There's a Yeti in the Playground - Tri-o-ramas

Odin spooning the snow into his Tri-o-Rama

In Term 4 our Shared Chapter Book read aloud There is a Yeti in the Playground.  We followed the antics of a schoolgirl and her friends as they get snowed in at school and the rumour goes around that there is a Yeti in the  Playground.  Students used directed drawing to draw an Abominable Snowman. Then they made tri-o-ramas to make a scene from the book.  

Kellan's Yeti 

Diljot's Snowman while mixing his snow (Diljot not pictured)

With shaving foam and baking soda the students mixed the ingredients together to make fake snow for their Yeti to play in.  Here are some photos.

Stephanie's Yeti

Irushi's Tri-O-Rama

Tiana's Yeti

Aden's Abominable Snowman

Peniel's Handstanding Yeti

Lily's Yeti

Manvir's Yeti

Freya's Yeti

Book Fair Character Day after the Tuakana Teina Book Day (on Monday)

On Monday the students were split amongst the Kauri Hub and Room 11 to explore Harry Potter - the Philospher's Stone.  Today at a special 6 class assembly, we shared the creations we made: FlipGrid video of 'how to get into Gryffindor Common Room', bookmarks, frog origami and digital animations. Here are a few pictures from today.

Room 11 on Book Fair Character

Room 11 Book Fair Character Day - silly faces

Assembly of the Tuakana Teina Day  

Cricket Taster

Counties Manukau came to visit PCS in the rain today to give Room 11 a taster session of Cricket (in the Auditorium).  The skills explored were hand-eye coordination with a small ball: throwing and catching and throwing with the wickets as a target.

Pictured: Irushi, Quinn and Nicole, Stephanie in the background

Action picture

Afterwards, we used the experience to write some instructions on how to play a game the coach taught us.

Instructions on how to play 'Cricket Hit'

by Freya Bright

Equipment

• 1 tennis ball per team
• 5 or 6 people per team
• You need wickets and a base
• And cones to mark area

Aim of the game: the first team to knock all the wickets down and sit down wins.

How to play

1. Get into teams of 5 or 6
2. Split into 3 on this side of the wicket and 3 on that side of the wicket -  a relay. 
3. The FIRST person on one side throws the ball at the wicket. 
4. The person on the other side retrieves the ball and throws it at the wicket then they go to the back of the line.
5. If the wicket is hit they run and take the wicket away.
6. Keep playing until all the wickets are hit and your team sits down.

Let us know if you try and play this game by following Freya's instructions!

Duffy Theatre - Stuck in the Game

Today we were so lucky to see the Duffy Theatre creative crew in action with their performance of Stuck in the Game. 

Duffy and from Room 11, James, Ella and Quinn

The Puzzler and James (and Quinn and Ella)

Duffy, Sam in a Pirate Skin and from Room 11, Lily

Grandparents Day

Grandparents Day Special Assembly on Tuesday 29 October was a fun afternoon where the different clubs at school: Pasifika, Indian Cultural Group, the choir, school band and Kapa Haka, performed in front of the school's grandparents. It was a real pleasure to welcome so many grandparents onto the school campus.

Here are some photos of Room 11's grandparents when they came to visit our classroom.

Lily, Nanna and Nannan

Kellan and Nan

Ella and Nanna

James and Nana

Freya and Poppa

Quinn and Nan

Stephanie and Poppa

Freya and Nanna

Welcome Back, Term 4 and FlipGrid

With Term 4 means it is time for school hats ONLY to be worn every day please.

FlipGrid is a way for student voice to be heard across the curriculum, class, school and world.  Look out this term for Room 11 bloggers' new FlipGrids to be added as we use them to share our explanations for maths, and practice inference skills in reading (with charades). 

Check out the students introducing themselves HERE.

Wearable Arts

The students in Room 11 worked so hard on their costumes for Wearable Arts.  They started off being inspired by other primary schools wearable arts shows.  Then they had to think about what they would like to wear.  We first made a design (see HERE) and then we each made a prototype of our costumes.  Once the prototype was approved, each child made a list of equipment they would need for their costumes.

Many weeks of work went into layering paint, papier mache, hot glue, glitter etc, but it was worth it. Here is a slideshow of some of the MAKING and some of the BEHIND THE SCENES.  We are awaiting copies of the professional photos that were taken on the night and will share.

WOW! I was impressed by each and every student, their commitment to their costumes, and showing off their designs on the runway. Well done!

Winners! Cloak bay Award Week 5, Term 3

After hard work of the two cloakbay monitors this term, Freya and Isaac, Room 11 brought the trophy home!

Congratulations Room 11, let's keep this award in our class!

Hot chip lunch on me, for keeping our classroom environment so clean and tidy.

More Pedal Power

Here are some photos from our Pedal Power session yesterday.

Pedal Power

We were so lucky to have Susan and Jane come from Counties Manukau Sports to co-teach bike safety and bike riding skills today. It was a half day session and we are looking forward to our next session.

Students learnt to check their helmets for its safety certificate and any cracks.  They learnt to do the ABCD check on their bikes (air, brakes, chain, direction).

We did a variety of straight riding, zog zagging and braking games.

