Austin - Why Do People Protest?

A Protest is normally a large group of people that disagree on an event, but feel that they aren’t heard. Due to this, the Protesters use ways to be heard and look for others who agree with them to join in the protest. One-hundred and fifty years ago, the first group of people had doubts about an event and protested about it.

There are various ways of protesting. New Zealanders have been protesting for over a century for causes they are passionate about! There are a lot of crazy events in history, some of them have been caused by Protests. The most common way of protesting now is “Marching”. Marching is where a large amount of people walk on the streets protesting to be heard. Some holding signs, others shouting for justice. This isn’t the only way, some types of protests, are strikes, where people don’t work to convince leaders to do something. Other ways are petitions, petitions are where people sign a form to protest an issue they want to change.

You’re probably thinking “do Protests work?”, well it kind of depends. If citizens work hard enough, and officials agree, Protests can be successful. However, if the Protesters don't work hard, or the officials disagree on their statement, the Protest may not work.

A famous example of a Protest is one that was led by Kate Sherpard. Kate Shepard’s Protest was caused due to women not having enough rights. Her Protest was carried out by a type of Protest called “Petition”, that type works by people that agree, sign the paper. If officials hear this, the Protest could work out, after many attempts, Katy Sherpard finally succeeded. Not only this, but, this was the first time in history that women got rights.

Another great example is, The great strike, The great strike is where Wellington watersiders and Miners from Huntley figured they had horrible working conditions and weren’t getting paid enough in return, they decided to not work. They stayed in strike for about eight weeks to make the prime minister give them better conditions and money, but the prime minister sent special police to lightly beat up protesters. About eight leaders were arrested but some grew to be politicians and create better laws for work environments.

In conclusion, people Protest about things they think are wrong, or that they want to change. Protests can change for the better, at least if officials decide to see and agree.

Thank you Mr Burt. - Marika

Today we finally got to have assembly all together at school. Since covid-19 Level 4 Lockdown in New Zealand we haven't been able To have live assembly together for 75 days. But this assembly was a Special one. Not just because it was the first assembly live that we haven't had in a very long time but because we were honouring our principal Russell Burt. A couple of weeks ago he had gotten a Very important award from the Queen Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit.

We sang a couple of waiata For this amazing man. Some people gave speeches and talked about how hard working and talented he is. He gives us so many opportunities like going to camp, making sure that we can learn online by giving us Chromebooks and iPads and just Believing in us saying that we can make a difference. I am so thankful for this school.

Hand Soccer

This afternoon Room 4 decided to look after their Taha Tinana (and in doing so, supporting the other aspects of their health too)! We have had a full on week full of tests, which has been a little stressful and we noticed we needed some more self care.

In response we headed to the hall this afternoon. We played a game called pass the squeeze to get us all feel connected and positive, before splitting into two teams. Each team had to play a game of soccer using only one hand and score a 'goal' by hitting the ball through the posts. This was such a laugh - especially when the ball seemed to have a mind of its own.

Some of us were a little reluctant to exercise at first, but we soon realised how important it is to get out and get moving! Once we were playing we were all having a good old laugh. This is a great lesson for life too - it's so good to get moving, especially if it is with others. What do you do to take care of your wellbeing after a full on week or day?

The Book of the Road

Last term, Room 4 Literacy were fortunate enough to participate in School Kits 'Get NZ Writing'. This was great fun for us all as we got to explore a range of poems, which were focussed on the idea of a journey. One of the last things we did in term one was to complete our whole class poem, called The Book of The Road. Some of us also completed our own journey poems, which we wrote on to a postcard.

We were in lockdown when we would have sent our poem in, so we did not get to finish the project! 

This week we received a package. It contained the postcards and a letter from our buddy class! We knew we couldn't let them down, so Room 4 Maths stepped in to complete the last of the postcards. We decided to write a letter to our buddies to explain what happened, but we loved reading their poems! It was also really cool to see how all of their postcards fit together.

Despite not participating in many of the previous tasks, Room 4 Maths did a fantastic job at writing a poem about a journey. Check out Lee and Tsai's poems!

Cupcake Company!

This week we have completed a STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art, maths) challenge which was to create our own bakery.

After learning about the challenge, we begun creating our 'brand'. We decided what our company was going to be like and then got to work developing a logo. Some of us decided that we would have a health focussed brand, while others wanted to market their bakery for families and children.

The next step was to design our product. Due to Covid, we are still not sharing food, so we had to use store brought plain cakes and then customise them ourselves. We decided what flavours we would add to the cakes using icing/ filling and toppings. We also measured the cakes so we could start building the packaging.

This was when our geometry knowledge was required as we had to use nets to build packaging that would fit our cupcakes. This was quite a challenge but we got there in the end!

In literacy we created adverts for our companies. We also wrote a description of our cupcakes to place on the packaging, to further entice our customers.

                                                             

Finally we created our products and got to taste our hardwork. We all came up with different designs which were fantastic!

Meet Room 4 Maths!

At the moment we are staying in our maths class all day, so Room 4 'home class' is looking quite different! Check out this video to meet some of our students:

             

Week 3/8!

Today we all returned to school after the long weekend. It was great to have a rest and to visit family over this time, so we returned to school with lots of enthusiasm!

In Maths we have been learning about 2D and 3D shapes. After reviewing last weeks learning, we started making our own nets for 3D shapes. This will come in real handy later in the week as we try to create our own packaging for a baking company!

In Kiwi sport we started Skateboarding! This was a blast and everyone was at least able to skate a few metres by the end of the lesson (while some people were already learning tricks!). It was awesome having the opportunity to try something new.