Farewell Students of Room 14

The end of the year is approaching.  Wishing the students and their families a Happy Holidays. 

I'll be in Room 11 next year. See you in 2019!

Congratulations!

Room 14 did it! As a result of everyone pulling together and zipping their bags, straightening their shoes, Room 14 was awarded the Tidiest Cloakbay Trophy today in assembly!

Well done students! Special thanks to our cloakbay monitors Manraj and Avi.  Hot chips for Room 14 as a reward.

Watch this space, next week we will take our photo with the trophy.

Volcanoes and Geniuses

In Term 3, the students in the Middle School will have a rotation of discovery.

Room 14's rotation is on how to measure earthquake energy waves using a seismograph.  Topic vocabulary we are exploring is: the Richter Scale, magnitude, seismic activity and seismographs.

We are also participating in a Genius Hour, where the students have chosen a topic or question they wish to pursue one hour a week.  The Genius Hour movement allows children to explore subjects that are self-chosen and therefore should be engaging.

In this process students explore questions like, what can I do if this doesn't work? Who can I ask to find out more about this? Where can I look to find out more about this? The students are supported fully in this, but the teacher gives no answers!

Students have chosen things like:

In relation to pollution, how can metal be cleaned using vinegar and baking soda?

Exploring the Mariana Trench and reproduce its layers using slime.

How can we make doll's house and furniture with just materials we find around?

How are mood boards used to make a fashion show?

How can we make a robot?

How can I teach other children to draw?

How do we know about The Big Bang Theory?

How can we make Jurassic World with just materials we find around?

The students are preparing Google Slides as they go along this journey and there will be a Sharing Show at the end of Term.

Term 2 - Theme of Collaboration and Art

For Term 2, the theme for Papakura Central School is collaboration and art.

Art in the New Zealand Curriculum, of course, includes drama, music and dance. Gentle hints for our Variety Performance show...

The students have been exploring digital art using google drawing, and traditional paint and paper techniques.

In this art class, the students were mixing the primary colours to make secondary colours. The students were also practicing colours in te reo as they were painting.

Here are some photos of the students doing traditional art.  This was part of a thing called 'process' art, where the finished product is less important than the experience of doing it.

The students will be sharing their digital art on their blogs very soon - watch this space.

Jurassic Park Animation

The learning story is from Ethan. He did this animation at home, after doing a lesson on animation in power-point in class.

Oobleck

The theme for Papakura Central School during term 1 is 'change'.  For a science rotation in the middle school, we opted to explore 'change' with science experiments. Room 14s first foray into science was Non-Newtonian fluid: oobleck.

First the students explored what they already knew about 'matter' - liquids, solids and gases.  As the students shared their prior knowledge, it cropped up that ice is a liquid and, when it is frozen, it is a solid.   That gave us an 'in' into oobleck, as oobleck fits two categories of 'matter' too.  Matter can change.

To make oobleck the students mixed corn starch and water in tubs and explored how it mixes, how it feels when it is squeezed, and how it feels when it is left on an open palm.

Here are some of room 14 students playing with the oozing, melting, dripping oobleck. When pressure is applied to oobleck it becomes solid.