Matariki

We have been reading and learning about Matariki. We have learnt about the 9 stars and what they represent. We've also had a shared Matariki breakfast with our whānau, wished on Hiwa-i-te-Rangi, planted native trees and written poems.

Matariki is the Māori New Year and this is the first year it was a public holiday. 

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

How did you celebrate Matariki?

Our New Bike Track

Our school has a new bike track. We have a container filled with bikes and helmets for us to use. We have learnt how to: 

• fit and adjust our helmets
• check the tyres
• check the chain and make sure it has oil on it
• check that the handlebars are straight and when we turn them the wheel turns too
• check that the seat is positioned just below the height of our hip

Now we are learning movement skills for biking and balancing. Some of us have bikes at home so are quite confident and others are still learning to balance.

Have you got a bike track at your school?

Collecting Native Seeds and Cuttings

We are a Green/Gold Enviroschool - the first city school in Tūranganui-a-Kiwa to become one. Years ago, we started planting a native reserve which is now quite big. Today we went and collected seeds and cuttings because autumn is a great time to do this. Kauri and Bridget, from The Women's Native Tree Trust, showed us how to get the seeds from the pods and strip a cutting off. We were careful not to take too many from one tree.

We also learnt quite a lot of other things. We all knew that the Māori Battalion fought courageously in the war under horrendous conditions. But did you know that their whānau back home picked the tips of the koromiko leaves, dried them and sent them to their fathers and sons? The soldiers chewed the leaves which cured them of dysentery and this most likely saved their lives! Ngaio is an insect repellent. Rub the leaves on your legs and the mosquitoes won't come near you. Karamu leaves are for your sore puku. Take the leaves at the tips. Try and take multiples of 12 because that's being kind to the tree by not taking too many. Put the leaves in a cup and pour boiling water over them. By the time it's cool enough for kids to drink, the magic is done. Just drink the cup. Don't eat the leaves. 

After we had collected the seeds and cuttings, we bused to The Women's Native Tree Nursery to learn about propagation. We dipped the cuttings in water and rooting compound (a powder that gives them a boost to grow), planted the seeds into a cutting mix and the cuttings into small pots. We also clipped the kōwhai seeds before planting them otherwise they won't grow.

Next term we will go back and re-pot them into bigger pots. The Women's Native Tree Trust will then gift them to other schools and organisations who want to plant native trees like us. This is a great act of service and a wonderful way to re-cloak Papatūānuku. 

We are also going to learn more about Rongoā Māori. 

What do you know about native trees and rongoā?

Magic Movies

 Today we were learning how to use the new "Magic Movies" feature in iMovies on our iPad.

We took some photos of parts of our school that we really like and made a movie with them.

We all liked looking at the different "magic movies" and chose one we liked.

We liked the way the music and titles were already in the movie when we selected one.

Zoe and Vinnie worked really fast and managed to do a voice over as well.

What do you have at your school that you really like?

Our Class Blog

 Today in our Cybersmart lesson we explored the posts on our class blog.

Mrs Naden has had this blog for 4 years. She used to be in Room 1 and there are lots of blog posts about the learning in Room 1 for 3 years. This is a Blogger blog. Some classes are now using edublogs.

Now it is our turn to share our learning. 

Today we commented on a post we read and liked. 

Because we are using our iPad and do not have our own blogger account, we had to remember to put our name in our comment. 

Some of us typed our comment and some of us used Dictation on our iPad to post a comment.

You can read our comments and post a comment as well. 

Remember to write comments that are positive, thoughtful and helpful.

Here is a diagram to show you how to read the comments in Blogger. 

Favourite Things

 Today we were talking about our favourite things. 

Some of us liked the same food. 

Some of us liked playing the same sports.

We made a project in Explain Everything and learned how to take a photo of ourselves, how to find photos of our favourite things and how to record our voice.

Here is Seb's mahi from today. Do you like the same things as Seb?

And listen to his recording - his voice is very clear! 

Ka pai tō mahi Seb!

Maths Patterns

 Today in our Cybersmart lesson we were looking at Maths Patterns with Shapes 

and predicting what was going to go next in the pattern.

We used Explain Everything to continue patterns and to create our own patterns. 

We used shapes and colours. 

We also learned how to use the Inspector Tool in Explain Everything 

and how to duplicate shapes so they were exactly the same shape, size and colour.

Do you know how to do this?

Here is Anthony's mahi from today.