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.

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.