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 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.

Vector ePro8 challengers

Kia Ora blogging world,

It has been a really STEM focused week at Waikowhai for some of our senior students. As you would have seen from the previous post we had our science show in at school on Monday.  Then, on Friday, four senior students formed the "Waikowhai LIMOs" team (ask us where our name came from in the comments) and took part in the Vector ePro8 challenge at Mount Roskill on Friday for the first time.  The challenge involves engineering (the e), problem solving (the pro) and innovating to create a solution (the 8).

Our team in front of the impressive work station.

Eleven different teams participated in the challenge which ran for two and a half hours. It was heaps of fun and we managed to come third in our heat. This means we will be heading off to the semifinals later in the year where we will try to qualify for the grand finals.

One of our creations through the day

It was an awesome experience as we got to use lots of materials that we wouldn't normally have at school. If you would like to find out more you can check out the Vector ePro8 website.

Third place, bring on the semifinals!a

We would love some feedback. Please share positive, thoughtful and helpful comments in the box below.

The crazy, magical world of science.

When was the last time you found yourself entertained, enthralled, amazed and awestruck all in the space of an hour? For Waikowhai Primary School, that last time was just this morning.

The crazy, magical world of science show stopped into our school hall this morning for a show. What a fantastic way to start our week. During the show we were treated to magic tricks (which are often illusions involving more than just a bit of science), handmade fireworks, a mini-blowtorch, water powered rockets, levitating ping pong balls and more.


We were challenged to make predictions, to think about our observations and share and build on our knowledge in a fun way, while being entertained by the mad scientist. The highlight for me was seeing Abby blast a model earth into orbit using a super leaf blower.

When back in class, still buzzing and wondering more about the world we all decided to share our wonderings and learning in individual blog posts. Please click on the links at the side of the page to read more about what the students from Manukau took away from this show personally.


If you have been treated to this show before, please connect with us in the comments.  If you haven't and you are wondering more please ask us questions in the comment box.  Either way, we would love to hear from you.  We hope you enjoy the videos that show some of the things we enjoyed.

Blog you later.

Fledgling Bloggers - We love to share

This term we have a group of students new to Te Waka Ako (our classroom) and new to blogging.   We have been learning heaps of different cybersmart skills over a very short time.  Part of this has been our focus on sharing our learning. We have been working on putting together some of the things we have created.  Here are some of our first attempts at sharing.  We would love any feedback you can give us on the activities that are here.

Week 5 - Skip Camp

In Week 5 the Year 5 and 6 students from Waikowhai Primary travelled to Mount Ruapehu for our ski camp.  We were away from school from early Tuesday morning until late Friday evening and we had a fantastic time.

Our first day was mostly travel. This involved stops at Hamilton Gardens for a scavenger hunt, tin Otorohanga to investigate the Sir Edmund Hillary walkway, Taumarunui school for a stretch of our legs and afternoon tea, then we got to our accomodation.  It was freezing and after a delicious dinner we went for an evening walk.


Wednesday and Thursday were our days on the mountain.  The first day was full of challenges and extremely hot but we got there.  The second day we put our skills to use and improved heaps.


Friday was our trip back, we left early for a hot soak in Taupo, then a quick stop to view the powerful Huka falls before travelling back to Auckland via another Hamilton Garden stop.


To find out what we thought about our trip check out our individual blogs.  We have posted a camp booklet each that shares our reflections and the things that happened. There are some of these in the post.


We would to hear what you think about our camp experience too, maybe you could share some of the things that you have been on.

Week 4 - Student led toolkits

Kia Ora Blogging world,

In week 4 24 Waikowhai students had a fantastic experience. We joined other students from our cluster at the student led toolkits.  This was a fantastic day of learning, creating and sharing as well as building connections with other students across our cluster schools.

Five students presented their toolkits to full rooms of eager students. You can see their presentations below and may even learn something new, check them out.



We had two students in a coding challenge using the interesting sphero and a team of 4 working on building a structure in a problem solving challenge.  Check out the photos below.

The coding challenge

Problem solves in action.

The most creative construction.

If you would like to find out more please check out the individual blogs. Some of our students who went have posted their experiences and would love a comment.

Book Week Extravaganza - Week 3

What a busy book week we had last week! Once again our annual book week was a success.  Te Waka Ako went away from our usual programme to immerse ourselves in all things literacy.  It was a special week for us.

Judi Bilcliff (who runs the site rainbow poetry), a visiting author and drama teacher entertained us with a fabulous combined session on Thursday. Lots of us got up, involved and enjoyed listening to her share her hilarious poems with us.


Friday was our dress up day.  The theme was our favourite book character.  From the photos you will see what an awesome bunch we are with most of us getting really dressed up.  Congratulations to Lily from Manukau who was awarded one of the three dress up prizes for senior students in her Mad Hatter costume.


We also had our in class poetry recital competition on Wednesday and the finals on Thursday.  Lily, Amie, Sebastian and Oscar all represented Manukau in the Te Waka Ako (syndicate finals).  The standard of presentations was so high and the seven judges had real difficulty choosing the winners because the quality was so high.  Congratulations to Oscar who came 4th equal to receive a prize, an awesome effort!

Finally, we have created our own rhyming poems, remember to check out our individual blogs for published and illustrated versions of these poems over the next couple of days.  If you would like to find out any more about bookweek please drop us a comment or question below.  We would love to hear from you.

Waikowhai Intermediate Writing Buddies

Tena Koutou.

