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.
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
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/
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
This term we have set up our class treaty and have taken the opportunity to get to know each other better. However, Mrs Stone recently shared that there was a member of the class that we hadn't met yet, because she is hapū.
Another reason for the celebration is that Room 4 are the baby's first role models - the baby can already hear them and learn from in the womb! Mrs Stone is very grateful to have such a beautiful class who are already teaching the Pt England way to the next generation.
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.
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!
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.
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.
Today the boys enjoyed a shared lunch - pizza, chips and juice. We celebrated their stellar turn out at swimming as well as their awesome attitude towards learning this year.
Today we celebrated our last school day in lockdown 2. We went into lockdown really abruptly and halfway through the week, but we still managed to get straight back into our daily Google Meets and blog posts.
Today we had a virtual end of lockdown celebration, and brought whānau to join us. It was fantastic to see Faith, Gene, Maung Maung, Zaria, Noah and some pets alongside our classmates.
School will be back on Monday, we will all be there as we can't wait get back together in person!
This week we have all been working really hard with our online learning. Mrs Stone was really proud of us for making the most of a tricky time, especially as 90% of us managed to do some school work or attend a meeting at least once this week.
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| Just a few of the toys who attended our meeting |
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?
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!
We were also joined by many other vendors who packed out our hall with many different things to buy. Sands and Talitha groups had a lolly stall as well as chop suey and potato salad, Whaea Saff had deliciously hot mussel chowder and fried bread and even Team 4 teachers had a stall! They were selling yummy pulled pork buns and waffles. 
Mrs Ilaoa's sister had beautiful succulent plants and Tamaki College had clocks that students made out of vinyl CD's. 
Overall a very successful day for our Team 5 campers and a great day connecting with our community. Thank you to everyone who contributed to our bake sale and who came along to buy lots of goodies. 
