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Living Springs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pA-4VaZRi60

Room 13's Assembly Presentation

Learning Exhibition Feedback From Our Community

Out Of This World Interest Projects

It was a rewarding final week of term in Room 14 as we shared our recent interest projects. The theme for these was 'Planet earth and beyond', linking with some of the other projects we have been engaged in this term. From our world, to the solar system, black holes and aliens, there were many fascinating discoveries made and interesting debates had about the reliability of research.

As has become the norm, everyone had a say in the sharing order and the class decided how the stage and audience will be organised. Again we put a lot of thought into showing we care by listening and giving thoughtful feedback to our peers on their projects. This was one of the areas we were assessed on relating to the key competencies in our IP evaluation. The other areas are also listed below.

Thinking: I showed curiosity and asked lots of questions to drive my learning

Managing Self: Making plans and finishing the tasks I say I will complete on time

Using Language, Symbols and Texts: I created a quality presentation

Participating and Contributing: I confidently shared my learning with others

Relating to Others: Cooperating with others when sharing resources and learning spaces during IP workshops

Relating to Others: I listened and gave thoughtful feedback to my peers on their projects

See our Twitter feed for more photos. We are looking forward to creating more of our own interest projects this year, with our most recent ones providing us with some great goals to work on!


Click here to see Korban's excellent presentation about our Moon.

Response to Our Exhibition

Thanks to all who came along to our exhibition last Tuesday night. Here are some photos of the evening...



This was a nice way of showcasing some of the projects our Te Harakeke team have been working on across curriculum areas, for our community to have some fun learning about our coding club and for our Te Rito team to share their Matariki art gallery. The survey responses and feedback we received were very positive, so will certainly look to have more events of this kind in the future.

Korban from Room 14 wrote a brief summary:

Our mini exhibition next Tuesday

Parents and children all welcome!

Star Wars Squared

This week for home learning Room 14 were given this task...

SITUATION:

One of your parents has fallen in love with the idea of having this Star Wars patterned carpet in a room of your house. It costs $20 per square metre. 

PROBLEM:

Decide which room you will measure and work out approximately how much it will cost for enough carpet for the whole room. 

On Monday during our library time we thought about the process we would need to go through to complete this task, as there are a couple of steps involved. 

We tried to work out the cost of this carpet for our school library. Kelli aptly named this project 'Star Wars Squared', with each stage titled Episode 1, Episode 2 and Episode 3. 

We first discussed the idea of 'one square metre', then planned how we could measure the size of the library. We then did the measuring and came to a consensus on the size, using string and rulers. The final stage was multiplying the number of square metres by the price of the carpet. 

This was a task that required not only some key mathematical understandings, but also for us to work well with our peers, communicating effectively and managing resources. Most children felt confident they could complete the home learning task independently, so it will be great to see them apply their knowledge in a different setting. 

If you want another fun challenge, we have just been discussing the problem below together. 

Can you work out where the extra square comes from? 

Water Bottle Tornado

Taila made this at home and brought it to school for news.

How does it work?

This is what we call a vortex. A vortex is a type of motion and is created when the water falls through an opening of both bottles.

Gravity is the force that pulls the water down into the hole and the vortex looks like a tornado in the bottle. Look carefully and you can see the hole in the middle of the vortex that allows the air to come up inside the bottle.

To create a vortex you need to swirl the water. If you don't swirl the water there will be a glug-glug sound. That is because the air and water is taking turns to pass through the gap between both bottles.

Taila

Room 12 Provocation

Our provocation through the big theme "My place, my world" has gone well this term and we're now moving into IPs (Interest Projects) following on from this.  In our provocation we have been using a thinking strategy called "I see, I think and I wonder" a lot about different weather pictures and videos.
















We have made Stop Motions about the water cycle and the class's favourite session was a Science Experiment morning about how difference weather phenomena are formed.

This is how we've lead into our IPs. What do you know about the water cycle? and Tornadoes?
Come to our class and find out more.

