We have been learning about Palm Oil and the effect using it can have on our environment and the wildlife in areas it is harvested. We began by watching a commercial made by Greenpeace. This inspired us to learn more about Palm Oil and to find ways we can help make a difference in our world. I have been so impressed with the research and understanding the children have shown - children have told me they checking ingredients in products at the supermarket and helping parents make informed choices about their purchases, some children have talked about how they have taught others in their family about what is happening to the orangutans. The children wrote some very compelling pieces of writing in a style that suited them - some wrote news stories, others wrote from the perspective of an animal, others from the local people being made homeless. The quality of this writing was excellent and showed that having a real context is an excellent way to ensure children are using their writing and language skills to make a difference in our world. I love the social conscience these children are developing. Following our initial research and writing we decided it was important to share our message with a wider audience. We spent time exploring options and then each group decided on the best option for them. Using green screens was a popular choice - and this has meant the process has taken a little longer as only a few people can film at a time. It was exciting to see digital projects coming together - the confidence the children have when using digital technology is a credit to them. They are excellent at problem solving as well as using devices to their potential. The recordings the children have created have brought their writing to life. Check out some of the finished clips below. After we watched our own work we realised we still have one big problem - no matter how great our writing is or how hard we try our work is never as perfected as we would like because it is really hard to hold the iPad still when we are filming. This led to the next step of our learning - the children recognised this was a barrier to their work reaching the standard they were hoping for. I was very excited when Emily asked if she could write a letter to Mrs Warren asking to purchase some tripods to help avoid this problem in the future. Check out what she wrote here. Dear Mrs Warren I am writing to you to show you our work and what we are capable of when we are using technology as well as ways to make it better. Our project we have been working on for the past few weeks is based on palm oil and how much of a bad impact it has on our environment. We have created outstanding pieces of work that we are particularly proud of and hope that they will make a difference to our world and to the people that are destroying animals homes and habitats. But as we have looked over and reviewed our pieces we’ve realised that the footage we have taken is extremely unstill and the camera is shaking alot. We think our work is very good and will make a difference to our world but would be better with tripods. Not only will this keep the camera still but we won’t need to worry about finding someone to hold the device. We think this will make a difference to our work and will make it better than it already is. We hope you consider our request. I would look ford hearing from you soon Kind regards from Emily on behalf of Otakaro hub. With a passion for sharing this learning, Lachlan then followed Emily's lead and suggested contacting Greenpeace and sharing some clips with them because that was were this project all began. This is the email he wrote and sent to Greenpeace - along with links to the clips we have made. To Greenpeace We have recently seen your commercial about dirty palm oil and were inspired. We each created a movie based on your “There’s a rang-tang in my bedroom” video and told it through the rang-tang’s eyes. We used a green screen to simulate what the rang-tang saw, felt and heard as “Monstrous Beasts” started destroying the rang-tang’s forest which we described as his home. Reminder that Athletics Day is on Tuesday.
Children are to wear house colour mufti. They will need a big lunch and drink. Parents are welcome to come along and watch. Today the children brought home a packet of Monster Fair raffle tickets. We would love you to sell these if possible, money or unsold tickets need to be returned by November 2.
In Ō3 we are learning about Palm Oil and the effect human use is having on the rainforests. We watched this Greenpeace advertisement and felt compelled to take action. We took time to talk about what we had noticed. We discussed these questions.
We discussed how we can help save the rainforests. We began by writing our own video script that uses very strong, persuasive language to explain how awful Dirty Palm Oil is for our environment and the animals living within the rainforests. What is a Rang-Tan? Why do you think there is an Orangutan in her bedroom? Why does the young girl not know what to do? What does the word 'destroy' mean? Why does the Rang-Tan howl? Why doesn't the girl want the Orangutan to stay? What word does the girl use to describe the Rang-Tan? Do you think the Rang-tan is naughty? Why? On a scale of 1-5 how desperate is the girl to know why the Rang-tan is in her room? Where does a the Rang-Tan live? Why are humans there? Why are humans destroying the forest? Why does the Rang-tan keep repeating the line "There's a human in my forest..."? What do you think happened to the mother? What is the main reason for burning the forest? What is palm oil used for? What clues in the video let us know what palm oil is used for? How does the girl feel about the Rang-tan at the end? Why do you think her opinion has changed? How will she fight? Why will she fight? How can she share the story far and wide? What would you do if you were the girl? Do you think this advert is effective? Why? How can we help? We imagined we were the orangutan and thought about how it must have felt for them. We had these guidelines to help make our writing excellent.
