Lockdown Captions

 Te Waka Ako have been super busy learning over the last month. We have tried to add activities into the syndicate task boards that cover most areas of the NZ Curriculum and have a fun factor to them! Some things work better or have better uptake than others. You never can tell what will tickle the fancy of 9-11year olds in lockdown!  Or how clever they can be!

A very cool activity that caused a lot of hilarity when viewed by everyone at a syndicate meet was this slideshow. Students had to write a statement about what was happening for the animal in the photo. Aligning them to human qualities or antics - like personification. Some are in-house jokes, but you will get the gist of most of them. Enjoy.  What would you say?             Click on the image below.

Overcoming Challenges in Sport and Taumahekeheke Motuhake

 With our overall learning for 2021 being Taha Tinana - Physical Wellbeing, our syndicate has spent this term focusing on the Olympic Games - Taumahekeheke and the Paralympics - Taumahekehek Motuhake. While this Literacy board was started prior to lockdown, with the Paralympics currently on TV it has been a great time to watch in action people students are investigating or people who they have been inspired by. 

Students are required to read available texts and complete different responses to those texts, before then choosing a NZ Paralympian or person who has overcome challenges to investigate in depth. These tasks continued last week and into this week. On Friday students will blog about the athlete they chose to research and create a DLO (digital learning object) on. Check out their individual blogs then. 

We have also encouraged them to watch movies with this underlying theme in mind. They have been asked to write reviews and critically think about the challenges, scenarios and messages in these movies. 

Daffodil Day

Our awesome team in this syndicate have got on board with celebrating Daffodil Day in Lockdown (AGAIN!!)  

We dressed in yellow for our Syndicate Google Meet this morning. Many of us have created daffodils in some way to share and inspire others to get in behind this amazing cause. We have written      posts on our individual blogs. 

We have created a school online page to collect donations and we have taken selfies of us dressed up. 

 I will add the slideshow when others in the syndicate have contributed too. 

KEEP UP 

THE AMAZING 

EFFORT 

TE WAKA AKO

 

Our 'Special' Olympics

 Well at the start of Week 4 in Term 3, Covid-19 was just a story that was happening in the background of all our busyness with our learning and fun. Now, it is our story to deal with moment by moment and it is getting closer and closer to us and our families. So stay safe out there. Kia Kaha. 

 The Special Olympics Day we ran was a heap of fun, fun, fun, as many of the students will tell you in their own blogs. We decided on 9 kinda crazy games (from a resource put out by Study Ladder ) that the students would contest each other in. They were put into 18 groups of 4 students, by us the teachers, so a mix of boys, girls, age, class etc. Then they had to draw a country name out of a 'hat'. We had chosen 18 countries that we thought they wouldn't know much about. In their group they had to create a flag for the day and answer some information questions about the country on the back of their flag. All the countries had won just a few medals at the Tokyo Olympics so they needed to find out what they were and how many, as well.  Places like Georgia, Estonia, Kenya,  Uzbekistan, Ireland, Cuba, Malaysia, Jamaica, Bermuda, Ecuador, Iran, Morocco, Namibia, Poland, Portugal, Sweden, Thailand, and Turkey. The countries also had to represent the 5 different continents that are represented by the Olympic Rings on the Olympic Flag.

The groups worked extremely well together and it was interesting and lovely to watch them build their team spirit on the day of preparation and the day of the event. The rotation we did meant every team played every other team in one of the sports. They were awarded points against the three Olympic Values of Excellence, Friendship and Respect. The three highest team scores collected the Gold, Silver, and Bronze medals. What was great was team work and attitude were important and so the winners were not necessarily those that had the 'sport minded' students in them, or those students encouraged their team enough that they all did well together. 

It was a great learning experience for us all. We were so busy we couldn't get as many photos as we would have liked but here are a few. 

Olympic Games Learning

Taumahekeheke - The Olympic Games

Excellence,  Friendship,  Respect - the three values of the Olympic Games. 