Cultural Festival 2016

Kia Ora Whanau

This is an update about Cultural Festival - The group is going well and truly into the swing of it.  Last week a notice should have come home about purchasing Cultural Festival Tickets.  It is a 3 page notice and this is what the front page looks like:



You have until Thursday the 30th of June to purchase them through me.  Cash only please.  We are performing Thursday 2nd September in the maitinee time 12:30-2:30pm.  You must be seated 10mins before the show.  If you have not received a Cultural Festival ticket notice please see me or the office.  Any questions please see me Room 12 Whaea Jo Thank You

Our Math Inquiry

   Our Perimeter, Area and Volume Learning Journey

Provocation:  We watched a video about the discovery of King Tut's tomb and  made Spaceships out of cardboard boxes.

First we cut out pictures and shapes to find the perimeter and area of.

Then we completed an area investigation using paper clips to construct as many rectangular shapes as possible. We recorded this data and discussed our findings looking closely at the relationship between  perimeter and area.

Following this, we learnt about the pyramids and tombs of Egypt. We had to design our own Egyptian tomb.  After we worked out the perimeter and area of all the different chambers. Some of us used arrays and some of us addition and multiplication.

Next we wrote a 4 sentence descriptive piece of writing about entering our tomb. Some of us also explored the volume of pyramids.

Finally we designed and made our own space rockets. As part of this we had to find the perimeter, area and volume of our rockets.

We found out:

-  A shape can have the same area as another but have a different perimeter.

 - If a shape has the same area as another, the perimeter may not be the same.

-  If you have the perimeter of a shape, then you can find the area of the shape and if you have area and perimeter you can find the volume of a specific container or 3D shape (length, width and height). 

Term Two Interest Projects

The children in Room 14 have been itching to get underway with more IPs (Interest Projects). We have spent the first half of this term engaging in predominantly 'guided' inquiry into earth systems, specifically how the Moon and the Sun work. The idea behind this was to not only gain some important scientific understandings about the world we live in, but to also spark curiosity about planet earth and beyond that we could dig deeper into through IPs. 

Again, our 3 things we must do for IPs are the same...

1. Create a plan. 

2. Document progress. 

3. Share our learning with others. 

This week we have begun creating our new IP plans. Driving questions have included, "How would it be possible to live on Mars?", "How does the Moon affect our lives?" and "Why do areas of our New Zealand environment look so different?", to name a few.

Sharing our plans with Mr K and receiving some feedback on our questions.

Two specific IP areas (linking to key competencies) that Te Harakeke will be focussing on this term are:

Relating to others - Cooperating with others when sharing resources and learning spaces.

Managing self - Making plans, organising ourselves and finishing the tasks when we say we will complete on time. 

We can't wait to begin IP workshops next week. 

Room 13's Poetry

                                    Poetry – Our Learning Journey

Room 13 has had an inquiry focus on Planet Earth and Beyond. Through our own individual areas of interest, we have been learning about the sun, space, volcanoes, storms, water cycle and more.  We have had a number of provocations including science experiments like: making rain, sundials, evaporation etc

Also we have looked at a variety poetry based around our chosen inquiries. To help provoke thought we have also used a variety of visual images to help extend our ideas and language.

After reading and exploring many types of poems we started to develop our own ideas on what makes good poetry, why we like poetry and what we find difficult about poetry. Here are some of our ideas-

Characteristics of good poetry as identified by Room 13

-Imaginative and creative

-Descriptive with language that appeals to the senses

-Provokes thought

-Makes you laugh, feel happy or sad

-Uses figurative language  (personification, similes, metaphors)

-Creates images in the reader’s mind

-Sometimes rhymes

Room 13 likes writing poetry because …

-we feel there are no limitations

-we can be creative

-we feel it is close to creating music and music is cool

-we can be original
-we don't need to use full sentences

What Room 13 finds difficult?

-We sometimes struggle with word choices

-It can be hard to make it rhyme

-Trying to be original

-Sometimes our spelling can be a barrier

-We don’t always have a repertoire of words


Brainstorming the 'language'.

Identifying the language features.




Here we are sharing and illustrating our poems with Room 3.
.


HERE ARE A FEW OF OUR POEMS!!!

School Cross Country

What a great time we had yesterday during our cross country.