The best game was the turtle race, where the slowest rider won!

Here is a little video of some of our riders gaining confidence on bikes without training wheels.

Every Other Wednesday - Mr Cossey

We farewell Mr Ward as our every other Tuesday teacher in Room 11 and welcome Mr Cossey as our every other Wednesday teacher.  A lot of students will know Mr Cossey from last year and so it will be a treat to have him in class. Especially if he brings his ukelele!

Our initial designs for the school's Wearable Arts Show

Matariki Macarena

The students taught themselves (or reminded themselves) how to do the Matariki Macarena.  The girls and the boys have different moves. We watched this School show us the moves.  When we dance in class we use this video with just the singing.

Duffy Books in School!

Papakura Central School is one of the lucky recipients of the Duffy Books - the children are gifted books several times a year.  The best thing about Duffy Books is that the children get to pick the books themselves. So the books are even more cherished.

Here is Room 11's Robot, taking care of the books inside its box puku until the books are distributed at the assembly later today.

MOTAT School Trip

Room 11 at MOTAT

Pulling themselves up

Pulling themselves up

On the Tram #1

On the Tram #2

Matariki Glow Show at Hawkins Theatre

We were lucky enough to get to see the Matariki Glow Show at The Hawkins Theatre today.  The story of the Matariki whanau, and how the youngest sister played hide and seek amongst the sea.  Back in the classroom we used sequencing of beginning, middle and end to retell the story to clarify it.  We also looked at the questions who, what and where to help guide our answers as the Glow Show wove in and out of characters, time and space.   We were not allowed to take photos of the show, but here is a quick pic of Room 11 before the show started.

Physical Science - Finding the Centre of Gravity (Balance)

Tiana, Holly, Odin, Nicole, Lily, Aden, Manvir

Freya and Odin

Diljot and James

Ngarea and Kieren

As a class we read 'Balancing Act' (independent reading for some students, shared reading with the teacher for other students) a School Journal article about a Wellington artist, Stavros Kyriakides, who makes balancing rocks and driftwood sculptures on the beach. 

To get us started in how to find the centre of gravity we looked for equipment on hand: a pencil - here are some pics from class this morning.  The children were extremely successful in finding the centre of balance of a pencil.  But, to make it harder, the students were then given a peg to put on one side of the pencil, and the children found out the centre of gravity had changed and they could no longer balance the pencil on their finger from the middle of the pencil and they had to shuffle and shift the pencil to find its 'kiss point' (Stavros Kyriakides' turn of phrase to find the point of balance on objects that are balancing on each other).

The Bike Track is now Open!

After a long wait the School's bike track opened. Middle School are able to zoom and whizz about the bike track on Wednesdays and Fridays.

This is what Brooke had to say about the Bike Track. 

"Today I went to the new Bike track. The bike track was the colour of ashes. And my bike was as black as the sky at midnight. I zoomed over the hills. I could feel the breeze as cold as ice but refreshing at the same time."

Here are Diljot's thoughts. 

"Today I went on the bike track it was fun but I almost crashed into somebody. I felt like I was on a rollercoaster and I when zooming across everyone and I was nervous so much and some people watching us on the bike track and my friend will cheer for me."

Music - Sound Art - Alan Bagnall's Hailstones

Room 11 explored the rhythm of their voices today in reciting Alan Bagnall's Poem Hailstones.  Curriculum elements are imitating simple rhythmic patters and holding a rhythmic pattern while others are playing a different pattern.  You will see in our slideshow videos, the first 2 are slightly cacophonous but by take #3 the children are harmonising their rhythms.  You can listen to an official version with school children but with better acoustics HERE.

Topic and te reo

The students in Room 11 explored the 'balance' of the ecosystem in Tide Pools tying the science of marine life there with the Maori world view of necessary balance.  To that end, the students found out what creatures live in the tide pools and what those creatures are called in te reo.  The students made painted seahorses (kiore moana), origami limpets, origami crabs (papaka) and fish (ika) and they made brown seaweed (rimurimu paraone) - the seaweed is still in progress.

We were really lucky that Hiwi the Kiwi came to visit the school too and so the students were able to compare and contrast Tangaroa's Rules of the Sea (throw the first fish caught back to sea) to Hiwi the Kiwi's (fish for the future) and really get thinking about getting the right balance for sustainability.

Here is Stephanie's writing on Hiwi the Kiwi's visit and a light comparison to Tangaroa's Rules.

Reader's Theatre

Today a mixed group of readers read a play called Professor Clever.  Ella, Kieren, Tiana, Kaylan and Isaac had time to learn their lines and then perform their play to the class.  Here is a short clip of the reading.

Nude Food Winners!

Room 11 won Mrs O'Donnell's Green Team challenge of having the most lunchboxes without plastic wrappers! Congratulations to the students and parents who made this happen.

We are the proud recipients of a Certificate declaring us Nude Food winners for Week 5 in Term 2.

Way to go Room 11!

Digital Open Morning

We welcomed whanau and parents into the classroom this morning for our Digital Open Morning.  The children shared their digital learning including the publishing of their writing into Google Slides, screenshotting their maths scores from online maths interactives.