We are going to send our work to Greenpeace so they know we are trying to share the message about Palm Oil. This is helping us to be global citizens. As always, this work began in our books and with lots of discussion. There's a Rang-tan in my bedroom and I don't know what to do.
She plays with all my teddies and keeps borrowing my shoe. She destroys all of my house plants and she keeps on shouting 'oo'. She throws away my chocolate and she howls at my shampoo. There's a Rang-tan in my bedroom and I don't want her to stay, So I told the naughty Rang-tan that she had to go away. Oh, Rang-tan in my bedroom, just before you go, Why were you in my bedroom? I really want to know. There's a human in my forest and I don't know what to do. He destroyed all of our trees for your food and your shampoo. There's a human in my forest and I don't know what to do. He took away my mother and I'm scared he'll take me, too. There are humans in my forest and I don't know what to do. They're burning it for palm oil so I thought I’d stay with you. Oh Rang-tan in my bedroom now I do know what to do. I’ll fight to save your home and I’ll stop you feeling blue. I’ll share your story far and wide so others can fight too. Oh Rang-tan in my bedroom I swear it on the stars: the future's not yet written but I’ll make sure it's ours. When we worked on the Apple Trial we continued our philosophy of digital learning beginning with pen and paper. We created written plans and diagrams before we completed each digital task. We used some fanatastic apps and learned skills that can be applied across the curriculum. WE will continue developing these during term four. We were so very lucky to take part in the Apple Trial. The opportunity to have 1:1 iPads across our hub was incredible. The children were creative, collaborative learners who produced some outstanding work.
We used the SAMR model to guide the teaching and learning. Check out this clip that explains the SAMR Model We worked hard to use the Modification and Redefinition levels of the SAMR Model. We produced some excellent work. Check out these eBooks the children created - they have examples of all of the activities we did within them. https://app.seesaw.me/pages/shared_item?item_id=item.d34bc56e-18c3-4c73-806b-772e813b4e54&share_token=wG8EcAMbSpe3mpkvrAtvRA&mode=share https://app.seesaw.me/pages/shared_item?item_id=item.840c4828-7b79-4b04-9f77-03472bcc0797&share_token=MtIlG_kPShWXM3oCqtnZyg&mode=share https://app.seesaw.me/pages/shared_item?item_id=item.5f0b492a-a2d2-4b89-9d04-a5c76af87ed6&share_token=Ciuc3z9aShSzjmjY0g8Lqg&mode=share https://app.seesaw.me/pages/shared_item?item_id=item.f1ed23a8-3dd3-4fd5-a798-397dce69d6d8&share_token=yL6O0KR0S9e8J9E9jM5_aw&mode=share https://app.seesaw.me/pages/shared_item?item_id=item.b75421b8-ed5b-4cd8-a636-339c81d3d692&share_token=2OJrhIqNQoKI4Uzo0U0EOg&mode=share https://app.seesaw.me/pages/shared_item?item_id=item.77038029-5208-429d-871d-4dc0e44ccd6c&share_token=pSucUWUOTAG4s3NAUVEN-g&mode=share Our Year 6 tamariki worked with the Cycle Safety teachers at the end of term. This helped them to develop confidence and knowledge about how to ride on the roads. They also learned about how to maintain their bike and ensure their helmet fits correctly. Senior Team Camp List _ Hanmer
Please name everything clearly!!!!! General Gear
Clothing:
Cut lunch, morning tea and a drink for the first day. Don’t forget the batch of home baking please as this is the morning and afternoon teas for the children. NO MONEY, NO SWEETS, iPODS OR ELECTRONIC GAMES PLEASE CHECK THIS LIST WITH YOUR CHILD AS HE / SHE PACKS FOR CAMP PLEASE ALSO ENSURE THIS LIST GOES WITH THEIR LUGGAGE TO CAMP, SO THAT IT CAN BE CHECKED OFF BEFORE RETURNING TO SCHOOL. A reminder that this week the Year 6 tamariki are participating in Cycle Safety.