All classes had been out training over the past two weeks and it was fantastic to have this event to look forward to on our calendar.

In Room 14 we had been collecting our training data and have been thinking about ways we could graph it to present visually and notice what it tells us.




A special thanks to Ms Baker and Mr Bates for organising the event and to all of the parents who came along to watch!

A small number of our children will soon be representing our school at the South-East Zones. We can't wait to see how they go.

Check out some of the pics from yesterday...

Solar Ovens And Moon Landings

This term our 'My Place, Our World' theme is taking an Earth systems direction. In Room 14 we have been learning all about both the Sun and the Moon through some projects we have been engaged in.

Following on from Kelli's IP presentation last term about Neil Armstrong, there was some debate in the Room 14 audience about whether the Moon landings have really happened. There were a large number of children who wanted to investigate this further. So, both the Avengers and Flashes groups have been researching this issue, using many sources of information and looking to find proof for claims that have been made by people.

























Both groups have been moving their names along a 'Yes' or 'No' continuum as they find more information. This is the 'Tug of War' routine. Some names have moved back and forth several times!

Jade and Kelli surveyed our teachers. What did they think?























With so many conspiracy theories around about the Moon landings, it has been a big challenge for us to figure out whether these sources are reliable. For example, some videos online claim to be made by scientists, but are they really? It has been a great learning opportunity understanding how anyone can put information on the internet and claim that it is true. The groups are currently deciding which side they will take when writing a persuasive piece to share in an interesting way.

The Daredevils and Iron Men have been reading about solar ovens and trying to design and build their own. They have been through a process of finding out how they work, coming up with several of their own designs to choose from, locating materials, and building.

KiwiCan Party

Yesterday Room 14 had a special pizza and quiz event put on by Nicky and Sophie from KiwiCan. This was reward for our class earning to most points during the Wednesday and Thursday sessions they ran this term. The points were very close, so we were excited to come out on top.

Thanks to Nicky and Sophie. The quiz was so much fun! We can't wait until you come back next term.

Sharing our IPs by Reuben and Cooper

Today the whole syndicate gathered together in P1 to share some of the student's Interest Projects. Korban started off with a magnificent project about Mohammad Ali. He used Book Creator to present his project. He had a lot of information and some really good quotes.
The other presenters were:
Riley - Martin Crowe
Cooper - Jim Henson
Reuben - Michael Jackson
Amber - Hannah (her sister)
Emily - Sir Edmond Hillary
Kaizen - Mr K!
Kaylee - Miss Harris
Willow - Mr Willis
Eti - Martin Luther King Jr
Bryson and Connor - Sir Edmund Hillary

It was great to see that people chose lots of different ways to present (both digital and non-digital). Some of the different apps that were used for the digital presentations were iMovie, Book Creator, Explain Everything, Green Screen and Pic Collage.  For the non-digital presentations we had some colourful posters and big books.




We think that the sharing stage is really important because we all got to see what others had been researching and we learnt lots of new stuff!  It also gave us ideas about what we need to focus on for our next project.

"I enjoyed doing my Interest Project because it was about Jim Henson and I like puppets. My favourite part of doing it was presenting my iMovie to everyone. I like speaking to the audience! The most difficult part for me was probably researching the stuff because I couldn't find the answers to some of my questions"       

Cooper

"My IP was about Michael Jackson and the reason I chose him was because I like his music and got into him last year and thought it would be a good IP to do - to find out about his music, charity work and family. Finding the information and writing the information into Docs was probably the easiest part of the process but took the longest time. I really liked putting the presentation together because I used some special effects and a green screen"

Reuben

Badge Winners

After the presentations the teachers awarded 'Creative' 'Connected' 'Curious' 'Courageous' and 'Caring' badges to some of the students!  Congratulations everyone!

By Reuben and Cooper!

We've Just Finished Wonder!

In Room 14 we have just finished reading Wonder. It is a story about a boy who was born with a deformed face named August. He was always home-schooled until he turned 10 years old and enrolled at a public school. The story is about the many challenges he faces. 

We thought it was fantastic. In fact, we each completed a survey yesterday and as a class our average rating for Wonder was 9.8/10. 

We were also surveyed on our favourite character.

