Pass the Toilet Paper Challenge - Room 5 Meet

Today Room 5 had a go at passing a toilet paper roll through the class in our daily Meet. It was a fun challenge that is actually much harder than we thought it would be. Loukwon-Dre had to tap out because he kept freezing on us but we will try again tomorrow. What challenges have you been doing in your hangouts?

Meeting Houses Around the World

One of our subjects last term focused on Marae and the importance of them to our Maori community. We then looked at different meeting houses around the world and how they compared.
We did a T-Shaped learning grid to gather our information then we wrote an information report to show what we learnt. This was a big job during lock down!
Here is Kaia's information report that she wrote. Please click on the picture to view it more clearly.

Tempting Tangrams

This term we have been doing some geometry on Fridays and have been enjoying the hands on challenges. Our first task was to create tangram pieces. We didn't really understand what this was at the beginning, but we followed instructions to create the pieces. Then Whaea Dana told us to make a square again. We were perplexed! It took us quite some time to figure this out, but when we did we were ecstatic! We then had to have a go at making other shapes. It is not as easy as it looks, but is a very engaging task.

This is Just to Say... Parody poems to William Carlos'

Last week we started our Get NZ Writing project from School Kit where we create poems, explore language and eventually end up creating a class poem as well as individual ones to send to another class in NZ. Our first task was to create some parody poems based on William Carlos' poem, 'This is Just to Say'. We had to talk about a time that we did something naughty. We then published them mostly on Canva.com, but some used Google Slides or Drawings too. Here are some of Room 5's examples. Check out our individual blogs to see some more :)

                                 

Navy Helicopter Visit

Last week the Navy helicopter came to visit us at school. It was an awesome experience watching (and feeling) it  land and take off again. We got to learn about how the helicopter works and about their jobs. One of them was a pilot, one signals when the helicopter is landing and another stays in the back and organises the weapons and gear.  We all got to strap into the seats to see what it is like inside. Thank you to the Navy for sharing your helicopter and staff with us for the afternoon!

Marsden Bay Camp 2020

Last week a group of 33 super students and 8 awesome adults attended a 3 day camp at Marsden Bay Christian Camp. We showed our 3R’s and were given high praise from the staff there. We were able to test our skills in archery and on a confidence course, push our fears to ride the flying fox, and challenge each other playing basketball, beach volleyball, bumper balls, soccer and chess. But because it was so hot, we mostly enjoyed kayaking, swimming, water sliding, doing bombs at the beach and playing in the waves at Ruakaka Beach. It was a great way to start the year and we all had a blast. Thank you to all the parents for coming with us, without your support these camps are not possible.

2019 Graduates... Good Luck

This year we have had to watch, as an amazing bunch of our students from last year, leave the nest and head away to college. We all miss them like crazy but wish them all the very best for their new adventures at their new schools. Here are some pictures of our beautiful/handsome graduates at their Year 8 Graduation last year. They sure do scrub up well!

Checking the Hive

Over the long weekend Matua Trigg came in to help us open up the hive to check for potential swarms and to look at the general health of our hive. What a buzz it was for me!! Our bee suits had just arrived on Friday, so I put mine on and watched what Matua Trigg did to check the hive. First he pulled all the layers off to expose the frames. I could't believe how many bees were in there! He then pulled out each frame to check them and pointed out the brood cells (where the eggs have been laid - they are the browny coloured cells), the pollen cells and nectar cells. A very healthy mix of all three. He lifted each frame until we found the queen. She is like a tank, pushing through the worker bees and much easier to spot than I thought. Can you spot her in the video? He then put the hive back together and closed it up. Apparently we are ready for 2 more frames and a honey box to put on top. Very exciting stuff. I can't wait to be confident to do it by myself with the kids helping! Thanks heaps Trigg!

 

Our Bee Garden Update

Our bee garden is finally complete and we have our hive in. How exciting! We had a working bee in the holidays to get it finished and the students and adults who came to help did an amazing job! Our hive arrived on the last night of the school holidays which was a nice surprise for our class.

 

Then and Now Videos

In week 5, we had our grandparents come in to school to tell us about their childhood lives. It was so interesting making comparisons to how we live today. We take for granted things like power and telephones, even cars and t.v. were luxuries in the 'olden days'.
We made some videos to show what we learnt, enjoy.