The Olympic Games have been a huge focus for our syndicate over the last 3 weeks and will continue for another couple as we eagerly await the Paralympics to start on the 24th August. 

                                   

In Reading we have been researching one of these Focusing Questions and creating DLO's (Digital Learning Object.) With the help of many different texts from different sources. Also the NZ Olympic Team website has been awesome.                              1. What makes up the important features of the Summer Olympic Games? 2. How have the Olympic Games changed from the Ancient Games to the Modern Games to the Present Day Games? 3. What is happening for NZ at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021? 

In Visual Language we looked at the logos used for all the different sports at the Olympics and matched them up.

Can you link them all? Have a go.....

 LINK

In Inquiry we have been researching one of the Olympic Sports and creating a ULO (Unplugged Learning Object). The students are creating dioramas or models of their chosen sport, then adding the information they have found to it in some one.

In Te Reo we have learnt the words for the many important elements of the games and have been learning sentences to tell others what sport we like or really like.

 LINK 

He tino pai ki au te hoe waka - I really like rowing. What did you like? The Taka Porepore? Or maybe Hoki?

In Maths we collaboratively looked at problems that had a sport or games focus. See how you go with some of these.

LINK

Finally our students were given groups and a less know country (by them) and they had to draw the flag and find some information about that country for the back of the flag. On Monday next week we will have a 'special olympics' with 9 different games and 18 teams. Points will be awarded for each group based on the 3 Olympic Values that are at the top of this post.

Watch out for the activities the students participate in on their blogs on Friday next week.

Celebrating Matariki

 Last week we had a special Matariki Day. Matariki is the time of the year that traditionally Māori celebrate their new year. During the month of May we can't see Matariki because it is hidden by the sun, but June the small cluster of 7 stars becomes visible low in the eastern sky. Matariki is a time for feasting, story telling, being with whanāu, kite flying, dancing, planting, remembering ancestors and celebrating. We decided to have a day where we buddied up with a junior or middle class and created something together.

Some classes made harakeke weaving, cardboard kites, origami stars, wood carving, woven stars, spinners and collaborative posters. Some made delicious stuffed kumara! Yum!

Did you know that the Matariki stars are actually much much much bigger and hotter than our own star, the sun. They look cold because they are blue, but if you look closely at a flame on a candle you will see that the hottest part at the bottom of the flame, is blue. If the Matariki stars were as close to Earth as the sun...we would cook!

Here are some pictures of our special day.

Year 6 Trip to Spark Arena!

Do you guys know who Suzy Cato is? Remember Suzy's World? Well she and Brendan Hines (the CEO of Spark Arena) decided to invite some Year 6's from various schools to Spark Arena for a most amazing experience!

First the teachers had to get a selfie with Suzy 😀

The first experience was...THE HAPPY PLACE. You might have heard of it, it's an awesome experience full of sensory rooms that made us, well....happy! The first was the ball pit. We all jumped in, including the teachers. It was very deep and hard to climb out of. We almost lost Faith, Nijel and Ms Sands! There were other crazy rooms like the chain and mirrors room, the sunflower room, the upside down room, and a globe that had confetti flying around. Here are some photos.

Next we went to The Sounds Fun Experience. This was in The Tuning Fork (where they had just had the NZ Childrens Music Awards). We were taught how to play trumpets, trombones, electric drums and more. We also learned from a recording studio manager (Barnaby) how to use a loop machine to create music with lots of instrument, beats and even our voices.

Lastly we went to the amazing Van Gogh Experience. This was a walk through digital multi-sensory exhibit of Van Gogh's paintings. The exhibit followed the different styles, influences and subjects he painted in his lifetime, along with the story of his life. It was incredible to see these paintings come alive with digital enhancements accompanied by classical music.

Not only did we get to see and experience all of this, but we even got provided with a yummy packed lunch at the end! How lucky were we!!!!

We are very grateful to all of those who made this happen. What an incredible experience. Tino ataahua.