Week 8 - Putting together our artwork

Hi Bloggers,

This term we have been working to create a piece of art for our bi-annual art show.  This year our theme for the art show is animals.  It links with our Inquiry work too.  Manukau have just about finished their pieces.  We have been combining quite a few techniques to create 3-D fish in an underwater scene.

Firstly, we created paper mache fish using water balloons, paper and paste.  While these dried we designed and created an underwater scene on A3 paper. As part of this, we were learning about mixing and blending pastels to create new colours and smooth effects. Some of us also chose to collage extra features onto our scene.  Once our balloons were dry, we cut them in half, hot glued them to cardboard then added the fins.  We chose New Zealand fish for inspiration.  With our plan ready, we then cut these out using craft knives and painted our fish appropriately.  The final stage was positioning the two fish we created on our background, again using hot glue.


Next Tuesday evening is the opening of our art show.  We hope that you can join us.  Lots of work has gone into these as you can see.  You could also check out our individual blogs to find out more about students' individual pieces of art.

Week 7 - Zoofari adventures for the seniors

On Thursday the 14th of June the senior school were lucky enough to enjoy a trip to the Zoo as part of our Inquiry focus this term.  There were a number of activities we completed during the day.  Firstly, we had a short time exploring the Zoo with our parent helpers.  Then, we took part in a session with our Zoo educator John.  John took us to the Kiwi enclosure where we found out about the eggs, size of eggs and the important project Operation Nest Egg.



John then took us into the NZ bush area where we connected our learning to the information that we gained during our trip to Tiritiri Matangi Island.  We really know lots about these birds.

Then, we spent some time interacting with the exhibits in the bug lab. We found out lots more and were really excited to spend the time in this newer part of the Zoo.


Finally, we explored the rest of the Zoo with our parents before catching the double decker bus back to school.  It was a great day that supported our learning and gave us the chance to answer some of our questions about the Zoo too.

If you would like to find out more, please leave us a positive, thoughtful or helpful comment below.

Week 6: Assembly on Winter Warmers Friday

This week it was Manukau's turn to host our school assembly. It is a great chance for us to share all the cool things that we have been learning about with our school community. It is also the time where we get to work on our clear speaking and strong voices for our audience. This skill is especially important as we want to share our ideas clearly with audiences of different sizes. Here is the slideshow of the different things we shared. Manukau did a super job.



It was an extra special assembly because it was also a mufti day at school where we all dressed up in our warm winter clothes. The mufti day donations will contribute to our winter warmer hampers this year. Another great example of the citizenship of the Waikowhai students and school community, helping out where we can.  Below you can see us in action in during Jump Jam in our winter warm clothes.

We would love any feedback you have.  Please feel free to leave a positive, thoughtful and helpful comment, maybe ask us more about what we shared in assembly.

Week 5 - Tiritiri Matangi

It has been a very busy week this week.  We were lucky enough to visit the Island of Tiritiri Matangi as part of Inquiry learning this term.  As a syndicate, we have been focusing on animals, curiosity, and how we can make a difference in our own area.  Tiritiri Matangi is pest free and we were really careful to make sure we kept it that way.


Our day at school started extra early (we were there by 7:30 am) to make sure we made it to the ferry.  We then had an hour and a half boat trip before we got to the island.  Once we were there, the volunteer guides took us along the wattle track and we saw heaps of different wildlife, particularly New Zealand birds.  Some of us were even lucky enough to see the endangered Takahe, we saw 3 of them, which is approximately 1% of the world population.



After that we spent time exploring the lighthouse and visitors centre area. Then we had a look at the rockpools before our ferry trip home. It was a great day, answering lots of our questions but sparking many more, the true spirit of curiosity.




To find out more from the perspective of the students please check out our individual blogs on the side of the page.  We also have lots more photos available on our senior syndicate site gallery if you would like to see more.

Week 5: Student led toolkits

Twenty four students from across the three spaces in Te Waka Ako attended the annual Ako Hiko student led toolkits. This year we were luck to be hosted  by Christ the King school.

The student led toolkits is a great day where we get the chance to connect with kids from other schools like us that also use chromebooks for Learning, Creating and Sharing. A toolkits is a session where  children present and learn from each other.  We had two groups of presenters this year. Oscar and Abby showed how we use spheros at school for problem solving and robotics challenges. Anuk and Toby demonstrated how google slides can be used to create animations that are fun and also show our learning.  If you are interested, both of the presentations are displayed below.


It was another really successful day. The students who attended are also going to share the rest of their learning with the syndicate. We have also included a video of photo highlights from the day in the video.