Ka Kite Ano!

 For the first two weeks of term two, Room 4 have been lucky enough to have two teachers! Miss Hall has joined Room 4 and will be taking over from Mrs Stone who is leaving to go on maternity leave today. She has come from teaching Y7/8 at Kohimarama School and is really looking forward to teaching at Pt England!

Mrs Stone has loved her time with Room 4 this year. They have always shown a positive attitude towards their learning and have had a wonderful start to 2021.

Healthy Me, Healthy You

 This term our inquiry topic is 'Healthy Me, Healthy You' which is all about health and physical education.  The video below shows our highlights:

Read Aye's recount of the assembly below:

Today is the first day back at school and it is now officially Term 3! This term's inquiry theme is, 'Healthy Me, Healthy You'. We are focusing on our health both mentally and physically. This inquiry theme was also probably inspired by the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

An immersion assembly was held this morning and we were able to see each teams' movies and play.

I personally enjoyed Team 5's one, (which was a play of the Olympics), because it was quite entertaining. Miss Hall even did a cartwheel!

However I also quite enjoyed Team 3's movie. Miss Scanlan was the main character who was basically in a game. In the first round, she stayed up late playing games, didn't eat breakfast, and didn't have a healthy lunch. This resulted in her losing hearts, which sort of resembles her health.

But there was round 2 and in that round, she managed to earn hearts back by making the correct, (and better) choices.

It's been a great start to Term 3 so far. I can't wait to see what this term has in store for us!

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!

Who are Room 4?

This term Room 4 have the pleasure of blogging with Room 5 at Wesley Intermediate and Room 4 at Ahipara School through Tuhi Mai Tuhi Atu. We are really looking forward to getting to know both of these classes. We have made a presentation to introduce each learner to help you learn a little about them before checking out their blogs.  We have also created a video so you can see how to pronounce their names and learn about our class!

                  

Interview with the Prime Minister

 Last week we were fortunate enough to have the Prime Minister over for lunch (yes really). After lunch, the prefects took the Prime Minister on a tour of the school, which ended with an interview with our school news crew.

Aye, Kris, Finau, Madi and Nadia from Room 4 were lucky enough to capture the footage of the Prime Minister and act as our official media team for the day. Madi, Finau and Kris operated the camera equipment, while Aye and Nadia were our news presenters. Check out their interview below!

Marshmallow Challenge Recount - Nadia

Room 4 have been continuing to develop our class norms. Check out this team building activity recounted by Nadia:

During the first period of school today, we did a challenge in class, the marshmallow challenge. The marshmallow challenge is where you’re given spaghetti sticks, tape, a roll of string, and a marshmallow. With those items you have to make a tower with the marshmallow sitting at the top, the group with the tallest tower wins.

We were split into small groups, I was with Aye, Jane, and Tsai. We had 20 minutes. 2 to plan a strategy, and 18 minutes to build the tower. 

We had no plan except to go with the flow. Tsai decided to cut up multiple strips of tape for us while me and Aye placed the spaghetti sticks randomly to form some sort of structure. The time was running out and we still had no idea what we were doing.

Even though we started without a plan we still worked together placing pieces of tape over each other, over lapping it. We kept placing the marshmallow on the top every now and then seeing if what we made was strong enough. Jane was the one who gave us the idea of adding more tape in specific areas to help it stay stable. In the end our teamwork and random ideas were what helped us win the challenge with our tower standing at around 60cm tall. Not only that but our way of prototyping helped us figure out.

 

First Day of School!

Today was our first day back at Pt England! After getting in to our classes we started to work on our class norms and treaty.

We started by playing a game where we had to pass a hoop around in a group, half and as a whole class. Then we reflected on the skills we needed to collaborate successfully.

Next we moved outside for two challenges: the floor is lava and flip the tarp. We had some great examples of teamwork in both of these games. In the first round the year sevens won the tarp challenge (flipping a tarp while standing on top of it) then the teams drew.

After another debrief we moved onto our final game; half pipe golf. In this game the two teams had to get a golf ball from one side of the class to another using half pipes. It was a lot harder than it looked! The year eights won this time, but there was a group of year sevens who were determined to complete the challenge which was fantastic.

Farewell Year Eights

 What a whirlwind of a year it has been! Despite two lockdowns and some new teaching/learning experiences, our year eights have done us proud. It has been such a privilege to get to know these students over the last couple of years.

