Summer Learning Journey Sampler

Kick Start  Art Colouring Book: choose an image to colour. Dig Deeper  Watch: colouring time lapse Share  Upload your Art and a screenshot of the original and label each image. Describe why you chose a different colour for one of the objects in the painting. Watch: create your blog post.

Step It Up  Art Colouring Book: choose an image to colour. Use the Zoom Tool Look closely at the original image you chose to colour. What do you see? Dig Deeper  Watch: Elements of Art Read: Elements of Art Share Upload your Art and a screenshot of the original and label each image. Describe the image using as much detail as you can. Watch: create your blog post.

Remembering Parihaka

One hundred and fifty years ago there was a village in Taranaki called Parihaka. It lay between the Taranaki coast and Taranaki mountain. 

This village was special because people from many different Māori tribes had come to live there. Many had had their land confiscated and needed a safe place to live – to grow their food and raise their families. Parihaka was also a special place because it was a place of peace. 

The leaders of the village were Te Whiti o Rongomai and Tohu Kākahi. They didn’t believe in fighting. They had heard the words of Jesus in the Bible which said, “If anyone hits you on the right cheek, offer him the other as well”. They told the people to put away their weapons. They told them that if government soldiers came to take their land, they should greet them with gifts. 

One early morning in Parihaka an important event occurred. The people were just beginning to move around the village when a large albatross came down to land on Tohu’s marae and left a feather there. The people believed that the albatross was a chiefly bird with much mana. By landing on Tohu’s marae, the albatross was indicating that Tohu was a great chief and the people should listen to him. The people began to follow the ways that Tohu taught them. And the albatross feather (or raukura) became an important sign for the people of Parihaka. 

The children of Parihaka were called tātarakihi which means ‘cicadas’. The older people said they sounded like cicadas because they chattered so much. The children had jobs to do at Parihaka. They helped to feed the hens and the pigs, and they helped to grow food in the gardens. They also played together and learned to dance and sing. 

One day Tohu and Te Whiti called the people to the marae, and told them: 

“Kua rere mai te kōrero ki ō mātou tāringa, āpōpō ka tae mai ngā hōia ki konei ki te raupatu i ō tātou whenua. Me noho tātou ki konei, ki runga i te marae ātea, tatari ai ki a rātou. Ka tunu ngā wāhine i te parāoa mā rātou , ka waiata hoki ngā tamariki ki te ope hōia.”  

“We have heard that the soldiers are coming tomorrow to try to make us leave our land. We will sit here on the marae and wait for them. The women will bake bread for them and the children will sing and dance.” 

So, late into the night the people of Parihaka prepared for the soldiers to come. The women baked 500 loaves of bread to share with the soldiers. Just before the sun rose on 5th November 1881, the children went out onto the road leading into the village. When the soldiers arrived with their guns they saw the children of Parihaka singing and dancing in the road with albatross feathers in their hair. 

The children couldn’t stop the soldiers from entering the village and taking the men to prison, but they made the soldiers ashamed of their swords and their guns. No-one was killed in Parihaka that day because the people refused to fight the soldiers with weapons. Instead they stood up to them with courage and mana.

Te Whiti and Tohu were imprisoned for 16 months without trial. The houses of Parihaka were burned and their crops destroyed. Everybody was evicted.

Sometimes the descendants of the people of Parihaka wear albatross feathers to remember the dignity of their tūpuna and how they resisted giving up their land without using violence.

(from the  Caritas resource)

On the 9th June 2017, the NZ Government formally apologised to the community of Parihaka. They said that the events at Parihaka were "among the most shameful in the history of our land."

Some people believe a Parihaka Day should replace Guy Fawkes. Do you? Why or why not? Read our individual blogs to find out what we think.

Tui Ridge Year 5 & 6 Camp

We turbo charged our Cybersmart skills to show our camp experience. Camp was a blast; we did heaps of fun activities like the flying fox, high ropes, laser tag, slingshot paint ball, rope maze, Nerf Wars, frisbee golf, indoor rock climbing, swam at the aquatic centre, walked round Kuirau Park and Paradise Valley, and zoomed down the luge. Lots of the activities were very challenging like the high ropes which was 10 metres high!

Ciara used Talls Tweets to turn her Google Slide into a GIF:

 Have you ever been on a school camp? 

