Gliders

Getting ready for our glider competition!

Here are some of our gliders so far.  We were pretty lucky to be given some coreflute (the stuff that real estate signs are made out of). It's easy to cut and is nice and light.  Some of us brought other recycled materials from home such as foam, cardboard tubes, plastic bags and umbrella material.

UPDATE:  see below for the winners in our categories
- Fly the furthest
- Most innovative design
- Tidiest construction
- Sturdiest construction
- Neatest trick

Voted one of the most sturdiest design

Voted tidiest construction and neatest trick

 

Voted tidiest construction

Voted tidiest construction

Voted most sturdiest construction... 

after it broke on the first test and was then reinforced with lots of masking tape!

Voted most innovative design

Voted most innovative design

Our Enviro Reflection for 2015

Here is just a snippet of Room 9's enviro learning for 2015:

Term 1

• Class Treaty (Maori Perspectives):  We read Gavin Bishop's book "The House That Jack Built" and observed the changes throughout history to the land and how the maori and pakeha people have come to live side by side in New Zealand.  We looked at the history of the Treaty (some of the issues too) and then created our own class treaty - setting expectations for our class to try hard to live by.  We called it a "Tree-ty" and related it to lessons we can learn from trees: http://room9hns.blogspot.co.nz/2015/02/room-9-class-tree-ty.html

• Science Living World Rotations (Learning for Sustainability):  Room 9's rotation was focused on minibeasts and how important they are to our environment.  We talked about how minibeasts are a food source for birds and other creatures, they help to pollinate plants and they are also often decomposers that eat dead and decaying matter (ewww!). We went on a minibeast hunt around the school, identified what we had in our container, and looked very closely so we could sketch the right number of legs, eyes and other features.  
• Chinese Lanterns and Chinese Writing (Respect for the Diversity of People & Cultures:  Miss Jin from Shanghai, China spent some time in our classroom and helped us to make chinese lanterns and learn how to write a few chinese symbols.  They were tricky!  Always enlightening and enjoyable having visitors from another country.  http://www.room9hns.blogspot.co.nz/2015/02/our-visitor-from-shanghai-china-miss-jin.html

Term 2

• Use of Te Reo and Karakia (Maori Perspectives):  Besides Te Reo being integrated in our everyday classroom language, we start each morning with a karakia called "Tukua te Wairua...".  This helps us focus on our learning for the day.

Tukua te wairua kia rere ki ngā taumata
Hai ārahi i ā tātou mahi
Me tā tātou whai i ngā tikanga a rātou mā
Kia mau kia ita
Kia kore ai e ngaro
Kia pupuri
Kia whakamaua
Kia tina! TINA! Hui e! TĀIKI E!
Allow one’s spirit to exercise its potential

To guide us in our work as well as in our pursuit of our ancestral traditions
Take hold and preserve it
Ensure it is never lost
Hold fast.
Secure it.
Draw together! Affirm!

Term 3

• Social Action Unit (Empowering Students to make change):  We learned about underprivileged children and communities and recognised that we have opportunities not always available to others i.e education, clean water, food, our families and a roof over our head.  We listened to and read many stories - one of them being about one of the poorest communities in one of the poorest countries called Siera Leone that is built on a rubbish dump.  We live in a relatively clean country in comparison but we acknowledged that we can do so much more to keep our surroundings tidy and cared for, even in our own school. We set up a bakesale and raised $200 for world vision to help children in need and purchased smiles gifts. http://room9hns.blogspot.co.nz/2015/09/fundraising-for-world-vision.html
  

Term 4 

• Tapa Art (Diversity of People and Cultures):  We studied how pacific island people have used the bark of mulberry trees to create tapa cloth - something that is valued and treasured and used to mark special occasions.  We then studied traditional designs and discovered where they came from and what they were based on. http://room9hns.blogspot.co.nz/2015/10/exploring-tapa.html   http://room9hns.blogspot.co.nz/2015/11/tapa-art.html
• Technology (Sustainable Communities):  For our technology unit we have been looking at flight and gliders and considering what recycled materials we can put to use to create our gliders with... one thing we do know is that we have so much stuff lying around that can be put to better use!  We've been able to source old real estate signs, scrap pieces of balsa wood, skewers, dowel, foam packaging, cardboard, cereal boxes, plastic drink bottles etc. 

