Raranga Matakiko - Exploring Scratch

This week Rooms 5 and 6  have been very fortunate to be apart of the Raranga Matahiko program with the Waitangi Treaty Grounds Education team. They came to school with all their flash devices for us to use and taught us how to use Scratch for coding. We were given specific instructions that had to be part of our code, took photos of ourselves to add as a Sprite, taught how to create a backgrounds in Paint 3D and upload that into Scratch to use, and finally how to add sound bites too. We worked in partners and were allowed to be as creative as we wanted.
Thank you heaps to Whaea Kerry and Whaea Monika for your patience and support with this. We are very much looking forward to our trip to Waitangi later in the term to create our real projects.

Here are some of our creations, we hope you enjoy. Check out our individual blogs to see the rest of our projects :)

Class of the Week - Week 3

Last week Room's 5 and 6 were given Class of the Week for our awesome behaviour. We were stoked to get this award and the treats that came with it. We have been watching very closely to see who will get it this week. (Room 6 was a bit busy when Whaea Dana remembered to get a photo so Room 5 is representing this time)

Module 3: Test Launch

Room 6 had great fun doing test launches with Matua Pete. We looked at the variables we could change such as the amount of water in the rocket and the air pressure. The rocket went the highest when the water level was 250ml and air pressure was 60psi. We look forward to designing and making our own rockets. #TheWonderProject

Rocket Challenge: Module 2: Solving the Problem

This week we started Module 2 of our Rocket Challenge. It was all about safety and recognising the hazards that could take place during a launch. We decided that in order for us to be safe, we must stand well back during the launch (have a coned area to stay out of), wear our protective gear (safety goggles and vests), and ensure we do not go over 60 PSI when we pump it up.
We also looked at the engineering design process: Ask, Imagine, Create, Improve. We asked the question 'I wonder how to make my rocket fly?' and will be brainstorming some ideas for what we think our rockets will look like.
We are one step closer to the build and can't wait! Next week is all about force.

Assembling the Rocket Launcher

Today we had a bit of time put aside to assemble our rocket launcher for The Wonder Project's Rocket Challenge. A small group of eager boys worked together, using the video to guide them through each step. It was a challenge and they displayed great resilience and persistence, committed to finish even though the lunch bell rang.
We hope we have constructed it correctly... time will tell. :)
Keep following our Rocket Challenge posts to find out.

Young Leaders Conference

On Wednesday our group of Kaiarahi (our school leaders) went to Auckland to be part of the National Young Leaders Conference. They listened to many inspiring leaders and came away realising the importance of having actual conversations with people and being positive in life. Take a look at the important messages they heard in the presentation below. This was shared today in our class' assembly.  

Term 2 Week 2 Assembly

Today we were up again to host our school assembly. We shared some of our work on voyaging and our Kaiarahi shared a presentation on their trip to Auckland for the Young Leaders Conference. We got to showcase our beautiful singing voices when we performed the song "Homai to Poho", a song we learnt in just one week. Finally, we had some fun with a carpool karaoke. We hope you enjoy our items. Homai To Poho Carpool Karaoke Bloopers

Voyaging

Last term we learnt a lot about voyaging, especially early voyaging and how they navigated their way across the seas. For one of our assembly items today we decided to share some of the information we learnt. We each had to make our own DLO to show our learning so watch out for them on our individual blogs.

Rocket Challenge - Day 1

This term we are so lucky to be part of The Wonder Project's Rocket Challenge! This is an 8 week programme that uses STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) to learn about how rockets work and then design, construct and launch our own rockets.
For our first session we got to meet our ambassadors; Matua Peter and Matua Troy. Both work as engineers in Northland and have given up their time to share their passion and guide us through our rocket challenge learning.
We got to open our rocket and see what was inside - a parachute man, safety goggles, high vis vests, a clipboard and most importantly... the launcher (which we need to put together still).
We formed our 'crews' and researched different jobs that are associated with rockets. We learnt about 21 different jobs and thought about the ones we liked the sound of.

Next week we learn about rockets and the engineering design process - we may even begin designing our own rockets! Watch this space for Day 2 of our rocket challenge!