Update on our FRIDAY, 16 OCTOBER 2020 Blogpost "Letters to the Editor"

We were amazed to arrive at school and discover a bobcat was removing the blackberry down at the Rerenga Awa. That night, we saw Mya's letter to the Editor in The Gisborne Herald with a footnote saying the newspaper had contacted the Gisborne Disrtict Council and they would be removing the blackberry today. The council said they agreed that the job was long overdue. 

We are feeling proud of our efforts and the Rerenga Awa looks great!

Camp Goal Setting

Next week are are going on camp to Tui Ridge which is near Rotorua. It's an action packed camp and we will be doing lots of exciting activities like the flying fox, high ropes, indoor rock climbing, riding the gondolas, going on the luge plus many more.

Today we sat and thought about what goals we might like to set ourselves and then talked about what this might look like, sound like and feel like while we're at camp. We have also left a space for our goal setting reflection which we will fill in after camp when we come back to school.

Here's Noe's:

Letters to the Editor

We are frustrated with the council who are not responding to our requests, emails and use of their 'Fix It' app. They are no longer spraying the blackberry by the Taruheru Awa which is having a major effect on our conservation efforts.

Ten year olds have a voice too!

Dear Editor,

Saint Mary's is a Green-Gold Enviro school, and we want more fresh water river creatures in our awa. But there is one problem; there is long grass down near the Rerenga Awa and big blackberry bushes have grown. Some of the people from our school have emailed the council, been to visit the council and used the ‘Fix It’ app to tell them about it but they didn’t reply. The school has already cleaned up the awa, and we need to plant more native trees there. But we need the council to mow the grass and take out the blackberry bushes. Our school has already done our part so now we need the council to do theirs. We want more fresh water creatures in our awa, and native birds in our trees. Freshwater creatures only like the rivers by shady places. Because the sun just beams onto the river, it makes the water hot, right? The creatures don't like places that are hot. They only like shady places like under trees. So come on council - do your bit!
Yours sincerely,
Selina

Dear Editor 

We are trying to attract native birds and insects to our Rerenga Awa. We are planting native plants down by the river to give it shade and to make it clean so native freshwater creatures can swim in it. But we need to plant more. Unfortunately there is a ginormous patch of blackberry in the way. People at our school have tried to contact the council using email and the Fix It app to ask them to spray the blackberry and they haven't even replied. We can't do anymore planting and we are fed up with it.

Yours sincerely,

Ezra

Pop Art

We love creating our own masterpieces during Art. This week was a bit different because we created our own art using our chromebooks during our Cybersmart lesson.

First we looked at Andy Warhol's Pop Art and saw how he reproduced the same image but used different colours for each image. This inspired us so we took a selfie on our chromebooks and, using Lunapic, created our own masterpieces. We know that smart learners create original images and media so if we create it - we own it and can use it anywhere.

Have you ever created any Andy Warhol Pop Art?

You can read the steps we took to create our Pop Art on our individual blogs. Here are Morgan's, Josh's, Joan's and Mya's.

September Reflections

We are always reflecting on our learning but every month we also create a newsletter for our whānau and blog readers to read and comment on about our reflections.  We do this because it's great to look at everything we have achieved and think about our next steps in learning. We have found that it's really important to know what we are learning and why. 

Here's Ciara's. 

Have you ever done something similar to this before?

Te Wiki o te Reo Māori

This week is Te Wiki o te Reo Māori (Māori Language Week). We use a bit of te reo in our class and thought it would be a great opportunity to share what we know for others to learn. So for Reading we read stories that had some te reo words in them. Then we went on to Book Creator and made our books. We thought about the layout in picture books toddlers use when they are learning to speak. We then created our own, and added audio so people who are wanting to learn Māori words can hear the correct pronunciation.

Here's Josh's. Click on the image below:

Tongan Language Week

Malo e lelei! This week, we challenged ourselves to learning more Tongan language. We are very lucky to have two Tongan students, Noe and Sione, who have been teaching us songs and prayers in Tongan.

This is what we have learnt:

How to bless ourselves in Tongan:

Tamia moe alo, laumalie, malononi. Ameni.

Grace before meals:

Sesu tapuak'i mea kai. Malohi ho mau sino. Ameni.

