Hauraki Assembly

This Week our class was on the school assembly. This means we have to host the assembly, create a slideshow, organise songs, show our work, give out certificates,  do plays and so on. We LOVE to organise assembly (that's the students!!) Their teacher doesn't mind too much, but it can be stressful.
Anyway this week we had two plays to do as we are doing Drama this term so we had less time to show off our work. To make up for this we created a slideshow to show case the work we thought was our best pieces, or that we were most happy with. If you want to see more of them they are on our personal blogs. Happy reading


I (Hauraki's teacher) realised how many new skills this work represents in my students, and how much work they had completed over this term. Some more than others of course, but generally most of them have worked diligently to 'get stuff done!' Awesome work Hauraki. Be Proud.
Check out their personal blogs and leave a comment for them.

And BACK to Skateboarding!

 On the third week of Skateboarding our intrepid adventurers were definitely into mastering the skills to ride the boards. They are having a heap of fun and have been inspired to bring in boards from home to ride in the mornings before school.

Of course their teacher had to get in on the act as well. 'In my day' we didn't really have skateboards, rather we made trolleys ourselves and careered down hills with no brakes or helmets! These skateboards are smooth and quick and the inevitable happened; I fell off! Landed on the side of my left thigh very hard and still sport a large bruise 10 days later. I did however get back on last week and start to master cornering in both directions!


I have a much healthier appreciation for skateboarders and the effort and skill it takes to use a board. It is a heap of fun!  These video clips are the kids really just starting to learn, we will take more next week, because some students have moved on to tricks.

 

Lucky for us the weather has been good for most of our sessions and we can be outside on the courts rolling around. On our second lesson it was raining so we spent time breaking down a skateboard and putting it back together. This was really interesting as we learnt how important the different parts of the wheel bases were and what they did.

Te Waka Ako

Out new learning space is called Te Waka Ako or The Canoe of Learning. The opening ceremony was on Monday the 22nd May. We have now had two weeks in the building and there are many changes that we are getting use to. All the students have posted their thoughts about the move in an activity using de Bono's Thinking Hats. Check out their blogs. You can find these on the right hand side column of this blog.
Mr Riceman and the Manukau Class have a great blogpost about the event, with a great movie and explanation. Check out their blog site.                     http://wpsriceman.blogspot.co.nz/

Artwork Inspiration

Last Term our focus in The Arts was Visual Art. We looked at the work of a well known New Zealand artist, and created a piece that had elements of the artists work in it. Our room looked at the work of Fatu Feu'u. We used paint on heavy cartridge paper and black or silver pastel. Learning to paint with detail and lots of straight edges was a challenge, but we are very happy with the results.



Check out some of Fatu's work.

Technology Challenges

We have had such a busy month in Room 9, moving from our single cell classroom called Room 9 to our brand new building, called Te Waka Ako (the canoe of learning), with two other classrooms and becoming the Hauraki class. Before we shifted the students worked very hard to complete work that they could put onto their personal blogs. It is always a bit of a process completing the work, getting it checked, creating a meaningful blog post, getting that checked and finally the getting the green light to go ahead and post their work. In all of this our class blog has been a bit neglected, so several different blogs will be loaded over this weekend.
Earlier in the term we had some fun with newspaper, sellotape and string. The challenge was to create different items with a very limited time frame and only three different resources. Using the Ready Set Design site we were given these two tasks.
            I need to protect myself from the rain. I need to collect and carry small things.

Ready, Set, Design is a favourite educational activity. We use it as a way to introduce the concepts behind "design thinking" to groups. It's very adaptable, and lots of fun!  Here is a link to the instructions.
      http://cdn.cooperhewitt.org/2011/09/02/Ready%20Set%20Design%20vX.pdf

 The Smithsonian put out an great video explaining the reasoning behind having small groups create objects in this way. Check out this clip.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIXSuZg2awA&feature=player_embedded

Check it out and challenge your class!


Check out more photos in the slideshow.