Portraits of the Decades

At the beginning of each year we like to do some sort of self portrait for display in our class, hall or corridor, and to put on our goal slideshows.
This year marks the start of a new decade, so our teachers decided we should incorporate different decades in our portraits.
First we had to investigate different decades. We looked at costumes, hairstyles, colours and accessories that made each decade recognisable. We then practiced drawing the other side of our faces using these components in our art books.

Once we were happy we began our good copies. We first painted our patterns background on the photocopy photo side of our pictures.

Then we drew our chosen decade on the other side. This involved mirroring the picture of our faces. We then dyed the backgrounds before we began to colour our decade side of our portraits using bright colour pencils.

 After that we were done!  Here are some of our finished portraits. Can you guess the decades?????

Thanks for reading our blog. We hope you liked our decade portraits :)

Inspire = RESPECT

Te Waka Ako were very lucky to have educators from the NRL visit us to share with us a new community programme, League Stars: Inspire Respect.



Alan Tongue and David Solomona from the NRL spoke to us about what respect looks like and how we can show respect to others around us. We also discussed ways we can be the best people we can be and living and positive healthy lives.

It was really cool to hear from different players in the NRL, sharing with us how they show respect. They shared things like having good hygiene: brushing your teeth, combing your hair and looking after your skin. Making sure we drink a lot of water, having a healthy diet and having treats every now and then. Roger Tuivasa - Sheck shared, "Treat others the way you want to be treated."

Back in class, we used the ideas we discussed in the workshop to help us set our Key Competency goals for Term 1.

Remember...    "Pass the ball the way you want to receive it."

GAAAP @ Cameron Pools

YAY!! It's that time of the year again! When we get to visit our local Council Pool, Cameron Pool, and participate in the Greater Auckland Aquatic Action Plan. OR GAAAP programme. 

"Greater Auckland Aquatic Action Plan (GAAAP) is a collaborative initiative that coordinates 8-10 professionally delivered Water Skills for Life lessons to primary school children in the greater Auckland region, ensuring the development of fundamental water skills for life." 




That is we visit for 10 sessions of water safety and some swimming tips. 150 students in total from our school go down in 3 different rotations and have 30min lessons. The lessons are paid for by the council and government in the interest of teaching water safety and preventing people from drowning.






Our first session was heaps of fun. We showed what we could do with floating on our front and back, then using the boards to kick and streamline. After the lessons a smaller group of students are doing extra swimming to build up their speed, stamina and swimming techniques to see if they can be entered into our local school swimming zones.

Te Waka Ako Syndicate Treaty 2020

Te Waka Ako have been inquiring into the Te Tiriti o te Waitangi  (The Treaty of Waitangi) since we started back at school. This began with looking at the history of New Zealand, how it first became Zelandia after it split from Gondwanaland. Then we looked at the animals and plant life that remained on Zealandia and how it became almost predator free as it became New Zealand. We learned all about how it was thought the first Māori (indigenous polynesians) arrived in New Zealand and the impact that had on the plant and birdlife, as there was an abundance of flightless birds for them to hunt. We then looked at the arrival of the first Europeans and the impact that had on not only the plant and birdlife, but also the Māori people who had settled for around 500 years in this paradise. We looked into why a treaty was needed and how it was formed and then signed. We asked lots of questions: Was it fair? Was it honoured? Was it translated correctly?
We then looked into why a treaty is important and what sort of rights and responsibilities we students and teachers have in Te Waka Ako. We then brainstormed these, classified them under common headings and then narrowed them down into ten of the ones we determined to be the most important.

Once we had our ten rules for our treaty we decided to present it in a different format to last year (a scroll). We thought a quill would look nice with everyone signing the inkpot and adding their fingerprint. 

We asked all of the teachers and students teachers in Te Waka Ako to sign. We even asked Mrs Peterson and (the Fabulous ) Julie! Here is our finished treaty.

Any parents that would like to sign our treaty are most welcome! 

Our Treaty says........

A LINK to the DOC 

2020 Has BEGUN

Welcome Back to the Te Waka Ako Blog. The first few weeks are always a very intense time of the year in the Senior Syndicate of Waikowhai School. Students have many opportunities and responsibilities that they need to be trained up for and organised around. This builds student independence, community service and confidence as senior students. Many activities can be added to the school programme because of this student involvement.

We also all need to get to know each other so as a school the staff and students complete Getting To Know You Forms. The students forms are written in class and will be printed for a wall display. Later they will be blogging these on their individual blogs. The teachers forms in Te Waka Ako are included below. This is our second year working together and we feel we work very cohesively. We certainly enjoy working together and look forward to another year designing programmes that hold activities and learning that sparks the imaginations of all students. 

As the school has a pool we can have swimming lessons twice a week and lunchtime free swims twice a week. In this hot weather we love the opportunity to cool off.
Last year the school was gifted some bikes, so students have been able to ride the driveway and courts during break times.

Zone Sports training of Rippa, Softball and Football have all started up this term as well. All in all there are lots of physical activity opportunities for students to involve themselves in. They can also train for Jump Jam, Librarian duty, Backtrack duty, Leadership and House Captain roles, Peer Mediation, Environmental Group, Gardening Group, Sports Monitors, AV System monitors, Wet Day monitors and Bell ringing. As you can imagine, some students can have very busy school lives!


Over 90 of our students also participated in the Summer Learning Journey over the break. Three of our girls completed every task set and commented on many other students blogs across New Zealand.  All the students received certificates and the three winners received awesome prize packs. Congratulations to Pao, Maddison and Izumi.  

LINK

LINK

 TEACHERS Getting to Know You Forms  

          

LINK

Big Foot Bike Adventures!

Te Waka Ako were lucky enough to have 2 sessions with Big Foot bikes this week. These fun sessions showed us how to check our bikes and helmets are safe as well as basic road safety rules.

It was really good to learn how to make sure our helmets fit properly.
Some tips they gave us were:
* Use the dial at the back of the helmet to make sure it fits tightly enough. (When you shake your head it shouldn't fall off.)
* There should be a 2 finger gap from the top of your helmet to your brows.
* The straps on the side should form the letter 'Y'
* The strap under our chin shouldn't be too tight, you should be able to fit 1-2 fingers in the gap.

We also learned how to do a 4 point bike check.
To do this you have to check the brakes, reflector lights, tyres, and wheel bearings.

They provided each of us with a mountain bike and helmet to ride during the 2 sessions. This was the fun part! We had the opportunity to practice hand signals. We had so much fun riding through the obstacle courses and learn through playing different games.

Although some of us had already done this before it is always good to have a refresher!