Hail Mary:
Sioto ofa, Malia, 'Oku ke mohu kalasia. Oku iate koe ae Eiki. 'Oku ke monuia koe 'ihe fefine fua ho manava. Ko Sesu. Sangata Malia, koe fae 'ae Otua. Ke ke hufia akimautaolu angahala 'ihe ahoni. Pea moe aho o 'emau Mate. Ameni.

When we get better at our pronunciation, we might make a Screencastify of us saying them and blog it.

This is the song we learnt. It is called E 'Otua. Even though we mucked up the first verse, we carried on like true professionals!

Speeches

We have been writing persuasive texts because at the end of Term 3 the whole school prepares a speech to say. This week, we finalised a topic by choosing something we felt passionate about. Then we wrote them, put them on cue cards and practised them by filming oursleves on Screencastify. 

We have co-constrcuted our success criteria for saying them. We have decided we need to stand still so the audience doesn't get distracted, speak in a loud clear voice so we are heard and make eye-contact to engage the audience. Next week we will present them to our class, then have the semi finals so we are ready for the finals in the last week of term. Some of us have put our Screencastifies on our individual blogs. 

August Student Reflection

 Another month has gone so it's time to reflect on what we have done and where to next. You can read our reflections on our individual blogs but here's a sneak preview of Joan's:

Kawakawa Balm and Cleaver Tea

Today, we spent the afternoon making Kawakawa balm and drinking Cleaver tea. The tea is a natural tonic and we decided that it tasted a bit like parsley. 

We made the Kawakawa balm from the leaves and stems of the plant. It's growing in our Rongoa Garden (Healing Garden) at school. Whenever we pick the leaves, it's important to think about the care of the plant and it's future growth. Never take too much and whatever you don't use, always return to the base of the plant. Saying a karakia asking for permission to take some leaves and thanking God for this wonderful gift is also part of the process.

Picking leaves with holes is best - insects know best! What they eat is the most potent and this is what we want.

Making the infused Kawakawa oil

First you need to make the Kawakawa oil. You can add essential oils such as lavender or tea-tree for extra medicinal purposes but we chose not to as some people don't react postively to them.

Tearing the leaves and stalks of the Kawakawa, they were placed in a crockpot with 1 litre of olive oil. The leaves had to be under the oil. Then the crockpot was turned onto the lowest setting possible and left for about 5 hours. Once the time was up, it was left for about a week to infuse then strained through a muslin cloth into a jar. A small group of children had already done this part of the process a couple of weeks ago.

Making the balm

We poured some of the infused oil into a double boiler (with water in the bottom pot) and heated it. Then we added some melted beeswax. It was about 1/4 cup of beeswax to 1 1/4 cups of infused oil. Then we carefully poured the balm into some jars and it set.

We are now selling the Kawakawa balm so we can buy a Friendship Chair for our school.

Do you know what Kawakawa balm is good for?

Letter from the Prime Minister

Last term we read a book about a refugee boy called Ahmet. The book was called The Boy at the Back of the Class. It made us curious to find out more about the refugee crisis and especially what New Zealand does about it. You may have read about this on our previous individual blogs.

After researching facts, we brainstormed ways New Zealand could improve its response to the needs of the refugees. Then everyone wrote individual letters to our Prime Minister, Jacinda Adern.

She replied!

The Sacraments

In R.E. we are learning about the Sacraments - Hākarameta. Sacraments are a time in which we encounter Christ in a special way. They make the invisible, visible. 

Sacraments are ways God is with us in our lives. God does not want to be distant from the people he creates and loves so much. Each time a Sacrament is celebrated, God is present among his people.

There are 7 Sacraments in the Catholic Church: Baptism, Reconciliation, Confirmation, Eucharist, Marriage, Holy Orders and Anointing of the Sick.

This week we have been talking about the Sacraments of Initiation. These Sacraments welcome you into church. We talked about the symbols and rituals of these Sacraments and then created our own Google Slide to show our understanding.

Here is a sneak preview of what you will find on our individual blogs...

The Assumption of Mary

Tomorrow is the Assumption of Mary. When the apostles heard that Mary, the mother of Jesus, was going to be taken from this world, they gathered at her house and kept watch with her.  