Other
Our new Home Learning Challenges this year include an Enviro component so that our Enviro work doesn't just happen at school!
Here are some of the challenges:

• Grow 3 vegetables in a garden and use them in a meal
• Grow 4 flowers in pots and describe how you started and cared for them
• Begin a compost bin at home:  Show the process in a diary and include how you have used the compost
• Cool Kiwi Passport:  complete 1 of the level 3 Action Challenges 
• Research a local/global environmental issue of interest and present your opinion
• Design your own challenge

One student designed her own challenge and presented how to rescue a bumble bee and outlined why we should.  A very creative challenge!
http://room9hns.blogspot.co.nz/2015/11/home-learning-challenge-bumble-bee.html

Home Learning Challenges by Amelia

Home Learning Challenge - Ancient egyptians by Amelia from Educ8JB

Home Learning Challenge - Pink walk 2015 by Amelia from Educ8JB

Home Learning Challenge - Bumble Bee Rescue by Isla

Home Learning Challenge - How to rescue a bumble bee from Educ8JB

Home Learning Challenges - by Shiwantha

Shiwantha has all these home learning challenges to share!

Home Learning Challenge - Cooking with Jaden

Home Learning Challenge - Cooking with Jaden from Educ8JB

Home Learning Challenge - Kaimanawa Horses by Isla

Isla's Info Board on Kaimanawa Horses

Look at that effort.  We love all the horse pictures too!

Tapa Art

Here is some of our finished tapa art and we are very proud of it! After we had sharpied our design on our piece of brown paper we got to screw it up... well maybe scrunch it up is a better way to describe it. That was the fun part. Then we dyed it with brown dye and ensure we used different tones to add texture. We found out that Miss Melenshenko is a pro at mixing nice, red, earthy browns perfect for our Tapa.

Home Learning Challenge - Poppy

Poppy put in some hard effort creating an info board on her pets!  She presented it so confidently too!

Home Learning Challenge - Water Experiment

This experiment looks at what happens to water molecules when heat is applied. The molecules move really fast because they gain energy as they get hotter. The molecules bump against each other and bond together in a blob! At the same time the water is turning to water vapour.

Lukmaan's water experiment from Room 9 on Vimeo.

Home Learning Challenge - Composting by Jaden

Home Learning Challenge - Composting by Jaden from Educ8JB

Home Learning Challenge by Poppy

Home Learning Challenge - Tui by Poppy from Educ8JB

Exploring Tapa

We've been exploring traditional tapa/siapo designs from Tonga and Samoa and investigating the process of tapa making.  Our school was gifted a beautiful piece so we were able to have a closer look at it and also touch the cloth to feel its texture.  We discussed the designs and what they represented.  Over the next few weeks we're going to be creating our own replica piece of tapa using a mixture of traditional elements along with personal designs.  Watch this space!

Fundraising for World Vision

Rooms 8, 9, 11, 22 raised over $1,091.50 from their bake sale over the past two days.  An amazing effort.  A big thanks to the parents for helping their children in the kitchen to whip up such yummy goodies.  The money will be split between our charities - Cure Kids, Cancer Society, Make a Wish and World Vision.

Today Room 9 used the $190 we raised for the class to purchase "smiles gifts" from World Vision.  Here is what we decided to buy for families in need:

Pencils

School stationery packs

A piglet 

- provides natural fertiliser and can produce up to 20 piglets a year 

helping a family to generate income

2 goats, 2 chickens and training for families on how to care for their animals

- provides nourishing milk and eggs for a family

Zoomin In on Our Production Collages

Production Collages

Our production collages look awesome!  We're very proud of them and they look great on the backgrounds painted for our production.

First we sketched ourselves in costume and tried to get movement so we weren't just standing there doing nothing!  Then we cut out this sketch and used it as a pattern to cut out the parts of our body out on colour paper.  Eventually lots of cutting and glueing led to our amazing finished collages.

Each one has been photocopied and backed on coloured card for calendar art which you can view at the office prior to payment.

Our class wall display looks like this.