Triathlon

This year we were lucky to work with Murray Healey and his team again to learn about triathlons. We all decided it was fun but tiring, and you have to be fit to compete in triathlons! Jordyn and River are representing our class in the Whangarei schools triathlon event.

Triathlon 2014 - Video Maker

The Woven Flax Kete

We also read a book called The Woven Flax kete by Angie Belcher. It is set in the Whirinaki Forest and a boy goes hunting for treasures while he is on a school trip. What he doesn't realise is that the treasures he found were the gifts he developed while on the trip, gifts like leadership, guidance and caring for others. We all have gifts to contribute to our class whanau. We made korus to show our gifts.

Child of Aoteaora

Mrs Wendt read us the book Child of Aotearoa by Melanie Drewery. It talks about us having a sense of belonging. No matter what your culture you are linked to this land, a child of Aotearoa.

Aotearoa

We have been reading the legend Te Ika a Maui by Peter Gossage. We also watched the you tube clip of the creation story. Mrs Bassett then did some artwork with us based on the NZ artist Marcus Winter.
We created some Aotearoa artwork using dye and black PVA

Photo Art

We got an idea from Mrs Alison to create a piece of art using photos. We took our photo with an interesting background. We then put it into comic life and used different styles to create a different effect.

Pepeha

As part of turangawaewae, we have learnt the importance of knowing where you come from. We have been learning our school pepeha.

Turangawaewae Immersion activity

Our concept for Term 1 is Turangawaewae. Kauri whanau organised an immersion activity on Friday. A huge map of the world was drawn on the court area. Children then sat in their country of origin, or which they consider to be their turangawaewae.

Every child had coloured in a footprint and wore a sash of their whanau colour. They then placed their footstep in their country, marched around the court and together we all squeezed onto the map of New Zealand.

It was interesting to see all the different nationalities that we have in our school family.

Turangawaewae

Our concept for Term 1 is Turangawaewae. We are learning that....

Welcome

Kia ora! Nau mai, Haere mai. Welcome to our new blog for Room 20 2014.
We are part of Karaka whanau who are Mrs Cash- Room 18, Mrs Nicholls- Room 19 and ourselves (Mrs Wendt- Room 20). We look forward to working closely together this year and building a sense of belonging and community within our whanau. Mrs Alison will still be working with our whanau, she will be working most Thursdays in Room 20 as well as helping other children and teachers within the school. Later this term, Miss Pirritt will start a new entrant class in Room 21. Keep checking our blog where we will share some of the wonderful work we do with you all. No reira, tena koutou, tena koutou, tena koutou katoa.

Footsteps Dance Company

On Friday our school was lucky to have the Footsteps Dance Company give us a sample of dance lessons that they provide. We learnt a 'pop' dance in 30 minutes. The year 4-6 children loved it!

Karaka Fun Afternoon

To celebrate a fabulous year, karaka whanau had an afternoon of fun water activities!

karaka Fun Afternoon - slideshows

The Sasa

As a transfer task for Celebration, we had to present a song or dance from another culture to our whanau. Our class has been learning the Sasa, a Samoan dance. Generally the sasa is performed by a large group of people, it is normally performed sitting down, but there are parts of the dance which require the group to stand up. Every Sasa is different, some movements have never changed, however nowadays, more contemporary moves are now being added to the Sasa.
In groups we created our own actions and then as a class we chose some of the best actions from each group. We put these moves together to create a class Sasa.

Surfing

Our surfing lesson took place on a beautiful day in a beautiful setting, Matapouri.
Most of us were able to get up successfully and our water confidence improved immensely.
Look out mums and dads, maybe a surfboard will be on our Christmas wish list!

Surfing - slideshows

Karaka Celebration Assembly

On Friday, karaka Whanau hosted our school assembly. Our theme was Celebration and we chose to share the work we have done so far on chinese dragons.

Our classes have learnt about the Chinese New Year, Diwali, and legends and artwork from the Pacific Islands. Our class shared their tapa artworks and what they have learnt about turtles and how they are valued especially by Samoa.

Adventure Forest

Today the Year 4 classes started their two day outdoor education programme. The classes were split in half. Group A went surfing at Matapouri, and Group B went to the Adventure Forest in Glenbervie. The Adventure Forest involved a lot of courage, determination, problem solving and team work. It is demanding but very rewarding as well.

Adventure Forest - slideshow

Culture Day

As a culmination of our Immersion Week for Celebration, we held a Culture Day. We dressed up in costumes from other countries and held a concert where different groups from our school community performed dances. We also wrote prayers to celebrate our Catholic culture and tied these to balloons.
It was an awesome day organised by karaka whanau. Tumeke!

Celebration

Our concept for Term 4 is Celebration. We are learning that...

Marble Run Finished Products

The process of creating marble runs meant we had to change or modify our designs to ensure they worked and met the criteria. We were judged by our class mates on design and creativity. Jelford and Joshua's fun fair marble run was judged the best by the class.

Marble Runs

For our technology unit we decided to create marble runs for wet day activities. We got our inspiration from Melanie's dad's marble run which he made when he was a child. We googled marble runs and got heaps of ideas from there, we then designed our own marble runs. We decided to use recycled materials and work in teams of 2-4. These are photos of the creating process.

Father's Day

We created these caricatures of our dad's for Father's Day. We followed steps of how to draw a caricature and then coloured them in. We are sure you will agree that they are really cool!

Dad Caricatures - slideshows