After she died, Mary was buried in a tomb. When the apostles opened the tomb again, her body was gone. Jesus had come with his angels and taken her up to heaven as the beginning and image of the Church coming to perfection, and a sign of sure hope and comfort to God’s people.

Why would God take Mary’s body and soul into heaven? 

Mary is special to God: she said “Yes” to becoming the mother of Jesus.  God also wanted to show us that one day, all of us will share in the bodily resurrection of Jesus. Mary is the first person in the Church to experience the resurrection in its fullness.

You will not find this story in the Bible. However, the story has been retold and handed down through the generations by people retelling it to their whānau, as well as reading stories about it.

We made word clouds of Mary by using https://www.wordclouds.com/ but we are having problems because it won't accept all of our words even though we have resized them. Does anyone know how to fix it? If you do, you could leave a comment for us and then we will be able to post our Mary Word Clouds on our blogs.

Selina's Faith GIF and Quality Blog Post

 We have been working with Mrs Torrie in our Cybersmart lessons on Quality Blog Posts. Last week we turned our Faith posters into a GIF. This week we expanded our ideas in our blog post so that the reader got more of an understanding about Faith and also the digital skills we used. We wanted our blog post to sound more like talking instead of a few short sentences.

Here is Selina's work. After reading it do you have more idea of Faith and what it means? You could let Selina know by commenting on her blog here.

This week and last week our class have been learning how to make a GIF. We used Tall Tweets to make our GIFs. We had to use the Classic one. I really liked how it worked out really great, and it looks great too.
The reason why I have chosen to do the GIF on the the faith poster, was because I am showing that I know what faith is and what it means to me. Also because it is our term 3 value. Each term we have different words. We learn about them. They are special words to us because we are a Catholic school. Faith means trusting in God even if you can't see him. God will always be there for you. Some people aren't Catholic but it doesn't stop me, because God will never leave your side.
I found it challenging to finish the slide on time because I did my faith poster on a google drawing. I had to do my faith poster on the slide for the GIF because on GIFs. They move, and they make people stop and look at the GIF.
Have you made a GIF before? If so, please comment and tell me. I can share it to my classmates.

July Reflection

We are reflecting on the learning that happened in July. 

It's great to sit and think about all the things we have done. It's a time to celebrate our learning and think about where we are heading to next (our next steps in learning). You can read our reflections on individual  blogs.

Here's Francesca's...

Tairāwhiti Enviro Centre

This week we went to the Tairāwhiti Enviro Centre where we learnt about edible gardens, composting, where our landfill goes, how to have waste free lunch boxes, how to hold a waste free disco and the importance of refusing plastic. We discovered that there's even plastic in tea bags now! We also learnt that the trucks transport our rubbish to a landfill that is 5 hours away, and that an old landfill in Te Araroa spewed out into the river after a huge rain storm. It polluted the water so they were unable to collect kai from the river. 

Composting was also very interesting as we learnt how to layer our compost with green waste then brown waste then water. The brown waste strops its from smelling and having air around your compost also helps.

Lots of photos were taken so that afternoon Mrs Torrie came and showed us how to create a photo collage in Google Slides or Canva so our blogs have style. This means that you don't have to keep scrolling on our blog pages to see all the photos. If we make a collage you can see all our photos at once.

We used photos from either our Drive or Chromebook so some people made collages of our Enviro Centre trip, others made them of our rat traps and some even created collages of celebrations we have had in class.

R.E. Challenge

This week, we have been set a challenge. We had to create a poster displaying this term's school value FAITH, WHAKAPONO. We talked about what faith looks like, feels like and sounds like. We discussed synonyms for faith and searched the Bible and the internet for quotes. Then we started creating our posters. The challenge finishes on Friday so we will have our posters up on our individual blogs by then.

June Reflection

It's hard to believe it's the end of June already. We have been reflecting on what has been a very busy month since we came back to school after Lockdown. We couldn't believe how much we have achieved!

You can read our individual blogs to find out how we think we have got on.

Here's Savenaca's June Reflection:

Pattern Ball - P.E.

We have been learning to communicate and work as a team.

In P.E. we have been playing Pattern Ball. We were in groups of 5 or more and had to create a pattern so that everyone caught and threw the ball once in the pattern. To work out the pattern, once we had thrown the ball, we bobbed down. We couldn't throw it to the person next to us. On the completion of the pattern, we continued throwing the ball in the pattern - it formed a closed loop.

