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 10 - Visual Art, Kiwiana style

Welcome to week 10!

Over the last couple of weeks we have been working on some Kiwiana style visual art, and have also looked at warm and cold colours. We discussed what Kiwiana icons were and decided that the most popular would be; chocolate fish, kiwi bird, tui, fantails, fish and chips, kiwi fruit, jandals and ice cream. By using either warm (red, orange, yellow, pink) or cold (blue, green, purple, black) colours on the background, and the opposite for the Kiwiana icon, this would produce a really cool effect.

Here are some finished pieces that can be seen on the classroom wall in Manukau.

 Jandal by Apollo

 Kiwi by Saleh

 Fantail by Callum

 Chocolate Fish by Cassie

Week 7 - collaborative inquiry presentations

This year, our overall theme is Curiosity.  In Term One and Two we will be using this frame of mind to investigate animals.  Over the past two weeks we have really started to dig into this.

One of our first jobs was to complete a quick write. During this time we listed as many animals as we could.  This helped us to connect to our prior knowledge.  Once we had our list, our teachers challenged us to classify these into groups.  To do this, we had to look at the animals and then make groups by thinking about what they had in common.  We then used the 'Thinking' key competency to justify these reasons. An example from Ama is below.

Following this, we joined together as a syndicate in mixed groups to see what we knew about ten different groups of animals.  We completed a bus stop (with the help of our chromebooks).  The amount of knowledge that we generated was amazing.

The last step of the process was to join together in groups to come up with different ways to share our learning and present the main ideas about the group we had.  Mr Riceman and Mr Rattenbury videoed these.  As you can see from the presentations below, we had lots of choice and created things in our own way.  Have a look and please leave us some positive, thoughtful and helpful comments.

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...