Watch this Space

 This term the students had to create an animation about space. They used a programme called Hyperstudio on our school iMacs to complete the images and then used either Quicktime or iMovie to add a voice over or additional effects. Check out a few examples below!

By Finau

By Austin

By Aye

Master Thief Game Release - Austin

 Austin is our resident game designer/ programmer/ animator and coding whizz. In his spare time he designs amazing animations and coding projects. One of these projects was a game called Master Thief.

These images showcase some of the features of the game, but to really experience it you have to check it out on scratch : https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/502014692/

Fiafia 2021

We have just celebrated our school Fiafia or cultural night. Check out some of the students reflections!

 "Last night we had Fiafia, it's when our school goes into cultural groups and does a performance for the families that come and watch. The group I was in was the Senior Samoan group, when we went to perform everyone cheered for us joyfully. My favourite group was the Junior Hip group, along with the Tongan Girls, they were both so amazing because, both groups looked really interested in what they were doing,and tried so hard to make everyone proud, anyways, most of all it was very fun, and am pretty sure everybody enjoyed it as well."  - Norah Jade

"Last night, a special performance took place at Pt England School. It was the night of Fia Fia. When school finished, I just stayed, and hung out with my friend Rongo. I bought a mango Otai for me and some of my other friends. After hours of waiting, preparation for Fia Fia had finally began. Along with some of my friends like Devante, Jermaine, Chaun, Simon and Lucian, I was in the Hip-Hop group. Though it wasn't really cultural or anything, I was happy to be there! After quite a few groups, it was finally our turn! We went up on the stage and it was kind of nerve-racking... But I managed to stay in the positions of our dance. I had so much fun during our dance, dancing with my friends. At the end of our dance, we were tired, but relieved it was finished... Overall, it was a fantastic experience! My favourite dance to watch was probably the senior Samoan group, just 'cause it's my culture and it looked awesome!" - Austin

Maths Holiday Challenge

In case you are looking for homework this holiday, check out this homework task created by Megan Clune who teaches Maths/Science at the University of Auckland.

You have five thousand dollars to go on a trip around New Zealand. You can either plot your trip on Google Maps - My Maps, or make a slide show/ poster showing where you would go and what you would do. Will you spend all your money on the most expensive hotels or do some wild tourist activities like sky diving?

 

Lest We Forget

Today Room 4 discussed the significance of Anzac Day. We first revised who the ANZACs were and learnt a little about their time in Gallipoli. Next we considered why it is so important to remember those who fought for us in WW1. To support this remembrance, we created artwork with images of ANZAC soldiers and poppies.

 

We used tea to dye the back of the artwork, made a collage poppy and then stuck the various parts together and used paint to add highlights and create one final piece.

Introducing Room 4

 At the start of the year we created our Room 4 Treaty. Watch the video below to learn about our treaty principles and meet our class!

Cybersmart Challenge: Kawa of Care by Kiarah

 This week Kiarah completed the Kawa of Care Challenge. Check out her creation below :

We have been in Level 3 for 2 days know and we are going over the rules of how we need to follow the kawa of care. This means looking after our chrome-books, and making sure that we are being cybersmart. There will be tasks for us to complete every week on the Cybersmart Challenge Blog.

I am ready for learning! - Finau

                        

This week Auckland has gone back into level 3. This means that most of our students are staying home and learning online through our class sites and google meets. As one of our activities today, we have been completing this weeks Cybersmart Challenge made by Mr Goodwin. Check out Finau's top tips for online learning above.

Getting Creative with Myths & Legends

 This week we have had a challenge in Room 4 to get creative with myths and legends. We got to pick from lots of different create activities, from making a recipe, to re-enacting a story to building a diorama. 

Check out Toby's creation: he created his own story using Minecraft!

                 

Room 4 Chefs!

 Are you in lockdown this week? This week Auckland remains in level 3, just like many other parts of the world! We have been finding lots of great ways to make the most out of this lockdown. One great way is to cook for your family. 

Why not try out Marika's delicious Anzac biscuit recipe?

Is it too early for cookies? Well then try Sauma's breakfast suggestions!

Maths Week

 This week is Maths Week in New Zealand, which means one thing for Room 4 Maths: Mathletics. For us, mathletics is less about speed and more about team work. We get points for collaboration as well as correct answers.

This year we completed a series of challenges, which involved learning about famous mathematicians, completing algebra equations, geometry, measurement and more! 

Argumentation Board: Is it ever okay to steal?

This morning in Literacy, Room 4 got to use their first argumentation board for the term. Today's topic was 'Is it ever okay to steal?'