Next, we increased the speed to see if we could beat the number of catches in 30 seconds - it was warp speed! 
To add another challenge, we introduced a second ball which had to be bounced, and once we achieved that challenge, we used a third ball which had to be a rugby pass.

With three balls going, it was very important we remembered our initial conversations about communiction. We found that calling the person's name before we threw the ball AND making eye-contact worked very well. We also asked questions: Was that throw too hard? Was the throw straight? Working as a team and saying postive comments to each other helped us.

We also talked about the different passess and what we needed to do:

Chest Pass:
1. Hold the ball to your chest.

2. Knees slightly bent and feet shoulder width apart.

3. Step forward with your foot finishing with your arms fully extended and thumbs down.

4. Aim the ball to your partners chest height.

5. Aim for a straight pass because loopy balls take too long in the air.

Bounce Pass:

1. Hold the ball to your chest.

2. Knees slightly bent and feet shoulder width apart.

3. Step forward with one foot and pass to you partner with a 'snapping' action.

4. The ball should bounce 2/3 of the way from the passer to the receiver.

Rugby Pass:

1. Hold the ball in both hands.

2. Stand sideways from the person you are throwing the ball to.

3. Use your fingers to control the ball.

4. Look at the person you are throwing the ball to and swing your arms towards them.

5. Use the arm furtherest away from the person you are passing to, to push the ball.

6. Use the other hand to just guide the ball.

7. Flick your fingers and wrists so that the fingers end up pointing towards your target.

Having a positive artitude, never giving up, treating others kindly and responding to challenges with enthusiasm really helped and are attitiudes we can use in our lives.

Check out our individual blogs to see the Screencastifys of Pattern Ball.

Matariki

This week for Reading and Writing, we have been reading and learning about Matariki. We've watched videos, read articles and discussed opinions. We compared it to other celebrations we have in New Zealand as well as celebrations around the world. 

Matariki is the Māori New Year and yet it is not a public holiday. We celebrate the European New Year. We thought about why this was so, and then formed our own opinions about this question: Should Matariki be a Public Holiday? Then we used Flipgrid to collate out opinions. We will be sharing our ideas our on our idividual blogs.

Did you know that in Taranaki they don't celebrate Matariki? They celebrate Puanga because they can't see Matariki in their night sky.

Here's Ciara's:

Remembering our Multiplication Facts

This week we decided to set ourselves the target of learning two times tables each week that we don't know. 

First we self-assessed. Did we know all of them, nearly all, most, half or none?

We are busy learning ways to work them out.

If we are learning our 2x, 5x or 10x we use a T-chart to stop us from skip-counting. We have races with Mrs Naden who says she is the fastest skip-counter in the whole world! We use the T-chart and beat her every time even though she is skip-counting super fast! It is a fast way and we call it 'Smart Maths'.

If we are learning our 3x, we use our 2x and then add one more lot on. For example 8x3 is the same as adding 8x2 and 8x1 together.

If we are learning our 4x then we just double our 2x. So 7x4 is double 7x2.

If we are learning our 6x then it's 5x plus one more lot. 4x6 would be the same as adding 4x5 and 4x1 together.

7x is simialr but we add 5x and 2 more lots on. 8x7 would be the same as adding 5x7 and 2x7 together.

For 8x we double our 4x tables. 3x8 is the same as doubling 3x4.

For our 9x we use our 10x and take one lot away. 8x9 is the same as (8x10)-(8x1). That's 80-8=72. If we use this then we can even work out 14x9.

We have coloured in the ones we know on our individual charts. You can see these on our individual blogs.

Corpus Christi

Last Sunday was Corpus Christi. We have been learning what this means as well as 'transubstantiation'. We will be posting the definitions of these words on our individual blogs this week.

Rat/Stoat Trap and Possum Trap Update

If you have been reading our blog, you will know we are trapping rats in our Rerenga Awa. Well, we haven't had much luck with the A24 and A12 traps we installed last year. We even asked Sam Gibson who works for DOC and Goodnature to come and check them for us. He suspects there aren't any rats in the Rerenga Awa but we have seen them run along the river bank. The problem is, we can't get closer to the river because of all the blackberry.

