Week 5: Ako Hiko Toolkits and Space

This week some of us were very luck to attend the Ako Hiko Toolkits. It was a chance to teach and learn new skills with 6 other schools.

We were very proud of our presenters - Cristian, Zuhair, Alexandra, Florence, Amelia and Muket.  It was very scary but these students showed a lot of resilience and confidence.

Photos can be found here. 

This week we also looked at the Earth's rotation around the sun.  We used spheros and cups to explore and figure out how the planets revolve around the sun.

 

Week 4: Debating do we let the pigeon drive the bus!

This week we have been learning how to plan persuasive writing. We have been focusing on making sure we have reasons to back up our points. We read the book Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus and the students had to decide whether they would or wouldn't. They then spent time writing their points ready to debate.

Here is a video of one of our debates.

Week 4: Blind Drawing

We have been working on our communication skills during oral language. This week we had to each draw a specific image our paper. Students then found their partner, they had to sit back to back so they can not see the other drawing. Students had to make sure they were very clear on their instructions so they other person ended up with the correct drawing.

Week 3: Learning about Synonyms

This week we have been looking at increasing our vocabulary. Our teachers have been reading us a book called Troy's Movie. We were challenged to find better words using a thesaurus. We are looking forward to using these words in our writing.

Wellbeing - Hauora

Hauora is a Māori philosophy of health unique to New Zealand. It comprise taha tinana (physical wellbeing), taha hinengaro (mental and emotional wellbeing), taha whanau (social wellbeing), and taha wairua (spiritual wellbeing). 

Dr Mason Durie's whare tapawha model uses the four components of wellbeing as walls of a whare (house). We built models of houses, then took one of the dimensions away. 

What happened to the houses, when they didn't have the strength of all four walls?

What would happen to us if we didn't have wellbeing in one of the four dimensions?

Fabulous Futsal

We are lucky to have Futsal coaches from Sports Waitakere teaching us skills to play Futsal.

Week 1: Diary writing

In writing this week we were writing in role as a soldier. We researched about ANZAC and read letters from soldiers. Our focus for the writing was to share how they may be feeling at each part of their journey. This week we looked at the beginning of their journey such as signing up and saying good bye to their families. Here is our planning.

Week 1: Earth Day

In the school holidays we celebrated Earth Day (22nd April). To help us learn about Earth Day we looked at different images of the Earth and had to decide what was wrong with the image. For example we showed an image of the last Northern Rhino. We had a great discussion on what we thought about the images.  We then went on to share how we think we could help save the world both at school and at home. The students then picked one idea and designed a poster to persuade people to change their behaviour.

On Friday we used drama to show how we think the pollution on Earth effects different animals or people. Students worked in groups and hot seated the different roles. In the images below the girls are acting as penguins on a melting ice cap and the boys are asking them how they feel.