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.
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.
This week Room One and Two are focusing on learning about Matariki with our tamariki. We will be reading and writing about Matariki, planting some kai and creating some Matariki inspired art works.
Here are some videos to help learn more about a Matariki so we can 'Be A Learner'
Here is some information about Matariki...
Matariki is the Māori name for the constellation of stars that are often known in other cultures
as the Pleiades or the Seven Sisters.
Matariki may be translated as mata riki – tiny eyes, or as
mata Ariki – eyes of God. These eyes are thought to watch over the land and it’s people.
Matariki, this small but distinctive star cluster, is visible from Aotearoa (New Zealand)
dropping below the horizon in April and reappearing in June.
The rise of the star cluster in
June heralds the beginning of the New Year according to the Māori lunar calendar, and
indicates a change in season, into the colder winter months. It is a time for seasonal
celebration.
There are many Māori beliefs regarding Matariki in relation to its cultural significance.
Some
iwi believe Matariki is a mother surrounded by her six daughters. Matariki was used as a
navigational star.
It was also thought to herald what the new year might have in store, as its
physical appearance when it arose was thought to signify whether or not the following year
would be prosperous.
Traditionally by the time of the ascension of Matariki, food crops had been harvested and the
storehouses would be well stocked. Hākari or feasts were common. Other food gathering
activities would cease.
Communities would be able to participate in celebrations with a focus
on activities related to learning and the arts, with weaving, singing and performing, wānanga
and the learning of whakapapa being some examples.
Nowadays Matariki has become a time
to celebrate the revitalisation and resurgence of Te Reo Māori and other traditional Māori
knowledge.
Matariki was also an important time to mourn and remember those who had passed away.
The yearly reappearance of Matariki signifies a time to prepare, to share ideas, to remember
the past and celebrate the future.
Matariki can be a time of change, and growth. During
Matariki we acknowledge what we have and what we have to give. Matariki celebrates the
diversity of life. It's a celebration of culture, language, spirit and people, of our past, present
and looking to the future.
As part of our Painting we have been learning to mix primary colours together to make secondary colours. Miss Collins gave us a blank fish and we had to paint the head starting with yellow and then add a little bit of red each time until we reached the tail which had to be red.
So far we have learnt that...
RED + YELLOW = ORANGE
and
BLUE + YELLOW = GREEN
Here are some photos of use learning how to hold a paintbrush like a pencil, add a little of another colour and how to correctly apply paint onto paper. We were painting superstars!
Here is Lucas adding red to his yellow.
Cody is holding his paintbrush like a pencil.
Mualijcia is trying to add more yellow to her red to make it lighter.
Lupe is taking care with her painting and is painting each fish scale.
Micheal took care with his work.
Lorenzo held his paintbrush like a pencil.
Tredestiny is taking care with her work.
Lupe carefully dipping her paintbrush in the paint.
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
Miss Collins made use some salt dough at home foe us to make bones and fossils out of. First we had a play with the dough and some of us found that it hurt the little cuts we had in our hands. Then Miss Collins handed out the dinosaurs and we pushed them into the salt dough to make a fossil. We had to be careful not push a hole in the salt dough. After that we pinched and rolled dough to make a bone shape. We looked at dinosaur skeletons to get ideas. After school Miss Collins cooked them for us and made them go hard. Next we will tag them like real scientists.
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
On Monday we made shoes out of card and threaded laces. We decorated our shoes with crayons and could add any designs that we wanted. When we were finished we added shiny ribbon as shoelaces. We also stretched our mind as part of being a Healthy Hero as it took lots of brain power to thread our shoelaces. We also wrote some stories about making our shoes.
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.
Last Friday we were fortunate enough to have Donna from Imaginz come
and visit us at Discovery Time.She
brought two kits along and instantly our children were engaged in this activity
and keen to build creations.It was
wonderful to see the children working together to create a construction using
their problem solving skills.A
highlight of this equipment was that it came with tools that the children could
use.