So we have decided to use the very first trap we set as well as the A24 - the DOC 200. We can manoeuver it closer to the river bank. The egg we used for bait is fresh (rats prefer rotten eggs) so we will have to wait a couple of weeks before going back down to check. Rats also keep away from human smells - hopefully this weekends rain will wash our scent away quickly.

Gravity

We have been learning about gravity by reading School Journals and articles on the internet, watching YouTube clips, and conducting experiments. We put all our new understanding and knowledge together to write explanations about how gravity works, and also made connections between the texts we read and the experiments.

Here's Kylah's explanation of Gravity:

If you throw a ball into the air what will it do? It will fall down right?  But why doesn't it not float into space?

The reason for this is a force called gravity. Gravity is a force that keeps us on the ground. Gravity is like super glue and holds us down.

Force

A force is a push or a pull. Gravity is a force that pulls us down so we don't float into space.

Boinks

Boinks are a flexible spring-action toy. If you push down a boink, a force will be created. When you let go it will fly up then gravity will pull the boink down.

Dropper popper

A dropper popper is a toy that looks like a dome. If you invert drop the dome with a ping pong ball, the ping pong ball will spring into the air and then gravity will pull it down.

Conclusion

No matter where you throw the ball, it's going down! The effect is a person or a thing that acts in the way that some specific thing happened as a result. Gravity is the cause and effect of everything coming down. Eventually everything is coming down.

To see the videos of the experiments she conducted, read her blog.

Here's the connections Francesca made between the journal article she read and the Boinks experiment:

Bling Your Blog

Today Mrs Torrie came in and showed us how to bling our blogs. We switched to the new blogger and then went into design which is like the engine room or 'behind the scenes' of our blogs. Using our own art work, we took photos and used them as our new background and made the writing transparent so you can still see the whole piece of art. Then we changed the font, colour and background of the header. We experimented with texture backgrounds and had trouble choosing which one to use because there were so many great ones to choose from.
We had a lot of fun personalising our blogs. You can see before and after Screenshots on our individual blogs. Let us know what you think of the changes we made.

May Reflections

This week we reflected on our learning during May.
We are a bit late reflecting as there was so much to do after we got back to school after Lockdown.
Our digital learning objects show we take Screenshots of our work and post them on our blogs.
You can read our reflections on our individual blogs. Rememer to leave a postive, thoughtful and helpful comment.

Pentecost

On Sunday the 31st of May we celebrated Pentecost...the Church’s birthday! We have been learning about this at school as well.

What is Pentecost?
Pentecost is sometimes called the birthday of the Church. Celebrated 50 days after Easter Sunday, Pentecost marks the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles. This was the start of their minisrty to go forth and make disciples of all nations.
The Gospel for Pentecost reminds us that the Church begins with the command to forgive. Within the family, the domestic Church, we learn how to forgive and how to accept forgiveness. The gift of the Holy Spirit enables us to do both.
Pentecost is a fitting time to share a family celebration of reconciliation and be challenged to proclaim the word of God in our daily lives through all that they say and do.

A Reading from the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 2:1-11)

The Holy Spirit Comes at Pentecost 
When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. 
And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability. 
Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. 
Amazed and astonished, they asked, "Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and 
residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs -- in our own languages we hear them speaking about the wonders of God” 
The Word of the Lord.... Thanks be to God! 


Prayer to the Holy Spirit
Breathe into me Holy Spirit that my thoughts may be holy.
Move in me Holy Spirit that my work may be holy. 
Attract my heart Holy Spirit that I may only love what is holy.
Strengthen me Holy Spirit that I may defend all that is holy.
Protect me Holy Spirit that I may always be holy.
(St Augustine)

Read our blogs to see what we made and how we explained this using our own words.

Torch Challenge

We have been learning about closed circuits for our Digital World unit. We were given an equipment list and had to work out how to make a light bulb go.

Equipment:
2x C batteries
6x wires
lightbulb
tinfoil
cardboard
electrical tape

We brainstormed some ideas and got stuck into the task. Some of the groups could get the lightbulb to work but didn't use all of the equipment. We are now trying to work out what we will do next time to make the closed circuit.
Read our blogs to find out how we got on.

