Catalina's Screencastifies

Some of our class have forgotten how to put their Canva creations and Screencastifies onto their blogs. Catalina has kindly made some Screencastifies for them and they are now on our class site for everyone to use.

Online Distance Learning

Our online distance learning is happening because of COVID-19. Our Reading, Writing, Maths, R.E. and Inquiry tasks are all on our class site so everyone knows what to do. We will be posting lots of our learning on our individual blogs so please read them and leave kind, helpful comments for the students to reply to. Thanks.

Here's Kylah in action. She is in her caravan in her backyard (away from her noisy siblings!) focusing on tasks that have been set for her.

Paoa and Kiwa

This term, we have been learning about Paoa and Kiwa's voyage on the Horouta waka from Hawaiki to Tūranganui-a-Kiwa (Gisborne). Our final task is to present a series of slides retelling what happened.

We are publishing these on our individual blogs so keep look out for them. Here is Catalina's.

Amazon Rainforest Animals

If you have been reading our blog, you will know that every afternoon Mrs Naden casts the book she is reading to us on our T.V. We silently read along as she reads. 

The book we are reading is called The Explorer by Katherine Rundell. It's about 4 children whose plane crashes in the Amazon jungle, the pilot dies and they have to survive. At the moment, they are coming across lots of animals, mammals and other creatures that live in the rainforest.

For Reading, we had to read articles online and watch videos of some of the Amazon rainforest animals. We had to decide which helped us learn better - the articles or the videos. Then we chose one of the animals, researched facts, made a google drawing of the animal (we had to use shapes etc and not the Explore tool), then add some interesting facts about the animal. You will find these on our individual blogs - have a look!

Here's Manvi's...

Sustainable Seas Virtual Field Trip (with LEARNZ)

As part of our Seaweek activities, Room 1 went on a virtual field trip by watching a Webinair from LEARNZ. They were at Ōhiwa Harbour. We learnt some very interesting information:

• The wreck of the Rena now has sealife growing on it. The damage to our coast and marine life appears to have stopped. It was our worst sea disaster ever.
• Threatened marine species (and very close to extinction) in New Zealand include:
• 90% of our seabirds
• 22% of marine mammals (dolphins and whales)
• 9% of sharks, stingrays and eaglerays
• The population of some species is increasing - both the southern right whale and sealion are.
• In 2019, pollution was the second main threat to our coastline.
• In 2019, 3/5 of all litter on our beaches was plastic pollution.
• 95% of the world's oceans are unexplored,
• 99% of the world's ocean floor is unexplored.

We are creating a Sustainable Seas Poster using the google tool we think will be the most effective. Check our individual blogs later in the week to see these. Remember to leave a positive, thoughtful and helpful comment.

Exploring the Rerenga Awa

Room 1 has challenged all other classes to go down to the Rerenga Awa, see what they can find AND spend 20 minutes weeding. We were down there today and found a rabbit hole (Cameron actually saw a rabbit race into the hole), blackberries, places to hide, only 3 pieces of rubbish, and holes to dig in. The weeding was so easy after all the rain.

Weeding.

A rabbit hole.

Blackberries - very tasty too!

Holes to dig in.

Only three pieces of rubbish - normally we find heaps!

Places to hide.

Rat/Stoat Trap Update

Room 1 went down to our Rerenga Awa to check on our traps. We were gobsmacked to discover something (or someone) has eaten (or taken) the bait station. We didn’t think plastic would be so tasty but we know rats eat anything. So we put in a new bait station and rebaited the trees to lure the pests to our traps. Not nearly as muddy down there as we hoped after this weeks rain - just shows how dry it’s been.

 The rat trap with no bait

The rat trap with a new bait station

Checking our possum trap

Putting bait on the bark to lure possums

Incubating Eggs

We are incubating eggs to replace the chickens that were stolen a couple of Christmases ago. We tried last year but had no success so we are trying again. Unfortunately, the temperature gauge on the incubator is fluctuating. Fortunately, it means Mrs Brown is our newest Room 1 member as she is sitting on our eggs for us!

NZ Get Writing

We have signed up for NZ Get Writing through Schoolkit. They send you lots of activities to do and when we are finished, we send some of them to a buddy school. We have been buddied up with West Harbour School in Auckland.

Our first task was to write a short, punchy poem similar to William Carlos Williams. Our poem had to include something we had got into trouble for in the past. 

We published these using Canva and made a Screencastify of us reading our peom aloud. We had a lot of fun recalling some of the naughty things we did in the past. You can read and listen to our poems on our individual blogs. Here's William Carlos Williams' one we used to format our own ones.