Transformation Style

We have investigating Geometry over the next couple of weeks- I found this clip that will hopefully be catchy enough to make the vocabulary terms and their meanings, that we will be using in class, easier to recall!

Te Taima- He aha te wa?

We've learnt the numbers in Te Reo Maori...now we are applying our knowledge to telling the time. Students created a resource that could be used to teach others the skill. Thanks Brooke.M and Bonnie for sharing! Check out individual blogs for more!

Financial Literacy

Thanks Sophie and Libby for allowing me to share your research! Perhaps the pet/ dog purchasing step was one too far?

We have been building on our financial literacy- coming to grips with new terms, the different forms of interest and budgeting.
It was very interesting for students in Room 12 to search for a career, learn about salary rates and then apply this information to the cost of living- I am afraid that many decided a discussion with Mum and Dad about long-term living arrangements at home was in order!

Explaining the Unexplained

We have made a start on our Term 4 inquiry by looking at the 'Nature of Science'
We had fun viewing a couple of clips which had us questioning what we miss when we are not looking- and how this relates to Science.

Try out the videos to check out your observation skills!

Ni Hao- it's Chinese language week!

Room 12 enjoyed the opportunity to make dumplings today...and develop skill using chopsticks, all to celebrate and acknowledge Chinese language week.

NEON...The social event of the year!

We have now had the chance to show off our smooth social dancing moves. after four weeks of intense training!
It was wonderful to see the Room 12 in their fancy gear- beautiful (and we nailed the bunny hop..Go ROOM !!)

Location, Location, Location

We have begun a short unit on location in maths this week.

Found this catchy youtube clip to share with the class to support our learning about how to use and read scales on maps...We were awesome at map reading after this- comparing the length of the South Island with the distance New Zealand is to Antarctica. (Antartica looked really close on the map!)

Week 8- What an awesome collection of STARS

Well Done Larissa- What a fantastic art piece- Larissa has been working on her mural for a couple of weeks and finished yesterday- the middle piece is her creation.

We completed our two powhiri experiences this week and a special mention to Kevin, Ella, Bonnie and Kimberly who stepped forward and lead the class through various aspects of the ceremony- Ka Mau te Wehi!

All of Room 12 shared their persuasive speeches this week- They will make their way onto individual blogs...but in the meantime:  I am very proud to be the teacher of such a "give it my best go" group of students- WOW!!! What a great way to spend some of the week- listening to such a range of topics delivered with such effort!

Science fair entry

Well done Garrett. Garrett worked over his school holidays to produce a science fair project-investigating the effect playing video games have on your body. Thanks for sharing your project with the class today...hopefully there will be others taking on the challenge next year!

Timbernook Adventure

What an awesome trip...It was fantastic to see students working as a team, testing their limits and just getting terrifically messy!
We managed to fit a lot into one afternoon - not only the experience itself but the learning we did about one another and ourselves.
Check out the students' individual blog posts...and my photo slide...which isn't as successful as I envisioned (used a new photo slideshow creator- click on the link to view- embedding didn't work this time!)Timbernook photo sensations!

Cycle Two Student Leaders

Congratulations to our second cycle classroom leaders! Garrett and Sophie are our class councillors while Lexi and Max are our sports captains. Tino pai rawa atu! We are looking forward to supporting our new class leaders to be the best they can be.

Healthy bodies, Strong minds-

We have been exploring the concept of Stereotypes - and how we make a judgement about people based on very little information. We looked at a range of photographs and then in groups of 3-4 wrote a profile for each one- with no information other than a photo! We had some interesting outcomes once we shared our thoughts and followed with the actual profiles of the people we were profiling. Check out individual student blog post to find out what they have discovered about human nature and themselves.
I thought this youtube clip was a thought provoking addition to our discussion.

Cross Country training is underway!

Class Novel for Term 3

This funny and poignant novel, by New Zealand author- David Hill, tells the story of Nathan and his best friend, Simon. These are two 14-year-old boys with a passion for girls, soccer, weekends, girls, computers, and girls. Although Simon is confined to a wheelchair because of muscular dystrophy, his keen sense of humor and taste for excitement are more than a match for his disability. 
A really nice link to our term inquiry focus- Healthy Bodies, Strong Minds. We've made a start...the aim is to finish by the end of this term!!

Healthy bodies, Strong minds

HAUORA is a Maori belief that explains the concept of well being. We have been exploring this in class, gaining an understanding of how the four areas of Hauora work together and overlap with each other to form total well being in a person's life. The four areas are; Spiritual well being ( Taha wairua), Physical well being ( Taha Tinana), Mental and emotional well being ( Taha hinengaro ) and Social wellbeing ( Taha whanau). We have created some art work in class to illustrate our understanding of this concept....and it's looking beautiful!