Jesus Ascending into Heaven

Today we have been learning about The Ascension. We learnt this happened 40 days after Easter Sunday. It was when Jesus rose up into heaven. He promised to prepare a place for people in Heaven.
We read this passage from St. John’s Gospel and talked about what each verse meant:

This YouTube clip also helped our understanding.

Using Google Drawing we recreated the scene of Jesus Ascending into Heaven. Some of us also included a quote from ACTS 1:11. You can see our drawings on our individual blogs.

Henri Matisse Art

This week we have been learning some new painting techniques.
First, we looked at the artworks of Henri Matisse. To find out more about him, read our individual blogs.
Then we talked about what still life meant. Next, we drew Miss M's guitar and a vase. After that, we painted it. We had to mix the primary colours (red, yellow and blue) together to create the colours we wanted. We also had white and black. We layered and blended the paint. We also used white to show light direction. After our paint was dry, we used black pastel to add details.
Here's Selina's finished work. You can see the rest of the classes on their individual blogs.

Enviroschools at Home

During Lockdown, we continued our Enviroschools learning. We repurposed old t-shirts into bags, and learnt about and made closed loops. We also learnt how bugs are actually very useful in our garden and created our own bugs from things we had at home. Finally, we read some statistics about what is being dumped into our landfills. The majority of it could have been recycled so we created posters encouraging people to recycle, reuse, reduce and repurpose.
You can read more about these by reading our individual blogs.

Coding

This term we are learning about Our Digital World. As part of this unit, we are also learning how to code. This is one of our lessons during Lockdown: 

You can go to our individual blogs to play some of the games we have made.
Here's some Flappy Bird ones we made:

Josh's Flappy Bird

Sione's Flappy Bird

Morgan's Flappy Bird

Maybe you could make your own Flappy Bird game and post it on your blog for people to play.

SHOUT OUT

It's great to learn new things and this weeks SHOUT OUT goes to someone who is always teaching us something new with every creation he makes. 
Last week he taught us about 'bowsprit' and 'forestay'. You'll know who I'm talking about if you've been following his blog. 
He is... 

'The Cardboard Creations Master, 

Master of all Masters'.

Go to his blog to see his newest masterpiece and find out what a bowsprit and forestay are. Remember he doesn't use a plan or template from the internet - it all comes from his own incredible brain!

Well done for being so creative and clever. Room 1s SHOUT OUT goes to...

Lockdown Learning

We have had some interesting things happen in our bubbles during Lockdown and we have also been learning some amazing things from the people inside our bubbles. Some students have even created their own masterpieces. 
Here’s a snapshot of some of these things.

SHOUT OUT

It's really interesting when we have online tasks that require some fossicking in garages. Everyone elses garages are always so much more interesting!
Last week, one of the Senior Syndicate tasks was to read Lighting the Sky with Raspberry Pi then head to BrainPOP (an online circuit construction kit) to create their own circuits by clicking and dragging wires, a battery, lightbulb etc onto their drawing board. Nothing at all to do with fossicking!
So if you read their individual blogs about this learning, you will gobsmacked to see someone who has gone to their garage and found cables to strip back, and everything else they needed to create their own electrical circuit with the help of their dad.
Well done for tweaking the task, showing initiative and making it your own...come on down....KYLAH!

Kylah does her online distance learning in her caravan (to keep away from her noisy siblings!)

April Reflection Newsletter

Today we reflected on our learning during April.
It has been different for us because we are in Lockdown and have been learning online from home.
Our digital learning objects show we can share our work with a friend so they can comment on it.
You can read our reflections on our individual blogs. Rememer to leave a postive, thoughtful and helpful comment.

Our Digital World - Making Circuits

We have been learning about Our Digital World. One of our tasks was to read an aticle called Lighting the Sky with Raspberry Pi then we went to a Circuit Construction Website and created our own circuits.
We had to use:

• wires
• batteries
• lightbulbs
• resistor
• switch

We could also use:

• voltmeter
• ammeter

Here is Kaylah's Screencastify of how she made hers:

Some people had electrical circuit kits at their houses so they used them.

In order for electricity to start flowing, we needed to make sure we made a closed circuit. Electricity is caused by tiny particles with negative charges, called electrons.

