Week 3 - Bigfoot Cycling Skills

This week we enjoyed two cycling session run by Bigfoot Adventures.  Our first session involved learning lots about cycling safety, including important concepts like visibility when cycling and how to put on a helmet safely.

Our second session was a practical one.  We were outside on a beautiful day (as you can see from the photos below) working on our skills.  Those of us who brought along our bikes were also very lucky to have these safety checked by our expert instructors.

If you would like to find out any more about our day, please leave us a positive, thoughtful and helpful comment below.

Week 2: Designing and Prototyping

Early in Term Three, we started our focus on Technology.  We gained an understanding that Technology helps us to save a problem.  As a school, we have a small native bush area that has been developed a bit by students and staff over time.  Our challenge is to design and build something that we think will improve the bush area.

To start out, we identified some problems that we face in the bush area.  Some that we are looking at solving are:

• the amount of rubbish that is left/blown into the bush
• the lack of native birds
• not having habitat for insects e.g. wetas
• finding out if mammalian predators are a problem.

We then had a go at a crazy 8s design activity.  During this activity, we are challenged to come up with eight different ways to solve a problem.  This really challenged our thinking.  We then evaluated these and chose our top three designs.  It was then up to us to choose and explain the best idea to a buddy.

Now we have been creating prototypes for these designs.  A prototype gives us the chance to make a mini version of our creation to test out how it will go. It was pretty clear that some of us needed to make changes.  You can see a few photos of us as we create these prototypes.

Our next step is to reflect on what went well and what we will have to change as we get ready to build these creations.  Please check back to see how we are getting on.

Ako Hiko Film Festival Submission - Manukau Class

Hi Bloggers,

This year is the first year of the Ako Hiko film festival.  In Manukau we had heaps of fun making different movies that incorporated the theme of change.  As a class, we are submitting "Two Shoes" created by William, Oscar, Anuk, and Sebastian.  We will also post our other finished films on the blog for you to check out.

We'd love some of your feedback!

Enjoy.

Week 7 - Literacy Tumble in Action

Last week we started our Literacy Tumble again in Te Waka Ako.  This is a chance for us to take more responsibility for our learning, timetabling activities that we Must, Should and Could complete around the times that we gather in our Reading and Writing groups.

The activities are linked here on our syndicate site. A few highlights of activities from the first two weeks are below. If you would like to find out more please check out our individual blogs. We will be sharing this learning with you there too. 

Week 6 - Film Making Scripts

This year we are participating in the Ako Hiko Film Festival.  It is the first time that it has happened and we have been having fun starting out the film making process.  We spent some time learning about different film shots and angles and how movie makers use these.
 We then had a go at creating a short film to tell a joke as a way to work on some of these skills.  You can see one of these below.  We still have quite a bit of work to do to perfect our movie making skills.


Our current challenge is to create a script for our movie about change as a group.  We have collaborated on google docs to describe characters, lines, setting and camera shots to help create a successful film.  Here is one example of our scripts.


Check back later to see our finished films.

Week 1 - Technology Definition

This term, while continuing our Inquiry work, we are also going to be focusing on technology and how it helps us out.

On Monday, we worked on defining technology.  There were lots of different examples that we looked at and sorted in our define map (see below). We made decisions based on whether an object is an example of technology or not.  Once we had sorted all of these we then made statements about what technology is.  Most of our statements decided that technology has some sort of wire or power or runs off a battery.

We are prepared for our thinking to change as Mr Riceman challenged us to think of how a tap is a technology.  Please let us know what you think technology is by posting a positive, thoughtful or helpful comment below.

Week 9 - Our own student led toolkits

On Friday, all of our senior school students were involved in student led toolkits.  Earlier in the term, 24 students from Te Waka Ako attended the cluster toolkits, you can read about these in this post.

Our aim was to bring the learning back from the cluster day and share it with all of the other Year 5s and 6s at our school.  This meant that from 9:15-12:45 students ran and participated in lots of different workshops that help us to use and create in interesting ways.  You can see all of the presentations and the things that the students were involved in on our Toolkits page on our Syndicate Site. We had a great time, found out heaps, made connections with others in our classes and even had the chance to present the learning to our Principal Mrs Peterson too!

Our next step is to share further and wider and we are looking forward to sharing this learning with our families. It is also important for us to think of ways to use these new tools to create digitally with our learning.

If you would like to find out more, or you have any questions about our presentations or our day, please leave a comment.  You could also make connections with the presenters and their blogs too. We would love to hear from you!

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 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.

Week 4 Tagul wordclouds

This week we worked on some bullyfree activities to support our learning after the pink shirt mufti day that we had last Friday.