We know that some other classes are currently reading this book, so we won't give away the ending, but we do recommend it!

Ukulele

Every Wednesday we have a student from the ChCH School of Music here teaching us the Ukulele. 

Having A Say About Our Community

Vimbayi Chitaka, the Community Development Adviser at the Christchurch City Council, came to school today. We had to offer our ideas on how to improve our Bromley and Linwood community.

Here are some of our ideas.

Kiwi Can

Every week the students at Bromley School have a lesson with Sophie and Nicky from Kiwi Can.  This term we have been focussing on positive relationships.

What is a positive relationship?

As part of our learning about positive relationships learnt some slogans to help us remember the right thing to do.

Kiwi Can says "Playing fair, shows you care"

Kiwi Can says "Support the rest to do their best"

Kiwi Can says "Problems don't just go away, it all depends what we do and say"

Kapa Haka

Te Harakeke Kapa Haka

We have started Te Harakeke Kapa Haka year with new tutors.  We now have Whaea Latoya and Whaea Mata teaching us. 

The students have been following the structure of

-       warm up - consisting of waiata they have learnt in previous years and new waiata. 

-       Practicing some of the waiata they’ve previously learnt

-       And learning new waiata for cultural festival

The Te Harakeke Kapa Haka are performing in the 2016 Cultural Festival which is from Monday 29^th August until Friday 2^nd September the exact date and time are to be confirmed.

Currently in the office there are sample materials of what we would like the Te Harakeke Kapa Haka group to wear on stage.  Here are some photos leave some feedback or leave us a comment.

Karawhiua!

Avonside Girls High School Sport - Year 4

Each Tuesday afternoon the Year 4s from Te Harakeke and some from Te Rito travel to Avonside Girls High School for coaching. This is a superbly run afternoon where a group of girls who are learning to coach and work with children teach some very lucky Bromley School Year 4s some new skills and games. The children are split into groups of 7 or 8 and have 3 or 4 Avonside Girls students take them for an hour long session each afternoon. The girls are very well planned and have a variety of different skills for the children to learn each week, plus some very fun games. The children have been having a great time each week and are looking forward to see what else they are going to learn this term.

Interest Projects: Update

This week during IP workshop it was great to see the progress being made with our student interest projects.

Last week Mandy ran a workshop on Blogger, which a number of children opted into as they wanted to set up a personal blog to document their IP journey. These blogs would be used as a self-reflection tool and also as a way to share learning with peers, teachers and whānau. It was nice to see those children who set up blogs last week, along with those who knew how to set up blogs from previous years, giving their time and expertise to coach others in setting one up this week.

Despite being independent inquiry projects, this term's IP format is providing ample opportunities for peer support and collaboration. Another example of this was James and Reuben visiting Te Harakeke classes during IP workshop this week, explaining their project plans, how they have been using their time, sharing their progress and answering questions other students may have.



Now that students have their IP plans, most are currently finding information using a variety of sources. We are looking to develop our note taking skills while gathering as much information as possible.

Term One Interest Projects: What Makes A Hero?

What does make a hero? 

Over the next few weeks Team Te Harakeke will be exploring this question. We have begun interest projects for the term, which we were introduced to in a team assembly last week. The focus will be around heroes, where all children are choosing someone of interest to them who they believe to be a hero to find out more about. Some children will choose people they know, maybe in their families or in our school community, while others will be investigating people who are well-known around New Zealand and the world.

Every Thursday morning we will have an interest project (IP) workshop. This will be class time designated to be working on our projects. We hope to encourage collaboration, run inquiry and ICT workshops, and promote a community of independent inquiry where we can foster the development of some valuable learning skills and attitudes.

We have a 3-step format for our interest projects that all children will follow. (1) They need to create a plan for their project, (2) they need to document their progress each week, and (3) they must share their learning with us at the end.

We can't wait to see what everyone discovers and shares with us. With so many examples of people who we consider heroes, we hope to answer the big question together... "What makes a hero?"

IP introductions

Some of us have been meeting with our teachers to make our plans and get 

our wheels in motion.

Keep an eye out on our blog and Twitter accounts for updates.