Children need to wear full school uniform. They need to bring their bike and helmet on the days they are participating. Group One is Monday and Tuesday. Group Two is Wednesday and Thursday. Wow, we are having such an amazing week with every child having an iPad to use.
We are very grateful to Apple for supplying us with 30 iPad pros (with pencils!) and to Tui Hub for loaning us their 30 devices. These, along with our own hub devices and a few BYOD iPads have allowed every person in our hub access to an iPad. We are all loving the new opportunities this is allowing us. We have had Victoria from Apple working alongside us to help ensure we are making the most of this opportunity. This week our focus has been on learning new skills - we started with using Instant Alpha which is a tool within Pages (and various other apps). We began by taking photos and then used the Instant Alpha tool to remove the background - with some careful placement we had some crazy photos of us hanging from trees and the ceiling, some people were being squashed by balls or big feet! We were very creative! Learning this skill will allow us to be creative as we explore visual literacy in the future. We moved on to learning about Stop Motion. This is an awesome way to create short movies - we have been impressed at the growth the children have shown as they have learned this skill. They began by taking very few photos and moving each character in their story with big movements. Often the background would change and it would be quite hard to follow. With some practice and some guidance the children are now much better and ensuring the movements are very tiny, the background is consistent (and not messy!) and they have even begun exploring camera angles and using different techniques to make their movie more interesting. Our next step is to learn to import sounds into iMovie to allow us to add more interesting sound effects and music to enhance our movie. Some children are also going to add voice to theirs. Check out these early clips - taken right at the start. When the work the children are doing now is complete I will add those clips too - the difference is already huge! While lots of people have been at Kapa Haka, those who remained in the hub have been learning our pepeha - this is a way we can introduce ourselves in Māori. We have worked hard to improve our pronunciation and to find opportunities to share our pepeha with others. We used the iPads to create a visual representation of our pepeha. Then we added our voice and a backing track using different apps - we have become very good at app smashing recently! Invitation
Is your child finding Reading, Writing or Maths challenging? Then come along and join us for a cuppa and a muffin and get some great ideas how you can help your child at home. Weeks 8, 9, 10 Thursdays 2.00-3.00pm Meet in the Oakleaf Cafe MATHS: Week 8 Thursday 13th September Come along and get some handy hints how to support your child’s maths learning at home. LITERACY: Week 9 Thursday 20th September Come along and get some handy hints how to support your child’s reading and writing learning at home. Public Health Nurse: Week 10 Thursday 27th September An opportunity to ask our local Health Nurse any questions that you may have to help keep your child healthy and happy - mind and body. RSVP: So that we can organise a space to hold these sessions and for catering purposes, please return a pink slip (sent home or collect one from the office), or email [email protected] indicating which session/s you plan to attend. Please include your name and your child’s Hub name.. If you have any queries please email Jo Lidstone [email protected] During Reading time over the last two weeks our reading class has been focusing on showing a deeper understanding of the text we are reading and making inferences from the stories we are reading. We have worked very hard to find ways to show our understanding and to record our thinking. We have learned to use Apple Clips, Popplet and Draw & Write as ways to show our learning. We put them altogether and created these clips. We learned about how volcanoes erupt.
We created diagrams and labelled them like scientists do. We leaned about Rūaumoko - He is the unborn child of Papatuanuku who is Atua of, and responsible for, volcanoes and earthquakes. We related this to the volcano Banks Peninsula is built upon. We did some experiments to discover how lava erupts due to the build up of pressure and gases and we also learned about the tech tonic plates and the role they play in volcanic eruptions. We did two experiments - one to show how the gases can build up pressure and cause the volcano to erupt, the other showed how heat can cause the magma (in our case wax) to heat up and rise to the surface. This week we have learned about volcanoes during topic time. Lachlan was so inspired he went home and created this video using the app Clips - we learned how to use this app last term. Great job Lachie. It's time for our biannual poetry competition!
