Today we went to the ICT suite. Why? To learn about E-waste. The person taking it was called Anna. We learnt that E-waste is electronic waste. Electronic devices have either a power cord or a battery. We learnt the reasons that people throw away their electronics. What are they? Well either they break down, or are out of fashion. We learnt how electronic devices change over time. Which, of course, which, of course, is why people get rid of their old stuff, to get the cool, new stuff. Which of course, is why people keep on making E-waste. We learnt lots of interesting
facts, but one of the most interesting things that we learnt was that 426,000 phones get discarded daily. We made booklets about everything we have learnt.

By Ben M and Callum.

Movement

Today we had an immersion activity for our concept this term "Movement."
We had many different forms of Transport to view- police car, ambulance, fire truck, milk tanker, motor bikes and our favourites some vintage cars. Mr Vesey (Erin's dad) brought along a pedal car that was a replica of an old sports car. It took him one and a half years to build it.

Our Challenges

As a reflective task we thought about the challenges that we have faced and what skills we used to help us face or overcome them.

Famous New Zealanders

Here is a slide show with some more of the children's presentations on famous New Zealanders.
Please click manually to view slide show

Sir Peter Blake

We have been researching famous New Zealanders and the challenges they faced along their incredible journey. Children could choose the app they wanted to present their information on. This is Callum and Ben Murray's research on Sir Peter Blake. There will be more presentations coming.

My Dad

Thoughts about our dads.

Colours

As part of Mrs Batchelor's challege rotation children had to make a colour mosaic. Children chose a theme colour and took photos of objects that were mainly reflecting this colour. They then made a mosaic using comic life.

Not only did 8-year old Mac win the School cross-country, he also won the Whangarei Primary Schools cross-country and the Northland Champs!
Mac said "I felt really nervous at the start of the race but once I started running the nerves vanished. The most challenging part was trying to overtake the other people because when I sprinted they sprinted.
We are expecting big things from Mac in the future, watch out he could be
the next Nick Willis!

Sustainable Coastlines

Chris from Sustainable Coastlines visited our school last week. He challenged us to think whether New Zealand is a clean, green country!!! We were rather shocked to see evidence that it isn't! and that the story of rubbish starts with a simple act of dropping a piece of rubbish in the road. We were devastated to see the impact that plastic rubbish in particular is having on our coastlines and sea life. So come on people stop and think before flicking that piece of rubbish out the car window or dropping it on the footpath and road.

Challenge Rotations

We have been involved in Challenge rotations over the past 3 weeks.
Mrs Wendt's inside rotation involves children completing various tasks.
Children can choose from origami, mancala challenge, questionaut (laptops), ipad challenges,
juggling, domino runs and whai(string games)- there is an instructional clip on you tube for children to follow-string games Jacobs ladder. Here are a few photos of us working.

Calendar Art

We have completed some artwork for our Calendar art which parents can order in Term 4.
Our theme was Seascape and our inspiration came from a book called Tangaroa's Gift by Mere Whaanga-Schollum. The artist uses koru and black and white designs. Our art was made with dyes (paua colours) and black vivid.

Another activity we have in our challenge rotation is using an online game called Questionaut. It is from BBCKids and is a challenging activity where you go on a quest to retrieve a hat. You have to solve a problem at each level then answer 5 questions correctly to move on to the next level. These questions range from literacy and numeracy to science.

Questionaut

ipad apps

We have made a folder of Challenging ipad apps to use in one of our Challenge Rotations. These vary from quiz challenges to puzzles and maizes. These activities challenge the children to think, problem solve, take risks and modify/ change if they are unsuccessful. They support the skills we are encouraging children to develop to overcome challenges such as perseverance and persistence.

Challenge

I apologise for not posting regularly on our blog this term. We have been busy creating, learning about the Olympics and what it is like to be an Olympian and immersing ourselves in challenging activities.
Here is a brief overview of things we have done.

Fonterra Farm Visit

We had the most wonderful experience of visiting Fonterra Dairy Farm. A big thank you to Kim Robinson who organised the trip as well as Steve and Jeff the farmers who hosted us. We learnt so much and completed a challenging worksheet which taught us that you need to be a good mathematician to be a farmer. We also had a couple of challenge activities to complete while we were there. We set up electric fences to separate a paddock into 3 even areas for the cows to graze in and we moved some new born baby calves from their mothers into the sheds. Once again a huge thank you to Kim.

Our Pattern Work

As a cumulative task, we used the ipad app pic collage to take photos of our pattern artwork and inquiry. We wrote about how pattern helps us make sense of the world, how animals use pattern and what the world would be like without pattern.