When a circuit is complete, or closed, electrons can flow from one end of a battery all the way around, through the wires, to the other end of the battery. Along its way, it will carry electrons to electrical objects that are connected to it – like the light bulb – and make them work!

SHOUT OUT

This weeks SHOUT OUT goes to someone who is taking ownership of his learning. He continued to read all the books set for him over the holidays, and has kept up with his reading this term. Last week, he emailed me requesting some more tips on how to improve his reading during Lockdown.
Well done...you are a super star...

ANZAC Day

This week, a lot of our tasks were to do with learning about the ANZACs. We read articles about what ANZAC meant, the Gallipoli Campaign, the first ANZAC Day, why poppies became a symbol for ANZAC Day, trench life and The Dawn Service. We had a new Create component for our LEARN CREATE SHARE each day. 
On Friday, we got to choose which ones we wanted to do from an ANZAC Day Choice Taskboard:

Which one would you have done and why?

Here are some of this weeks completed tasks:

Morning Prayers During Online Distance Learning

Every day, we start with a Google Meet Check-In. This starts with karakia (prayer). Each School House group has a turn at leading our prayers. Today it was St Joseph's turn.
Catalina shared her prayer space and read a special prayer St Francis has written for us.
Sam and Selina both shared lovely prayers they had written especially for today.
Francesca also shared her prayer space and read a special prayer from a prayer book.
Save read a beautiful prayer his father wrote for him to say.
Josh said an incredible spontaneous prayer.
Charlie M also showed his prayer space and read a lovely prayer he had found on the internet.

This is Catalina's prayer space and her explanation:

"The blue on the cloth symbolizes Mother Mary, the gold is Jesus. The candle means God's light. Joseph is there because it was St Joseph's day for prayers."

This is Charlie M's prayer space and his explanation:

"I chose Saint Patrick to remind me of my brother in England. I chose a poppy that I made for ANZAC Day and I chose the amazing smelling candle for the light of Jesus."

This is Francesca's prayer space. Her explanation is on the Google Slide she made.

Elephant Art

During Lockdown, Room 1 were set the task of collecting some of their recycling. They were keeping plastic milk bottles, coloured paper, magazines, newspaper, wrapping paper and Easter egg wrappers. 
After a couple of weeks collecting what we needed, we were set the task of turning our milk bottles into elephants. First we cut off the bottom of the handle so it looked like a trunk with a curve at the end. Then we cut off the bottom of the milk bottle and cut curves to create the legs. After that, we cut or ripped all of our recycled paper into squares. Finally, we glued all our pieces of paper onto the milk bottle. Some people added ears, some added eyes and some added a crown.
Have a look at our individual blogs to see more photos, and to read how we problem solved some issues we had.

The Taskmaster SHOUT OUT!

Every now and again, The Taskmaster sets us a challenge to complete. One of last weeks challenges was to disguise or camouflage ourselves for ten seconds then reveal ourselves. Someone had to video you and then we put our videos on our individual blogs. We had to try and be more creative than just hiding behind some cushions or under a blanket. 
The ten seconds of hiding was full of suspense and it was really hard to work out where they would appear.
This weeks SHOUT OUT went to the person who camouflaged themselves so well, that when they revealed themselves it was hard to see because they were still camouflaged from head to toe. Room 1s SHOUT OUT goes to...drum roll please...

Click here to watch him complete the challenge. Tino pai rawa Kharn.
We are having some fun during our Lockdown Online Distance Learning.

First Day of Online Distance Learning

Today began with a Whole School Online Liturgy. We started with karakia and waiata then moved on to Shout Outs. Each teacher gave one shout out to a student who had done some fabulous work. It was difficult to choose in Room 1 because a few people had been blogging over the holidays. So it went to the person who had used a variety of digital tools on their blog. This person had used photos, WeVideo, Apps they've been using, Canva, Google Drawings, screenshots and links to other websites. They've also explained how they accidentally used Premium tools on WeVideo which you have to pay for so had to redo it. So this weeks Shout Out goes to....(drum roll please)...

After our Whole School Liturgy we had a class Google Meet. 

We started with karakia then moved onto todays learning. On our class site, there are now Weekly Slides explaining each task. We have four tasks each day. Sometimes a video also explains what to do. 

You can see our finished tasks on our individual blogs.