Maui and the Sun by Room 10

During this term the children in room 10 have been learning about Maori legends. We focussed on one particular legend called ‘Maui and the Sun’. The children learnt about the innovative actions Maui and his brothers decided upon to make the sun travel slowly across the sky. Room 10 did a play about how Maui and his brothers were successful, capturing the sun.

The Ant and the Grasshopper Play by Room 30

In term 4 - Room 30 put on a small performance of The Ant And The Grasshoppers at week 6 junior assembly. We practised the play and took a video of it in the classroom.

Watch video at the bottom of this post.

BELOW – Readers: Manaia – Savarnah – Ursula – Satori.

BELOW – Grasshoppers: Maria – Zane – Honour.

BELOW - Ant: Sienna.

BELOW - Instruments: Charles – Dilan – Ashley – Morgan – De’Jan.

NZ Flag Innovation by Room 11

This week we looked at the hot topic in the news about changing the New Zealand flag 

Mrs. Saini read news articles and played a you tube news clip that outlined the problems with the flag and how people in NZ and the Prime minister, John Key are considering a change.

You tube clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtG8XF8IAe0

Room 11 thought it would be a great idea to innovate the flag for themselves.

First, we outlined the problem from reading the news article and watched the you tube clip.

Then we discussed the problem and looked at the solutions, and a plan that we could put into action.

One of our plans was firstly, to research the things that symbolised NZ and the colours / Culture associated with NZ.

We did that together on the computer by using google images and discussing our findings.

We then used a template to design different flags, using our research findings.

It was amazing to see the ideas and designs the children created, linking to our research. 

The children then discussed in groups about their designs and chose their best flag to make as their final piece.

The children wrote an explanation about what their flag looked like and why they chose the symbols, patterns and colours.

Making diyas for Diwali - Room 11

This week Mrs. Saini shared about the festival Diwali with room 11 and the children were so excited to hear that they would be making their very own diyas (lanterns) for Diwali.

We used salt dough to make the diyas.  All the children made the dough then moulded their own diyas and left them to air dry for 3 days.

On the third day we painted them and left them to dry for the following day.

On Diwali day, Mrs Saini lit the diyas with the children.  We used mustard oil and cotton string to light the diyas.  We invited Rooms 10 and 12 to have a look at our work.  We discussed with them what Diwali was about, and how to make diyas.

Humpty Dumpty in Room 11

Over the past two weeks we have been focussing on Mr. humpty Dumpty.  We looked at the problem with Mr. Humpty Dumpty sitting on the wall in week 1 and then in week 2 we looked at how we can come up with solutions to help Mr. Humpty Dumpty sit on the wall.

We did a real experiment with Mr. Humpty Dumpty and the children were shocked to see Mr. Humpty Dumpty hurt and cracked. The children could see the problem with Mr. Humpty Dumpty and were able to talk about it openly.

We discussed and wrote stories/plans about how we could possibly solve the problem for Mr. Humpty Dumpty.  The children came up with amazing ideas.

Next week we will see if we can put our plan into action, in regards to our solutions. 

Room 11 Communicates a message through song and sign language

Room 30 - Children and parents discovering together

Room 30 have been learning about communication. As part of this learning, we have been experimenting with sound. The students used their imagination and confidence to investigate different ideas.

I gave the students a large piece of paper to colour in. After colouring the students instinctively rolled them up and began to join them. This generated a lot of conversation. The students decided they wanted to find out if they would still hear a person talking if the tunnel was very long. They ended up making a sound tunnel. We captured some of the learning is a video.

Here is some photos of mums and dads also enjoying experimenting with the sound tunnel.