We talked about different emotions we might feel and we watched some videos that talk about how we can deal with bullying situations. One thing that we talked about as a class was that it is really important to be able to share how we are feeling (good or bad) because it means we can reach out for help if we need it.

The learn part of our challenge was to individually come up with at least one emotion for each letter of the alphabet. We listed these in an a-z activity in our language books so they were handed when we started to create.  The a-z is also available here on our syndicate site.  Then, to create we made word clouds in the shapes of emojis to present these emotions.  The site is really easy to use and you can access it here - www.tagul.com.

Below are some examples of our creations, to find out more please check out our individual blogs where people share their own understanding behind the wordclouds.

Week 3 - Visiting Author

This morning Waikowhai Primary was lucky enough to have a visiting author join us for some presentations and workshops. We were privileged to spend time with Des Hunt, an author of 'kiwi stories for kiwi kids' that interweave action, science, and the natural world.

The entire senior school enjoyed the knowledge that Des shared with us.  He started by sharing his background, making a connection with us. Des then cleverly used science concepts, specifically chemistry and physics ideas to illustrate the challenges and successes that he has faced during his writing career.  The way that he approached this problem solving was inspiring and you will see the impact this had on some of us as authors by reading our thoughts on our individual blogs.

Following this, 20 of our senior syndicate students participated in a 90 minute workshop with Des Hunt.  We look forward to the impact that this has on their own writing and the sharing of the learning that they can do with the rest of Te Waka Ako.


We would like to thank Des and his wife Lynne for coming to visit and also Mrs Law and Ms Sands for organising the day. We also have a hot dog sale coming up later in the term that you can support that helps us to get more of these exciting opportunities in school.
Ka kite.

Week 6 - Assembly sharing time

At Waikowhai, we have whole school assemblies every Friday that are run by the kids in each class. This week it was Manukau's turn.  It was great to have the chance to present some of our different learning and also have the chance to use our big confident voices when presenting in front of a larger audience.

As you can see from the slideshow below, the range of things we have been working on so far this term is wide and varied.  If you are interested in anything further, please comment below and one of the Manukau blogging stars will get back to you.

 

You may find examples of some of this work on the student's individual blogs too.  Be sure to check the list at the side of our class blog further down the page.
Blog you later...

Sphero makes an appearance in Manukau Class

It was Friday, it was supposed to be the annual beach trip day but the weather and water quality was against us and unfortunately the trip was cancelled. We were very disappointed about this so Mr Riceman planned a few fun activities for us back at school. One of these was a coding challenge that involved using our new Sphero robots. You can see the challenge below.

We had a great time working in groups scoring as many points as we could in short amount of time we had. There were lots of opportunities for creative thinking and problem solving as you will see in the videos below.  We can't wait for the next challenge.

Are you doing something similar in your class?  Would you like to find out more?  Please leave us a positive, thoughtful and helpful comment, we would love to hear your feedback!

Tuhi Mai Tuhi Atu, Getting to know you.

This year we are looking forward to making new connections through the Tuhi Mai, Tuhi Atu blogging group.  As a class, we have made a simple google drawing to introduce ourselves to the students and readers of our blog who we will be connecting with.

It is important that we are cybersmart when sharing information.  Please have a look through this presentation and make a connection with us by leaving a positive, thoughtful and helpful comment.  You might also like to explore our individual blogs. At the moment it is just our Year 6s with individual blogs but the Year 5s will contribute to their ones later in the year.

We look forward to hearing your feedback.

Welcome to 2018

We would like to extend a warm welcome back to all our blog followers and readers for 2018.  We have been back together at school for three days and have already achieved so much.  This post will have a few of the highlights for you. Please read on.

Manukau, one of the three classes who make up Te Waka Ako (the canoe of learning) are a digital class. This meant that for many of our Year 5s, new to the senior school, got to unbox their new learning device.  Once we discussed how to best look after these valuable resources we were underway.  All students did an amazing job bookmarking and accessing their learning on our new Te Waka Ako syndicate site.

Getting to know each other has been a big focus for us over the three days. We have participated in a design challenge. We had to create a shelter for one teammate using newspaper, string and tape that could withstand high winds (Dave's leaf blower). This really got us thinking, talking and doing. Check out the photos below.

Mr Rattenbury, our new Waitemata teacher led us through a definition of learning. This helps set us up for a successful year as we know what we need to do to help ourselves learn. We have also touched on our new Inquiry theme of Curiosity.  We have already found out that we are curious about lots of things and we look forward to exploring this more over the coming weeks and year.

Oscar's DLO describing our definition of learning for this year.

We look forward to sharing our learning with you throughout 2018, please check back regularly.

Blog you later.