Matariki make-it Mondays

We're having fun in 'Make it' sessions on Monday afternoons. We are following a Matariki theme, creating using; hammers, tin cans, soap, harakeke, ice block sticks, balloons, the list goes on!

Sausage Sizzle and Mufti Day

On Thursday 1 June room 12 held a Mufti Day and sausage sizzle raising money for Kaleb and his family who is currently in starship hospital. Village Butcher donated the sausages and we sold all 250 sausages. Initial estimates we have made over 1600 dollars!!!!

Our new class novel- There's a boy in the girls bathroom

We've started a new one...and it's hilarious! All about a boy named 'Bradley Chalkers' - a quirky unusual chap and the journey he takes as he tries to make sense of the social niceties of school...in very creative ways. A great introduction to Louis Sachar's writing, hopefully, some will be entertained enough to give other novels of his a try.

Statistics- jingles that help us remember

Below are a couple of catchy ways to remember the meanings of some of the new terms we are learning at the moment in mathematics. In class on Friday, we couldn't reach consensuses as to which youtube clip was the most effective...hence the inclusion of both! We are reaching the end of our statistical investigations and are busy analysing our resulting data. Keep an eye out for individual investigations making it onto blogs this coming week.

Furnware- innovation in action

On Thursday we visited Furnware, a local Hastings business, to see some of the concepts we have explored in class as part of our 'Movers and Shakers' inquiry, in action. We were given a tour of the factory, an historical overview on what role innovative practice has had on their business and finally an opportunity to apply some of our own innovative thought through the design process. 

Thank you so much Bill Roberts and the staff at Furnware for making this fantastic opportunity a reality!

Movers And Shakers

What's the difference between Discovery, Innovation and Invention?

Check out Kiera's below and other student's on their individual blogs!

Movers and Shakers: We are innovators too!

In class over the past two weeks, we have been exploring the concept of Innovation. We have looked at innovators and identified the special traits these people have that help them to enjoy success in their fields.

We have compared ourselves to innovators and found that we too have many of the traits that they have!  Not only that, we also discovered that the 21st-century skills taught in our school fit with these traits as well.

Today Room 12 had a go at applying our individual traits and 21st-century skills to a technology challenge- ‘The leaning tower of pasta.’- what a talented group of budding innovators we are!

Check out individual student blogs for more insightful reporting on their learning.

Room 12 versus the 'Vitruvian Man'.

As part of our unit on measurement we applied our knowledge of metres, centimetres and millimetres to investigate one of Leonardo De Vinci's theories regarding the ideal proportions of the human figure. We discovered that the majority of us are just off the ratio of 1. Following discussion we attributed this to a number of possibilities; we are still growing so may not be 'balanced' yet, our measurements may not have been accurate enough- we talked about our methods here and discovered significant variation in technique! Or maybe....Leonardo's theory doesn't hold up in relation to modern man?

Top Spot entries

We have been writing entries for the "Top outdoor Spot" competition being run through term 1 by both sides of the fence (Walking Access Aotearoa). We are tasked with writing a description of our top spot in New Zealand all within 600 characters...so short, sweet and to the point.

Here are Kaleb and Brooke.M's fantastic entries...! Check out others on individual blogs

PANDORA POND

Kids pop manu’s the water, it’s nice and warm and I see water flying up in the air as if it’s trying to do tricks.

I hear screaming cos kids are trying to sprint up the bouncy castle to be the first. Seagulls are scoping for fish and chips, all the birds are chirping demanding food.

People are scraping their jandals across the round rocks as kids are skimming stones. As soon as I hit the water it’s warmth is like a dragon breathing fire at me. I taste the yucky salt water flying onto my tongue. Pandora Pond is amazing.

Ohope Beach!

As the blazing sun rises I can feel the sea breeze whipping across my face and the sand soaking into my feet with every step. Craaash! I hear the waves beating against the soft sand. On the surface of the choppy water I can spot ripples, white like marshmallows. As I look to the left of the rough sea I see trees dotted with bright red Pohutukawa. Standing on the beach I smell the strong salty water from the enormous sea ahead of me.

Another wet day PE session..CRAB SOCCER!

During our PE session today we tried out a new game against Room 13- Crab Soccer. A whole lot of fun and... noise!

Our parcel has arrived

Thank you St Mary's Catholic School in Gisborne...it was so exciting to receive our courier parcel. We had fun sharing your writing and really hope you have enjoyed ours just as much!

Sheppard House Art Excursion

We had a fantastic day on Friday. We explored the MTG museum in Napier- looking at a range of exhibits; from acclaimed NZ artists, Anzac, tea cups to earthquakes...but that was only part one! We also visited the Hawkes Bay art exhibition in Hastings where we critiqued some local art work; analysing which pieces caught our eye, the techniques they used and the themes they covered. 

