We ended term 3 on a high after the school production. The children worked very hard to learn all the words of the songs and their dance steps. I was very proud of how well they danced on the nights and they all looked fantastic in their costumes. They had lots of fun designing and making our scarecrow props, I’m sure Ma’a Nonu would be very impressed!

We enjoyed making cardboard bird houses with Caroline during our art session and some children made bird food with Jo. Ren’s mother helped us put our bird houses up in the rainforest, so keep an eye out for them. We climbed trees to find just the right spot. We made them to attract birds to the school and we hope the birds will like them! We were also fortunate enough to do some bird banding with the ‘Birdman’ Peter. The children’s faces said it all, they were delighted to be able to hold and let the Yellow Eyes free after Peter put bands on their legs.  

A highlight of the term three of course was the unexpected SNOW! We wrote some wonderful Haiku poetry about the day it snowed at school. We have started this term off by training for our school athletics. This involves throwing, running and jumping.

This term we have been learning about ‘Our Amazing Bodies’. The children have come up with some very interesting questions. They have learnt to gather and use information from different resources to write explanations and reports to answer their questions. We had a very exciting visit from the Life Education Caravan Harold the giraffe and Charlotte. We helped Harold do his homework and learnt all about ‘Air to Live’. This term has filled with lots of fun learning. We are all looking forward to our summer holiday. Thank you to all the parents in Kowhai for their help and support throughout the year. I wish you safe and enjoyable holiday and a happy New Year.

Lara Nemet

 In pairs we created some skeletons of a body.  Here are a couple of the finished products!!

Created by Ned and Ossian

Created by Ella and Riley

Here are some interesting facts we wanted to share

 -we have 206 bones (Tamrah)

-the heart pumps blood all around our body (Ned)

 -we have 700 muscles (Ella)

 -the kidneys work like a washing machine cleaning our blood (Tasmin)

-a broken bone can heal by itself usually (Miha)

-your blood goes around your whole body in 1 minute (Flynn)

We have written a report each about our digestive system.

  Here are a couple:

Miha’s explanation report

 Do you know where your food goes?

 It doesn’t just fall down a big hole and come out your butt!  It’s much more!

 First you chew up the food.  Then it goes down the oesophagus into your stomach which mixes it up.  Then to goes into your small intestines. The good stuff soaks though into the body.  The waste goes into the large intestines and comes out as poop!

 So now you know all about it.

Joe’s explanation report

 This is your amazing digestive system!

 First it starts in your mouth where your food gets chewed up by your teeth. 

After that your food slides down your oesophagus to your stomach. Then your stomach grinds up your food into an even SLOPPIER substance!

 After that your small intestines suck out all the fibre and the waste goes into your large intestine.

 Then your food sits in your large intestine for a few days.  Finally your food goes out your rectum as poo.

 You see –it really is amazing!!

We have also spent quite a bit of time in the school veggie garden.  We weeded it and cleared our all the old plants. 

We experimented and made ‘broad bean dip’ with the broad beans we grew.  There was definitely a mixed response to that!!!!  We have planted beetroot, leeks, spring onions, lettuces, courgettes, cauliflower, carrots, broccoli, cabbage, spinach, and tomatoes. Think that’s everything!!  Most things are really taking off. 

Kale –planted earlier in the year

 Please feel free to water them if you are around in the holidays and eat stuff if it’s ready.  We will leave some watering cans near the garden.

Busy gardeners from Nikau

Checking out how things are growing!!

 Yellow courgettes really doing well~ yum,yum!!!

Nikau has had a really fun year and I hope everyone has a great holiday with lots of sunshine and relaxing.

We have had so much fun this year with the chicken, and boy! Have they grown!

  This term in Mahoe we have become researchers! We have been working hard in buddies and on our own to measure body parts using string.  We measured our height, hands, feet, around our heads, our pinkies and ears.  We have been estimating which body parts we think will be longer and then measuring and checking to see if we were right.  We found out that all the way around your head is a lot longer than we thought! We worked as a whole class and put the string showing our height into height order from shortest to tallest.  We realised that we may have made some mistakes with our measurements because some people’s string was a lot taller than they were! We also found out that your ear is about the same length as your pinky.

We have also been researching information about the human body.  We are working in groups and on our own to find out interesting information about different systems within the body.  Fortunately, we have had a parent expert come in and talk to us about bodies, x-rays and surgery!  In addition to that we have been using the laptops and searching on cool sites like Kidshealth and Scholastic Kids.  We have been finding information and keeping track of what we are learning with note-taking sheets and organised group research folders.  It’s been exciting to explore all the intricacies of the human body and to be real researchers asking questions, making predictions and hypotheses and gathering information to answer our questions! It’s been very fun and I can’t want to hear about all of the neat things Mahoe has learned about their topics!  Gillian Menaker

Our ‘guinea pig’ for the first mask was Will Park. Will is always on for these type of things – he loves giving everything a go.

The rest of the class watched and listened carefully as they were all going to have to help so we could get 26 masks done in the morning.

First up Will coated his face with bee-balm (vaseline would do too)-

                                                                                                                                                                     Then Caroline wrapped some Gladwrap around his hair so the plaster wouldn’t stick to it and rip out later – Ouch!

                                                                                                                                                                        Next we prepared the plaster strips. These are the plaster bandages used to make plaster arm casts when you fall off your scooter…

                                                                                                                                                                    Next step – applying the plaster bandages in stages. We used small paper ovals to cover the eyes. The class loved this stage as Will was finally unable to speak in the class for a few minutes!

                                                                                                                                                       After a couple more minutes to allow the plaster to set, we got our Will back and he was allowed to see his pale double.

                                                                                                                                                              We had created a ‘negative’ of Will’s face. Then everyone in the class got busy and we all made a mask. Once they were all completed we coated the inside of each mask with vaseline.

                                                                                                                                                           The final stage was to cast a ‘positive’ by pouring casting plaster into the negatives. We sat the negatives in small nests of paper so the noses wouldn’t get squashed. They were hard in an hour. Cool!

 ART AND ENTERPRISE:

Wow!  Term two has absolutely whizzed by because of all the exciting things that we have had to do.  “Art and Enterprise has been our topic and it has been a real blast working with the divine and talented Ms. Caroline McGlinchy.  The senior classes focused on photography for our art project and we hope you enjoyed the culmination of all our genius and hard work on display at the HVS Art Exhibition!  Other works of art that the children chose were also on display.

Here are just three of the examples of the stunning photography we took that was on display!

Yeehah!!!

Look Here

Seed Head

TI KOUKA RECYCLING:

We have also been modifying our class Environmental Responsibility because of the way the WCC will collect it from schools and early childhood centres.   There is a one-month trial going on which commenced on June 14 and will finish on July 15. 

The WCC are using some new green recycling bags and they are asking schools to use these to collect paper, plastic and cans.  They will collate how much recycling has been collected to see if the amounts justify collection on a regular basis.

We will keep you posted on the outcome.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         JULY SCHOOL HOLIDAYS

The school holidays are coming up and we hope that you have a fantastic break with your children, keep safe and warm and we look forward to seeing you fresh and ready for a brand new term three! Yippee! 

What action filled, jam packed term in the realm of Harakeke.

 With focus being on the Arts and Enterprise we have been doing lots of related learning.

Instructional writing we have been learning inform people on HOW TOWe were given various instructions on how to make Oobleck, a non-Newtonian fluid.

Some were more successful than others, from these we came up with our own features of a successful instruction.

Is it solid or liquid?

 

Hey guys do think this stuff is radioactive?

  

With all the learning we have to have some serious fun. The school ‘Futuristic Fluoro Disco’ was heaps of fun. Harakeke came to party and dressed to impress.

 

  

Take Me to Your Leader!!!

 We celebrated the unveiling of our Rainforest signs with a grand opening of the tracks. We got to guide the school and community around and tell them of all the wonders hidden in the Rainforest.

Come and see the geckos in our wonderful rainforest

We have been focusing on Multiplication, Division, Geometry and Fractions for our Numeracy this term. We participated an experiment with Te Kouka were we played Multiplication and Division games on the computer and Te Kouka played board games and dice games in the class. Our initial results showed that the children who played the educational basic fact games on the computer made a greater improvement.

The Grand finale for the end of term was our Art Expo we focused on photography as our medium of art and learnt about Elements of photography such has filling the frame, the rule of thirds, Micro and Macro, perspectives and many more. Caroline came in and inspired and guided us to some amazing pieces.

We explored the HVS and found our favourite place and took multiple photos. Taking inspirations from David Hockney we created collages of our faces and favourite places.

 

 

Colourkeke Harakeke Class piece

101 EYES Harakeke Class Piece

 

Harakeke chose baking for their enterprise it was an astounding success. There were amazing teamwork and entrepnerial skills shown by our students. “Watch out Stephen Tindall”. It was a sell out night with many happy customers sampling our chocolate delights.

Get back to work!!!!!

 

Thanks to all the parents who helped throughout the term. See you all back in Term 3!

Each member of the class has contributed to each piece.

The artworks below are large pieces – please note the sizes in cm.

Click on the picture to see a larger version.

Happy bidding!!!

"Nga Taonga o te Moana', 150W x 82H, Rm1 Pohutukawa

'Dreamscape 2', 90W x 60H, Rm 2 Mahoe

'Houghton Hills', 122W x 90H, Rm8 Ngaio

'Dreamscape 3', 122W x 90H, Rm3 Nikau

'Houghton Bay Seascape', 75W x 60H, Rm1 Pohutukawa

'The Pyramid of Royal Tents' - Rm 4 Karaka

'Chaos', 90W x 120H, Rm3 Nikau

'School Pupils', 100W x 120H, Rm8 Ngaio

'Circles Galore', 43W x 43H ea, 2 pieces, Rm2 Kowhai

'Colourkeke', 83W x 90H, Rm5 Harakeke

'A Load of Junk', 60W x 51H, Rm2 Kowhai

'The Faces of Mahoe', 60W x 60H, Rm7 Mahoe

'The Tesselators', 79W x 97H, Rm4 Karaka

Part 2 of 3, '101 Eyes', 57W x 43H ea, Rm5 Harakeke

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     In Term 2 Pohutukawa children went on a ‘shape hunt’ around the school and used shape equipment in the classroom. We explored the use of shape in art work and created abstract work with partners and by ourselves. We thought about the interesting shapes, then created and told stories about them. Some of the art was motivated by Caroline and we made a seascape of unusual sea creatures. Now we are exploring the work of artists and creating more art for our exhibition.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    Each week we make a newspaper from our news stories to read in class and for home reading. Mrs Brown sent a postcard from England so we will write back to her. It’s interesting finding out things that are happening locally, in New Zealand and the wider world. We can even see wonderful things from windows in our room!

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      In Pohutukawa our motto is ‘Together Everyone Achieves More’ and we are enjoying cooperative challenges in maths, letter of the week, reading and PE along with helping each other with class roles. We have goldfish named ‘Marlin’ and ‘Nemo’ and a class mascot ‘Brown Bear Barney’ to look after. We are also enjoying helping new children who visit us before they join our class.

Ka kite Pohutukawa tamariki and Jill Holmstead

Building a cube

Figuring out how many corners a cube has

counting sides, cutting, sorting by shape, and gluing onto chart

counting the toothpicks to figure out how many edges a cube has

Very proud of her creation!

For the last few weeks Mahoe students have been shape detectives.  We started out doing a shape search around our classroom.  Students had a clipboard, a chart with shapes and a pen.  They had to walk around the room finding everyday objects and classifying what shapes they were.  We immersed ourselves into shapes by reading stories about shapes, writing about shapes and creating art using tissue paper shape cut-outs.  The class then created scenes using 2D shapes and writing captions.  We then worked in cooperative groups to sort pentagons, hexagons and octagons.  The pairs had to count the sides of each shape, sort it into one column of a three columned chart and then at the end choose the headings for each column.  We used string to create shapes–identifying the numbers of sides and corners the shapes had.  We used venn diagrams to compare 2D and 3D shapes.  We looked at the differences and similarities of circles and spheres as well as squares and cubes.  We then individually built cubes using tooth picks and wine gums.  The children had to figure out the number of sides, edges and corners there were in a cube.  The wine gums were easy to spot and helped us figure out that a cube has 8 corners while a square only has 4.  We have had a wonderful time exploring shapes and all their properties.  Next we move on to symmetry and patterns! Maths has been an exciting time in Mahoe this term and will continue to be!