These students excelled throughout the lockdowns due to their dedication to their learning and fantastic work ethic. They brought great energy and enthusiasm to room four every day and I know they will continue to succeed at college in 2021.

          

 Farewell year eights, we wish you all the best at college!

Last Swimming Lesson

 Today we had our final swimming lesson. It has been an amazing four weeks and we have really enjoyed improving our swimming skills thanks to our amazing instructors at the YMCA Glen Innes Pool.

Tag in the pool

We are currently waiting to find out if we won the swimming contest! Each week team 5 competes to have the most swimmers from each class. We have had all but one or two students swim each week and our whole class have participated in the lessons.

Spending time together during our Room 4 lunchtime

Despite swimming at our lunchtime, we have all had a positive attitude and we've enjoyed spending this time as a class. 

Back to School for Level 2.5

It is fantastic to see most of Room 4 back at school today! We are following the rules for level 2.5 really well, hand sanitising when entering and leaving the room, wiping all surfaces frequently and sitting 1m apart from each other.

We can't wait to see our last few students return in the next couple of days to get back into their learning!

 

One Team!

 After spending time apart with the year 8 camp and year 7 step up programme, it is important for us to get back together and enjoy being a class.

To support this, on Monday we had sharing time where we each had the opportunity to get up and discuss our experiences over the past week. It was great for the year sevens in particular, who now have a better idea of what to expect at camp.

We then completed some team building activities as a class, where we put our learning from camp and the step up programme into action. It was so good to see that everyone was happy to work with each other and we had a great laugh!

Year 8 Camp Day 1

Today was the first day of year 8 camp 2020. It is an absolute blessing that we have made it here to Thames, as we were originally booked to go in May (in the lockdown!). It is our fourth year coming to Kauaeranga Christian Camp and we always have a fantastic time.

On day one we played Cross Games (team building activities in the gym) and had our first rotation of activities. On day 2 we have 6 more rotations, so tomorrow will be a very action packed day! Check out this short movie to see what we have got up to on our first day, the very start of our amazing camp experience.

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:

Welcome to Term 3!

Today was the first day of term three, which at Pt England means an immersion assembly!

Check out Jahzara's recount of the assembly:

The assembly started with an introduction from Mr Burt, who explained this terms theme ' A World Of Difference '. Then each team presented what their focus was. First up was Team 1.

Team one mostly focused on how other people from other countries get to school, what they eat for lunch and what they do after school. Their main focus is to learn more about different countries. What they do before school, after and during. Schools in other countries are different to us and so I think it'll be cool that they're looking at how they work :)

Team Two had a set of the cartoon Dora. It was a cool way to present their movie. They had a look at other places around New Zealand. They had a look at the many famous places like, Rotorua and the mud pools, Queens town and the snow, ETC. They also made the choice to not only explore New Zealand but to also explore the world :)

Team 3 made a movie based off of 'The Amazing race.' Due to covid-19, some people haven't been able to travel the world. So they found a way to travel without getting on a plane. The amazing race had a whole bunch of challenges to complete. Visiting the many well known places around the world. Traveling to Egypt, New York, Rio and more.

Team 4! Team 4 looked at the different foods in other counties. They ate and discussed about where it comes from. They explored Google Earth and explored their food. I reckon this would be an amazing way to learn about different countries as many people do love food.

Team 5 based their movie off Sina and the Eel. We'll be looking at different Myths and Legends that link to different traditions and countries. We'll be showing our learning through, movies and animations. Although I know a few Myths around the polynesian area, it'll be cool learning more about different legends all around.

I'm very excited to learn lots this year. A fresh start to the term! Lets make the most of it :) 

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!

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.

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:

             

Welcome to Term 2!

Today term two officially started for Pt England School. It is quite surreal to be kicking off a term from our living rooms, but we have already made a fantastic start.

We kicked off our day with a team five assembly lead by Mrs Tele'a, where we introduced our topic for the term 'We are the World'. We are going to be looking at the different spheres of the earth - the lithosphere (land), hydrosphere (water), atmosphere (air) and biosphere (living creatures).

Room 4 literacy got straight into this by reading a short text about the structure of the earth, check out what Laolao created:

                 

We look forward to starting our new inquiry and continuing our learning online.