We say goodbye ...

 Wow! It is hard to believe that we have reached the end of the school year. We have done a lot and achieved much more. Ms Dods and I are really proud of our fabulous children. They are kind, caring, funny and all round superstars! 

As one of our final tasks, we created a yearbook. We wanted to reflect on the year, our successes and the memorable moments.

Well there we have it. Now it is time to say goodbye for 2020 and to wish everyone safe and happy holidays.  We look forward to welcoming you all back to school in 2021!

Sticky Question (Week 8 - Term 4)

 It was really interesting to read how you interpreted our last question. There were some fabulous ideas that made us think. Great work!

Here is this week's sticky question ...

I wonder what your thoughts on this are?

Pet Day in Te Mahuri

We had such a fun Pet Day in Te Mahuri, on Friday.  We started the day by making habitats for fictional animals.  The children came up with some awesome creations.  The children then decorated their own cakes based on the animal theme.  Everyone had a great time and created some wonderful work.  Mrs taylor and I were very proud of team Te Mahuri.

Ms Dods

Sticky Question (Week 7 - Term 4)

Wow! You had some awesome ideas around the ways children are better than adults.

This week I wonder ...

What do you think? Leave us a comment to let us know your thoughts.

Sticky Question (Week 6 - Term 4)

Many of you had similar thoughts about what makes the strongest reason. It was great to see how you responded to others ideas so positively, well done!

This weeks sticky question is ....

I am sure you will all have lots to discuss with this sticky question. We look forward to reading your responses.

Sticky Question (Week 5 - Term 4)

 Last week was tricky and we noticed how deeply you were thinking about life if someone was never afraid. You all provided some great reflections around this, well done!

This week you need to really read the question carefully in order to understand it.

So what are the strongest reasons based on?

Sticky Question (Week 4 - Term 4)

 Last week there were some very interesting thoughts regarding the laws you would make. What was fantastic was the explanations that told us why you would make these laws.

This week we want you to reflect on how lives would be different if you were never afraid.

As always, we look forward to reading your thoughts.

Sticky Question (Week 3 - Term 4)

We hope everyone has had a lovely long weekend. Our sticky question for this week asks you to think about the world we live in now and what you think could be done to make it even better. Remember to explain why this law is important to you.

Don't forget to check back to see what others decide is the new law they would make. What are your thoughts about these?

Week 2 Term 4

 Well....yet another busy week has rushed upon us. Honestly it feels as if no sooner has Monday ended when Friday is upon us.  This week the children have all been working really hard at perfecting the art of "Moment In Time' writing.  This is no easy feat...they need to use Adjectives, Similes and Personification whilst writing in the first person and the present tense!!! Soo, much to think about for developing wee authors, but boy are they having a decent crack at it.  Both Ange and I are really proud of them.

Ange has been in Auckland Wed, Thurs and Fri this week at the Manaiakalani Wananga, so we have been very fortunate to have the wonderful Margaret White in our class with us.  Margaret has a delightful way of working with the children in a gentle, encouraging and supportive way. The children have all enjoyed having Mrs White in Te Mahuri.  An enormous thank you to Margaret for gracing us with her company.

Next week we have a frantic timetable.  Tuesday and Wednesday it is business as usual in Te Mahuri.  Thursday we are heading to Ngatapa Farm, in Coutts Island to look at the way climate changes can impact living things.  We will have a DOC Ranger there sharing his experience with us, alongside a member of Water and WIldlife New Zealand.  The children will need a hat, gumboots or old shoes, plenty of food and water as it's a hungry business being out in the fresh air all day.  An enormous thank you to all of the parents for returning the children's permission slips and a huge thank you to those that are able to join us on the day.  Hopefully, it will be a fun relaxed day in the sun.

Friday is our Yaldhurst Model School Athletics Day.  The children have been practicing hard for this.  We look forward to seeing you all at school, if you can make it.

Until then, have a fantastic, safe long weekend.  Enjoy the gorgeous weather that has been predicted.  Keep reading daily with your children as every bit helps.

Nga Mihi

Sarah Dods and Angela Taylor

Sticky Question (Week 2 - Term 4)

 We are continuing with our Sticky Questions this term. Our first one for term 4 is ...

So, what do you think? Remember to justify your answer. What do your friends and family think?

Welcome to Term 4

Welcome back to Term 4. This week we have had the children thinking about the year so far, what their challenges have been and how they are feeling now. We have also asked them to think about what their goals are for this term. Finally they were encouraged to try out new tools/programmes to share their work on. 

For me, I have had a chance to try out easel.ly.com which is a simple web tool that empowers anyone to create and share powerful visuals. This was my reflection on the year so far and my goals for this term.

What are your goals for this term?

 

Shared Writing

 For the past two weeks, we have been learning about personal recounts. Firstly we read and analysed them. During this time we spent time pulling apart a variety of 1st person recounts in order to work out what the features were. We spent some time looking at the idea of past tense and those irregular past tense verbs. We also looked at different time connectives as we want to be using a variety of these in our own recounts and not just 'then.' 

Our next step was to work together to write a recount. Together we came up with the idea of a 'magical' trip to Orana 'Super' Zoo and in small groups of 3 or 4, we planned our parts. We then wrote the paragraph we were responsible for and illustrated it. In the editing phase, we read each others paragraph and analysed it against the success criteria. From this we were able to give the different groups an improvement point.

Finally we put all the parts together and here is the finished product. 

Sticky Question (T3 - Week 10)

Well we have really challenged ourselves this term with our reflections, explanations and justifications. we really have become amazing thinkers.

Our last sticky question for this term is ...



I think this is a really interesting idea. This will need some very careful reflection as to what it is asking of us. Remember to talk with your friends and whanau about this too. Gathering the thoughts of others helps us to consider our own ideas. What are your thoughts? