Rongoa Maori

Room 5 and 6 have been looking at rongoa Maori this term. We have learnt how rongoa is about healing the mind, body and spirit through karakia, mirimiri, and plant based medicines. We learnt about the medicinal properties of some native plants and chose kawakawa to use in our oil and balm. 

It has been fun making kawakawa oil and kawakawa balm. Our next step is to create packaging and labels for our balm so watch this space.

 

Picture Books - Something Bad Happened

After lockdown we did a lot of work around our feelings and understanding what had happened over this crazy time. We listened to the story 'Something Bad Happened' by Dr Dawn Huebner. She gave us heaps of tips for how to cope when something big and bad happens in our world. We realised that this information was not the easiest for our younger students to access, so we made picture books to share with them and help them learn the strategies we learnt. Here are some of the amazing examples that Room 5 kids wrote. Hopefully we never need to use these strategies again, but if we do, we know what to do.

 

Collaborative Art

After lockdown we did some collaborative art in Room 5. After two fails (due to Whaea Dana's appalling printing skills) we finally managed to complete this lion and we love how it looks.

Whaea Dana found a picture on the internet and put it though an online image splitter to get 24 pieces. Each person in the class coloured in at least one piece of the lion using colouring pencils with felt outlines. Our only instruction was to use bright colours. A couple of keen students tidied up the final few and then we pieced it together.

We were blown away with how amazing and bright it looked when completed and were very proud of our efforts. What do you think?

Golden Child

Room 5 have just discovered the game 'Golden Child', thanks to Ana for sharing it with us.

In this game one team is trying to shoot hoops constantly, while the other team is running the perimeter of the court one at a time. If a hoop has been scored, the runner must sit down and wait for the last person in their team (the golden child) and the next person in the team begins their run.

When it is the golden child's turn, they sprint around the court tagging the frozen runners, who then get up to run to the finish before another hoop has been scored.

The winning team is the team who get the most people home.

It is a super fun game that involves a lot of positive reinforcement and resilience (shooting hoops under pressure is not easy!) as well as team work and skills in shooting, passing, catching, running, dodging.

Game of Awesome

Room 5 have been learning how to play 'The Game of Awesome' and we are having a lot of fun with it. Watching the game in action, I have witnessed debate, justification, laughter, crazy ideas, complete engagement, hilarious story telling, imaginative connections and so much more. This is definitely a game that is worth giving a go.

 

Kaiarahi 2020

Congratulations to our Kaiarahi for 2020 (especially to Noah, LJ and Dayton from Room 5 and 6).

I know all of these students are going to lead our kura with pride and be great role models of our school values. Well done, I am so very proud of you all!

Room 5 Domino Challenge

Room 5 have been doing a challenge each Friday. Our first one was a domino challenge, to create a domino pathway in small groups, that linked with other groups, to create the ultimate domino run. We got this idea from Room 12 who did a great job and made it look super easy. Turns out, it was not! However, we worked together, we completed our sections, and although there were some stops along the way, we managed to achieve our task with creativity and problem solving.
We did this over 2 weeks as we learnt lessons from the first try and wanted to try and do better. We used the bigger blocks first and worked down to the smaller blocks which was more effective. We found it hard to space out the blocks to ensure we weren't using too many, but were close enough to knock the next one over.
Have a go in your class, we would love to see your attempts.
 

A Bit of Kindness

Last week Room 5 decided to spread a little kindness to kaumatua and kuia in our community. We wrote letters for the Red Cross which will be delivered to people in rest homes in our region, and we made cards for Kotahi Aroha - All For Heart which will go out in their winter packs. Our aim was simply to do something nice for others and hopefully put a smile on their faces. We wonder if we might receive some letters of reply, but also are not expecting them.  

I was blown away with the effort and care that was put into each piece. Awesome work Room 5! You make me proud!

Checking the Bees

Last week we finally got to get outside and check on our bee babies. Bailey and Tahlia suited up with me, Bailey helping me with the hive, and Tahlia the chief photographer. We opened up the hive. It is looking healthy and we still have heaps of bees living in there. We topped up the sugar syrup in the top feeder to make sure the bees don't go hungry over winter. We will check it again every 2 or 3 weeks, but not too often when it gets cold. It was exciting to see them again, but now need to get into the garden, it is quite overgrown, despite the drought we have been in.