Diversity is positive and important.

The students in the Waikowhai Primary School Senior Syndicate come from many many different places around the world.  Diversity is important. In Room 9 we have several students that were born overseas. Many more had parents born overseas. We are working on why people shift away from the
country they were born in. All the students have added this map and the answers to these questions on their personal blogs.

We had a look at how this video makes us feel. It is about racism. It would be interesting to see what 10 year olds say about racism in New Zealand.

https://vimeo.com/182020903

Comparing toys

Caroline

When we were at MOTAT we went into a learning space with an Educator. They had many different tables of toys that could be looked at, played with, learnt about and compared. The table that had toys to compare, had 6 different pairs of toys. One was much older than the other.

Isabelle

Back in class we had to compare and contrast some of the toys from the compare and contrast table. Caroline, Isabelle and Kayci had some great ideas about how the two toys were the same and different.

Then they wrote a statement about what they had found out.

Kayci

MOTAT in Week 1

The slideshow has all the syndicate kids in it.

The term is well underway already with so much to do!! We have our whole school production of Alice in Wonderland coming up next week. There will be 4 showings for the public plus moving everything we need to the Intermediate down the road.  Of course there is testing happening throughout these first few weeks. Back in Week 1 we had a trip to MOTAT to check out the De Vinci exhibition and old toys in particular, and all the other displays in general. We went with the other classes in our syndicate and mixed up all the groups between the 3 classes.   We wrote recounts about our experiences. Check out all our individual blogs to hear about out day.

"The exhibition was so awesome also did you know Leonardo Da Vinci was also the start of I think like cars and all of the other cool modern stuff we have today!  He made a automatic hammer and lots of stuff with that you have to spin to work there really awesome plus there was a video talking about Da Vinci but I didn’t look at it. After the Leonardo Da Vinci exhibition. We went to  play with toys with the instructors! I would say this was my favourite  by far! We played with the Jacobs ladder and it was fun." Benson

"Time was up and we moved to the next thing to do on our list. The Tram! My class, class 3 gathered up so that we could together as a group to the tram station. We waited for a bit on the bench at the station. After a few minutes the tram finally came. We had to wait for the other people to get off first before we could get on. We all hopped onto the tram and got seated comfortably. The tram started and the whole of the duration was bumpy/wobbly but super fun. At halfway the driver stopped and told us about the Melbourne, Sydney, England, Wellington trams etc. The driver then switched sides of the tram to drive back where we came from. Unfortunately we had to get off the tram because time was up. My favourite part of the tram ride was when the team crossed the road. I know it isn’t that interesting but it super cool to watch." Joyce

Our Birth Places.

My Maps: Looking at where we are born - in pink and where our parents are born - in blue. We haven't finished all the parents yet but can add information to My Maps and it will update this map. One of the students thought it would be interesting to add grandparents in a different colour too!! That could mean many markers on our map.
We learnt how to use My Maps in Cybersmart today.  At the moment this map shows where all the students in the class are born. 18 of our 26 class members were born in Auckland. So we are adding where our parents were born as well to show from how far away we have all travelled to be in New Zealand. My Maps will be a great tool for Inquiry investigations.