Next step...our own art exhibition!

Strike performance

What a great...if loud...way to start the day on Friday! The Strike performance group were in school sharing their talents on percussion. Very inspirational...there were quite a few keen drummers trying out their skills with pens and pencils for the rest of the day!!!

Get NZ writing task

We've been busy over the last couple of weeks in writing- exploring language features. We composed poems using metaphors to describe our classroom...and ourselves. After selecting our best line of poetry we transferred it to a postcard, which has now been sent off to a school in Gisborne. We now eagerly await our own parcel from St Mary's Catholic School in Gisborne containing their pieces of writing. 

Adapting the colour wheel

In Room 12 we have been clarifying our knowledge of the colour wheel. Using the three primary colours; blue, red and yellow, we experimented with producing the 12 basic colours that make up the colours of our world. We then disguised our wheels as....eyeballs!

Making conversation

Bonnie and Kiera are feeling confident enough with their learning of Chinese Mandarin to record a conversation...so that we all might feel more confident before next Monday's lesson!
They are saying .., Hello, How are you? What is your name? My name is... and I am from New Zealand. Can you identify the phrases we have learnt in class?

Turangawaewae- a place to stand

We have been composing our mihi and pepeha over the past week or so. We are now in the process of practicing our pronunciation. To add a little detail to the written component of our work we have explored the google app 'my maps' to produce an illustration of our special places - Our place to stand. We can already see other learning areas where the 'my maps' tool will be a useful addition to our presentation tool box. Here is the teacher attempt- Check out the fantastic efforts of the students in Room 12 on their blogs.

School REACH values

In class we have been discussing our school values and what they look like in and around the classroom. We then used Haiku Deck to create our own presentation to educate others about what the REACH values mean.
Thank you Chante for sharing your creation on the class site- what a great effort!
Check out others on individual sites.



Created with Haiku Deck, presentation software that inspires

Introducing our class leaders of cycle one!

Congratulations to our cycle one class leaders. Bonnie and Devon are Room 12's sports captains while Kimberly and Jacob are our class councillors. 

Swimming sports 2017

Swimming sports 2017 on PhotoPeach

Mandarin lessons have begun!

We had our first Mandarin lesson earlier this week- we discovered that it is quite tricky learning another language. I have posted this youtube clip which was used during our lesson so that we can get the practice in and stun our tutor with our awesomeness!

The Reading challenge is set!

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

READING OUTSIDE THE BOX CHALLENGE

READ A CHUNKSTER (must be at least 450 pages!)	LOVED BY OTHERS (A book recommended by someone else)	RELIVE THE MAGIC (reread a book you loved)	ONE OF A SERIES
READ BY EAR (listen to an audio book)	TRY A CLASSIC	READ A LOCAL (read a book written by a New Zealander)	POETRY
SCIENCE FICTION	AWARD WINNERS	SECOND CHANCE	MYSTERY
PICTURE BOOK	LOST IN TRANSLATION ( a book originally written in another language)	ACCIDENTALLY WATCHED THE MOVIE FIRST	BIOGRAPHY OR NON FICTION

Students in Room 12 are off on a reading adventure. A visit to the school library today has sparked a beginning to reading through the "Outside a box" challenge. Students need to read 16 books over the course of the year. (unless a negotiation has occurred)..Can it be done? We talked about choices that could be made, conducted research and many students have formulated plans of attack! Each completed text requires a short review blog post so that others can gain ideas as to what to read next. Keep an eye out for those first reviews to appear!

Our class novel for Term 1

Our class novel for this term is a hit! Sunken forest, written by New Zealand author Des Hunt, is an action packed adventure novel set in the wilds of Lake Waikaremoana. It explores meaningful issues, such as friendships, peer pressure, bullying, environment, family and heritage- a great link to our inquiry focus this term- Turangawaewae, a place to stand. We are finding that there are many connections we can make to our own life experiences, leading to some robust discussion. Keep an eye out for student reviews later in the term.

'I am from' poetry

In class we have been writing our own "I am from" poetry using the original poem by George E Lloyd as a model. Thank you Isabella for sharing your thoughtful piece of writing on the class page... click on individual student links to view the wonderful efforts of Room 12

Isabella’s Where I’m From Poetry

I am from

bike rides in the forest

and skiing down mountains

from walking all the places that my feet would take me

I am from

camping in the campa trailer and gardening with mum

from reading on my bed, book after book

from a house that is a calm safe place

I am from

throwing netball's back and forth doing drills before the game

from diving into freezing cold water ready for my lesson

and from whacking tennis balls all over the court

I am from

uno and bluff

from the game of life

I am from beginning and end

Introducing the FABULOUS ROOM 12

And we're off! The team that makes up Room 12 for 2017. What a super talented enthusiastic group of students...I am so excited about the year ahead!