Amazing hair art

Come in to room 6 and have a look at Team Awa's fantastic, outrageous hair art work.

You can see just a few samples of their art below but to see them all check above the whiteboard in room 6, next time you are in. 

What's in the egg?

Yesterday Team Awa had a mystery egg in the classroom.

With only the weight of the egg, the sound it made and their imaginations, the students all wrote a story about what they thought might be inside the egg.

You can read all about their inventive ideas in their story-writing books.

After all the children had completed their stories we cut open the egg to see what was actually inside.

We found a toy Eeyore, an eight, and eight eyes in the egg (I wonder if you can work out what all these things have in common) :)

The children were very excited to find out what was in the egg as you can see by the looks on their faces, however I think some of their ideas were much more exciting than the reality.

Matariki Mural

Whole school waka mural in the hall.

Matariki celebrations

In team Awa we have been learning about Matariki.

Matariki is the name given to a group of seven sister stars, which is visible in the night sky at this time of the year signalling the Māori New Year. If you would like to know more abut Matariki you can watch one of the stories we have heard in class. This is just one of many Matariki stories. During buddy class some students heard legends about seven kites with sparkling eyes or about throwing paua shells into the sky. You might know of different Matariki legends you could share with your child.

After making stars with our buddy classes we learnt about the meaning behind some different Māori designs, which we used to decorate our oars. These will become a part of the whole school waka mural.

 

 We have also been using the stars of Matariki to work out sets within seven at maths time by covering the stars with two clouds to create different combinations. You can see some of the students' work below. 

Learning through play - Flight

Over the last few weeks we have been exploring the science of  flight during our learning through play time. This was something the children were interested in learning about, after a small group tried to make planes last term and wanted to know why they did not fly very far. 

We explored paper rocket ships and how we could use our breath to make them fly higher or further each time, some students even managed to control the direction their rockets flew by changing the angle of the straw and how hard they breathed. 

During the next week we made paper helicopters as our flying machines. These helicopters spun around and around as they fell to the ground after being thrown into the air. Next we made paper planes and learnt how we had to throw them gently and flat for them to fly the best. Some planes still managed to fly a loop before landing which added to the children’s questioning as to why they did that and how they could make theirs fly in that direction too.