To end our exciting first week back we were lucky enough to have a visit from our Waikowhai Intermediate writing buddies.  Last term we started some online shared writing.  Our buddies at Waikowhai Intermediate gave us some feedback about our writing and since then we have also connected to write a shared piece together about a picture prompt.


It was very exciting to meet our buddies and put a face to the name and the person we had been communicating with online. It was especially great to connect with some of the students who were previous Waikowhai Primary Students.


Throughout the session we found out about the learning maps of our older colleagues and then we spent some time crafting a new piece of writing together.  At the end of our session some of the very brave students decided to share.


We look forward to working together to create stunning pieces of writing.  Keep an eye out on our individual blogs to read the things that we are creating and sharing together as we connect with other students in our community.

Please leave us some positive, thoughtful or helpful feedback and ask us any questions to connect with us too.

The Marshmallow Challenge - Welcome back

We are really excited to be back at school this term. Today we welcomed a new group of Year 4 students to Te Waka Ako.  As part of getting to know each other Mr Riceman set us up a design challenge to start the morning.  It is called the marshmallow challenge, and you can read more about it here.https://www.tomwujec.com/design-projects/marshmallow-challenge/

A quick summary is that you have a few resources to use to create the largest possible tower that stands by itself with a marshmallow on top.  It was a great way for us to connect with new buddies and use our key competency skills to work in a group.  You can see above some of the creative design efforts that we came up with.

We would love some feedback from you.  Also, if you have any questions, please ask us in the comment box below.  Thanks for reading!

Blog you later.

Week 8 - Chinese Language Week

Ni Hao,

As well as our usual learning we have acknowledged Chinese language week this week.  We have had a go at some different greetings and words that we could use each day.  There are six posters that have words we can used and you will see these displayed below with our Chinese Lanterns.

For reading, we followed a procedural text to create these Chinese Lantern with Miss McGrath.  You can find the instructions here if you would like to have a go at these too.

Week 7 - Tongan Language Week

Malo e lelei,

Week 7 was Tongan Language week and we celebrated this in a number of ways at school.  As part of our oral language work we got together in buddies and had a go at using some of the following phrases.

Ko hai ho Hingoa? What is your name?

Ko hoku hingoa ko...  My name is...

Fefe hake? How are you?

E meiaki au.. I am fine, thank you...

We also developed some tapa cloth designs to hang in our class using symbols, patterns and some aspects of Math and symmetry.

Finally, we had a small celebration on Friday afternoon before lunch where some boys from the senior syndicate joined in with dance and also shared a special song with us.  It was great to see the teachers dressed by some of our Tongan Mums on this day too.

Graphic scores and musical storytelling

This afternoon Room 8 were very lucky to have Miss McGrath in to help with music.  The focus of the lesson was on sequencing and retelling a common story.  In small groups students designed a graphic score to help represent the sounds that they created with music.  This is shown below in the photo.

With the help of a conductor they then retold the story.  You can watch it in the video below.  Be sure to leave us some positive, thoughtful and helpful feedback.

Sharing our Sharing

Week Four was an exciting and extremely busy week for Room 8!

 On Monday we had our normal cybersmart session with James, then joined up with the senior syndicate for the different aspects of production rehearsal in the afternoon.  Tuesday saw a selection of us out representing Waikowhai at tackle and ripper rugby.  On Wednesday we rotated our way around the hall in Gymnastics.  Some Year 6's investigated the Waikowhai Intermediate Day while some Year 5s helped out with the Spark Volunteer day by pitching in to beautify our school.  Finally on Friday we had students participate in our local community panel.

On top of these activities we managed to compile and share our learning at our assembly on Friday.  You will see the wonderful things we have working on embedded in our Google slide. Check out what we have been doing and please leave us a comment if you want to find out about anything we have shared or any of the activities above.  We love your feedback!

What is a quality blog comment?

Room 8 were extremely excited to see James again for our regular cybersmart session.  Today we were working on creating a quality blog comment within the Learn-Create-Share cycle.  This skill is extremely valuable as we continue to grow our online presence and digital footprints.

Our first task was to 'create' by contributing to the padlet embedded below.  James challenged us to describe all the things that we might see in a quality blog comment.

Created with Padlet

We then focused on "Learn". By reading examples of quality blog comments and viewing two relevant videos we were even more knowledge about commenting.  If you would like to find out more these resources are available on our cybersmart page in the first "smart relationships" section. With new knowledge on board we revisited and reflected upon our padlet contribution to make any changes. We say proudly that we had lots of great ideas in our first attempt and only had to make minor adjustments.

Then it was time to "Share", our favourite part.  We were challenged to use the quality blog post rubric to describe and share our learning. While we are getting better at sharing, the next learning step for many of us is to give more detail on our individual blogs so our audience can gain plenty of information, enough for them to leave us a quality comment. 

If you would like to find out more about Room 8's individual thoughts please check out our individual blogs.  We love positive, thoughtful and helpful comments and feedback and we are working hard to respond to you too!

Experimenting with Electricity

Waikowhai Primary Senior Syndicate welcomed in the new term with an afternoon of fun and learning.  We have continued to focus on electricity within the context of integrity and spent the first afternoon of the term collaborating with others from different classes using the "Brain Box" circuit kits. We collaborated, concentrated, did some learning and created some circuits from the book as well as our own special creations.  We have taken and filed photos to create a DLO to then share out our learning using our individual blogs.  Please check these out to see what we have found out so far.