Being A Learner: Testing Our Cars!

On the second to last day of Term Two we raced our cars that each class had made.  Room One had intended on making balloon cars but it turns out the milk cartons were too heavy and wouldn't move.  We used push and gravity as our forces instead.  We got into our groups and pushed the cars down the PMP ramp.  

Tredestiny and Mualijcia's car

Cody, Lorenzo and Izzan's car

Micheal, Lucas and Nikora's car

Sasha, Toileve and Lupe's car

The winners!  

Congratulations Cody, Lorenzo and Izzan!

Being Respectful and Responsible: Kidscan Mufti Day

On Friday 26th June we had a Mufti Day for Kidscan.  We brought along a gold coin donation to give to Kidscan.  It was great to be able to give some money to Kidscan as they help our school a lot!  Miss Collins drew the logo on the concrete for us to put our money on.  

Room One is their Mufti.  We liked wearing our own clothes to school.  

The logo with the money on it that Miss Collins drew.  

BEING A LEARNER: Making Our Inquiry Forces Cars

As part of our inquiry around Forces we have been making milk carton cars.  We had to work in groups to design a milk carton car.  Miss Collins gave us a choice of wheels and each groups chose something different to use for wheels.    We found we had to do some troubleshooting as some of the ideas we had didn't work.  

Once we had made our cars we got to decorate them with stickers and markers.  

We enjoyed this part!  Don't our cars look cool!  Miss Collins thought one looked like a bug!  Can you work out which one?

Our next step is to work out how to force them along.  We have watched some videos where they used balloons.  We are thinking that this could be a good idea!  Our next step is to attach the balloon some how and do some testing with our cars.  

Miss Collins has put them away somewhere safe as it is tempting to play with them and we don't want them getting broken!  We are looking forward to racing them.  

Here are some photos of our cars so far...

Inquiry Learning, Working Together and Being A Learner...

Today we started thinking about our Inquiry Celebration.  Miss Collins told us about what we were going to do and we had lots of ideas!  First we got into groups and we shared our ideas.  Miss Collins introduced the concept of different kinds of wheels and each groups chose different wheels to try.  Here are some photos of what we did today.  

Our groups we are working in...  

Izzan, Cody and Lorenzo working on their cotton reel wheels

Sasha and Lupe working on their cork wheels

Micheal, Lucas and Nikora working on their bottle top wheels

Mualijcia and Tredestiny thinking about their cardboard wheels

Working together to make our car move

Cody, Izzan and Lorenzo working together to make our car move

Helping each other!

Troubleshooting!

We had lots of things to try and use

We had to do some problem solving because some of the things we tried didn't work! 

Putting wheels on the axel

We had to think about how we could make a hole in to bottle tops! 

Mr Woods helped us with a nail and Miss Collins had a small hammer

It was tough getting the skewer into the corks!

Mualijicia and Tredestiny's first attempt!

Lupe, Sasha and Toileve's first attempt!

Mutukaroa Learning Conversations

Dear Room One Parents,

I have finished testing your gorgeous children and over the weekend or early next week, I will be arranging a time to meet with you and discuss the testing, give you a copy and set some targets together.  This conversation takes about an hour and can take place at school or I can meet you at a convenient place e.g. a workplace.  

I look forward to sharing your child's learning with you!

Amy Collins

Pasifika Time with Latu

Today we had our second Cultural lesson with Latu from Niu Preschool.  Latu bought some of the older students from Niu Preschool to help us learn the new songs.  It was a fun time  together learning new hiva (Tongan for song).   

This term Rooms One and Five are having Pasifika time together each Friday afternoon and Rooms Two and Four are having Kapa Haka with Stacey, Cane and Jonathan's Mum.  In Term 2 we will swap over.  We look forward to sharing our learning with our whanau later in the year.  

Latu and the Niu Preschool children

Alex and Mrs Sutherland singing the alphabet song

Niu Preschool children sharing their learning with Rooms One and Five

Mutukaroa - Home and School Partnerships

What is Mutukaroa?

Mutukaroa is the name if our school and communtiy learning partnership. Mutukaroa is about working with parents and whanau to understand how your child is progressing in their learning over the first three years at school. It is also about supporting parents to help their children in their learning at home.

Making the most of this opportunity.

As a parent you want to know how your child is doing in their learning. Mutukaroa allows you as a parent to know exactly how your child is doing at every stage of their learning.

Mutukaroa is about: 

• Having in depth knowledge of how your child is doing in their assessments and learning from Years 1-3 by having regular meetings with the Mutukaroa Co-ordinator.
• Sharing specific information about your child so you can feel well informed and confident in what they are doing in school.
• Accessibility - Parents can choose where to have meetings, when and what time of day.
• Providing support with translators if required.
• Using parent friendly language.

Regular learning conversations that equip parents to:

• understand data about their child's achievement
• ask questions
• select next steps for learning at home
• choose and take home learning resources to support learning at home

How Mutukaroa can help you as a Parent

Mutukaroa supports learning-focused relationships with parents.

It can help you to:

• have more equal learning-focused conversations with teachers, both formal (e.g. three way conferences) and informal (e.g. discussions before and after school).
• enjoy learning conversations with your child as you learn more about the way they are learning in school.
• access relevant infomation about how your child is progressing in their learning and in class.
• learn more about your child's achievements and learning needs.
• find out some of the ways you can support your child to meet his or her learning needs at home.
• access resources used in school to support your child in their learning at home.
• have a School coordinator to talk to at any time during your child's schooling if you have any queries about your child's learning.

Important to note

Mutukaroa is focused on learning; the coordinator does not discuss behaviour in meetings. These queries can be discussed with your child's classroom teacher.

Some questions are best answered by your child's classroom teacher. The coordinator can help you to develop these questions to ask the teacher.

As a school we still report as we usually do to parents and the community.

Please make every effort to give honest feedback to the coordinator, so that they can make the programme more effective for everyone. We will send out an evaluation form for you to be able to do this.

Contact info

If you have any queries feel free to contact our Mutukaroa School Coordinator or visit the Mutukaroa website:

http://mutukaroa.org.nz/How-it-works/For-parents

Amy Collins

Tel   3898 112

amy@linwoodnorth.school.nz

A Wee While...

Our apologies, it has been a little while since we have updated our class blog.  

The Teachers in Room One have been busy settling the new students in who have started in Room One.   It is exciting to have so many children starting in Room One.  This term we welcome: Daisy, Rocko, Elshadaye, Noah, Billie, Abigail, Amazon, Telesia, Rahnui and we have 

Asten starting next week.

Our class at the Museum this week! 

We Love Swimming!

This week we have been having swimming lessons at Aquagym with Room Six.

We have enjoyed catching the bus each day and going in the water and taking risks.  We have written lots of stories at writing time with Room Two and you can see these on our walls.  

We Are Learning About Different Shapes

This week we have been learning the names of two-dimensional shapes.  We have made creations out of different shapes, sorted shapes and we have looked for shapes around us.  As part of our learning about shapes, we made Mat Man.  Mat Man is made up of many shapes and as we read the story and sang the song we made Mat Man.  

Parents: you can find out more about Mat Man by clicking the link below.

http://www.hwtears.com/hwt/learning-lounge/mat-man-world

 Sorting Shapes

Making Mat Man