Week 2 Highlights

Here are to some pics from our Market Day today. It's great to see some new products after the holidays! Mitchell's spiders were a real hit today, especially as he sold out! He has applied and been successful with a patent for these little creations.

Dominic is bartering with Stephanie and Diana over some of their 'One Stop Craft Shop' products.
We've been working hard on our 'weighing machines' for maths this term. On Wednesday the groups used their machines to make some salt dough for art. They found it really challenging to use their own weights and capacity measurments to get the dough just right.

Room 12 is making some 'Talking Books' using powerpoint this term. We have been crafting some stories in writing and these stories will be illustrated using a diarama. Shaun's is coming along... can you tell what his story might be about?

Class Notices

Here are some important dates and notices coming up;

Thursday 21 August - Mark Treadwell Meeting - He is an internationally recognised speaker on 21st Century learning and is a must see/hear about the future trends and philosophy behind schools in NZ.
Wednesday 27 August - School finishes early - Parent teacher Interviews

I have reorganised the homework setup in your students books. I hope this makes it very easy to see what and where your child is learning and progressing. I have been VERY impressed and amazed at the outcomes of the Personal Investigations from last term- I can't wait to see the results of this terms endeavors! I hope you are all having fun doing them!
We will occasionally be having some time for board games on the Fridays coming up. If you have a game that you wouldn't mind entrusting the class with for a day we would really appreciate that. I will give the class warning before the day.

Have a great weekend!

Week 1 Highlights

Here are some highlights from this week.
Our Senior Team has started to measure our heart rates during exercise. This is 15 minutes of fast paced action! Can you see the determination to get fit?
Our maths unit this week is all about weight and capacity. In teams of three the students have to make a measuring device to weigh grams and measure volume. Next week we will be mixing some salt dough to make Koru necklaces. Stephanie is weighing some sand to create her own weight device. Her team found out that 1 litre weighs the same as 1 kg!
Samuel's team have created this weighing machine after many trial and errors! Their next step is to create some weights.
Zain is continuing with his 'Piece of Riverdale' picture. Our Connected 'big idea' is about symbols and how they represent ideas and concepts. We are creating some art that represents our Suburb by designing some symbols - birds, the river, the mountains, bushes - that symbolise Riverdale. Below you can see some of his sketch ideas that he got from researching other designs in a Maori 'style' on the Internet.


I'm looking forward to seeing the finished product - watch this space!

Classroom changes!

Hi all Room 12ers.

I hope you're enjoying your last few days of holidays! It's great to see some sunny weather.

You can see in the picture below that I've been making a few changes around the classroom. Why all the desks you may ask? You could choose any of the answers below -

- We needed more desk surface space for the art we'll be doing over the next few weeks.
- We'll be working more closely as class teams this term - earn climbing points to reach the top of the mountain.
- I may have 'caved' to the mounting pressure to have your own desks?... - (with these desks come extra responsibilities!)
- A new term / new half the year deserves a change of routine and layout of the room.

You can click on the picture to make the image enlarge.

You'll also notice that the desks have been allocated some names - yours (yes, you can even keep your books and other things in them). These will be your class teams. I'll be explaining how they work when we start next week.

It also looks, in the photo, like the computers have disappeared but, no, they just out of the shot (No, Mrs Peck, I haven't sold them on Trademe).

I hope you enjoy having a little warning before you arrive next week and make sure you spend as much time outside (in the sun) as possible.

See you next week!

Te Manawa and Town!

The Senior Team made a day trip into town last week to investigate the symbolism in art. We saw the artwork in the square, Te Manawa, the Art Gallery and even the Library! Did you know how much rich art work our city has within the C.B.D?
Ask you student to explain a highlight for them!

Personal Investigations

We have been presenting some of Term 2's P.I's over the last few days. Some students will also be presenting their projects on Monday and Tuesday of next term.
We have had exploding volcanos, guitar solos, 'How engines work' and the science behind roting fruit! (To name just a few of the varied and colourful presentations)



I hope you all had a lot of enjoyment at home with these projects and I'm looking forward to seeing what everyone investigates next time.