We would love everyone to choose a poem by the end of the week. There are some great poems on these sites. Please avoid poems by Ken Nisbett as we believe Year 5 and 6 children are ready for more sophisticated text. Year 5 poems should be around 12+ lines, Year 6 15+ lines. MIchael Rosen Scottish Poetry Trus Shel Silverstein Laura Mucha Shel Silverstein 2 Poetry Corner Famous Poems for Kids DLTK These are poems written and performed by Michael Rosen While some people had their turn at taking digital photos others had a turn at discovering Makey Makey. We gave no instructions just the basic equipment ... it didn’t take long for these techie minds to turn this simple equipment into a piano and bongo drums. The smiles, wonder and excitement were amazing! On the first day of each term we have a special home base day to reconnect and do some fun activities. Today in O3 we learned about digital photography and discovered what pixels are and how digital photos are made up of many, many pixels. We zoomed in really closely and explored the pixels in some photos of ourselves. Have a go at doing this by clicking here - it is really fun! Then we explored the RGB colour mixer to recreate the exact colours within images. This was lots of fun too. You can try it by clicking here. Then we coloured in a small part of a big picture using the binary numbers on each tiny pixel. We put our pixels together to create this picture - an awesome collaborative effort. WE spent some time learning about what makes a good photo and talked about perspective and also different techniques to help our photos look fantastic. Then we spent some time taking our own photos. We each chose our favourite photo to share with you. Renee’s group has been working on developing percussion as part of the Arts Rotation on Fridays. Check out Etuini and his talent at doing the Cup. Song. While the Winter Sport Tournament was being played those children who are not in teams stayed at school and we had a great morning trying new things out on our devices. We could choose to either be part of the GarageBand group or work with Clips. Today was mostly about experimenting and discovering what these tools are capable of. Our finished work is also our starting point for next time when we will be even better. We created some awesome pieces. Our theme was Dream Big - we needed to incorporate big ideas into our creation. Check out some of our great ideas here. The Children in O3 have become very good at writing narratives. To finish the term we thought we would try a slight more sophisticated technique to challenge our skills. We began by looking a photo of a shark and a man in a canoe. We imagined the story each of these characters might tell. We played with some personification, metaphors and similes to get our brains thinking. Then we had a go at writing a story that tells combines both characters - a dual narrative! It was great fun and really did test our skills. We then got a bit clever and created a pod cast of our work. This involved us using Garage Band for the first time. We began by recording our story then we used the tools within Garage Band to create a sound track that reflected our story. We played happy, bright sound for the person and more scary, sinister ones for the shark. Then we imported our sound track into iMovie and added some photos or drawings to support our story - although were were only aloud to use one or two as this story needed to be told using words and music to enhance it rather than pictures. When our stories are complete we are reading them with a buddy and providing feedback about how clear the picture we created in our mind is - this will be a good test of how descriptive our writing is. Check back for complete work over this week. We had so much fun on our Big Day In.
Thanks to everyone for supporting Olivia, Millie and Matilda with their inquiry by wearing pink - these girls raised over $130 for the Cancer Society. They did an amazing job of their inquiry and found a wonderful way to take some action. We also had fun watching movies and Escaping the School - we had to do lots of problem solving to find the key and escape the school! During maths for the last two weeks Jodi and Sam’s maths classes have worked together to learn about coordinates, directions, area and perimeter. This week we ware putting all of this great learning together and creating our very own theme park. We have a list of criteria to work through to ensure our theme park has all we need. It was a fun way to apply our learning. We had some visitors from Southern Cross Language School come to our hub. We were proud of Annie and Max who welcomed our visitors with their pepeha. The Japanese girls sang some songs with us and then we answered some questions about school in New Zealand and learned about Japanese school life. We did some origami together and then took our new friends on a tour of our school. |
2018 Term Dates
T1: 1 Feb - 13 April T2: 30 April - 6 July T3: 23 July - 28 Sept T4: 15 Oct - 18 Dec |
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