                 

We first discussed our initial thoughts on this matter as a class, where most people were on the opposing side, believing that it is never okay to steal.

Next we investigated, got some factual information and wrote one reason for or against the argument. Interestingly over the course of the lesson, a few people changed their opinion on the subject.

The groups then got together and chose three arguments to use in a more formal debate. Three speakers were selected from each side and the rest of the class were given the opportunity to rebut the arguments that were made.

The Leaning Tower of Spaghetti

This morning we returned to our literacy class for the first time since March! It was great (if a little strange) to be back and to read together once again.

Before we got into our reading, we had a quick challenge to remind us of some core skills of literacy; to be effective communicators, most notably. We got into our four reading groups and were given spaghetti, tape, string and a marshmallow.  The challenge was to create the tallest tower.

Each group had a different tactic, with some making spaghetti triangles, others simply sticking all the strands together vertically and others using the string to support the spaghetti to balance. In the end, Ihimaera took out the competition with an impressive 96cm tower they aptly named 'the learning tower of spaghetti. They were followed by Dahl with an 87cm tower. 

After the activity we discussed the keys to their success: communication, collaboration, active listening, sharing ideas, having fun. These are all skills that we will need to be successful in literacy over the next 6 months. 

Tha Zin - The Myth of Hermes

Today in inquiry we learnt about myths from Ancient Greece. We learnt about the different gods (Ancient Greece was polytheistic) and their story of creation. We then looked at some of the crazy things newborn Hermes was able to do in this story:

Getting Creative!

At the end of last term we spent a little time getting creative with art. This added a sense of 'us' and our personalities to our new class. 

In our first project, we learnt about colour and contrast as we created silhouette art. This was a really fun design which proved to be really effective. We each chose our own design for our art work and we experimented with different backgrounds - check them out below!

Next we made our inspirational quote artwork. This is a room 4 right of passage, as it is an activity that we do at the start of the year, every year. As we changed home class in term 2, we decided it was important to do to set up our space.

Matariki Day 2020 - Zaeeda

Today we had a Matariki Day at School.
Matariki is the Maori name for the cluster of stars called the pleiades. The celebration Matariki is the first rising of these cluster of stars. It’s a harvest festival that takes place nearing the end of Winter. While everything is getting ready for the time ahead of them. Ergo, Matariki is the marking point for the New Year and the New Growth.

The Pleiades are the cluster of seven stars. Many people debate on whether or not there are 7 or 9 stars. The Maori constellations states that there are 7 stars Tupu-ā-nuku, Tupu-ā-rangi, Waitī, Waitā, Waipunā-ā-rangi and Ururangi.The Greek constellation includes 9 stars. Including Hiwa-i-te-rangi and Pōhutukawa.

At school we have celebrated Matariki in many different and fun ways. One of them being our Matariki fun days. After a special assembly, the whole school splits up into different classes a mix of yr 1-8 student. Then you spend the whole day doing either, Sport, Cooking, Crafts, Movie Making.



On Friday our school did our Annual Matariki Fun Day. I was put into Arts and Craft, despite the fact that it wasn't my first choice so I was a little skeptical about being in Art and Crafts, mostly because my arts and craft skill haven't improved much.

When arriving at room 7 which would be my class for the day. The rest of the group was there too; Me, Tha-Zin, Leilani, Te Rangimarie, Taliyah, Kauri, Josh and Paschal were all from the senior block so a good chunk of the group would be made up of seniors.

Mr Goodwin let us into the class and explained what we were going to be doing. We were to make a galaxy art in which we had to add a matariki quote onto afterwards. I quite enjoyed doing this it was fun and didn't take to long. We had all finished nearing the end of the middle block. Me and Tha-Zin also got to talk a lot about High-School and our time in Mr Goodwin's Class.

The day went by very quickly and reflecting on it now. It wasn't too bad. I this would have to be my favourite Matariki Group. And I just realized that this was my last Matariki Day, it's a bittersweet feeling. But for everyone who's going to be doing these in the future good luck and make the most of it. ;)

Our Student Teachers!

For the past couple of weeks we have had four lovely students from the University of Auckland working with us online. This morning our tiny class explored the maths website that they created for us.

We are really grateful for them for making this. We can remember making our first docs and sites so we know how much work it is too! Check out our experience in the video below:

             

Are you wondering how the students did with the tasks you saw in the video? Check out
Jahzara, Pisirina, and Zaeeda's blog posts!

Noughts & Crosses - Nadia

This week we have been reading about protests and movements. Today we read three chapters from Noughts and Crosses by Malorie Blackman. Check out my slides to learn about my opinion of the text.

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.

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!