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.
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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.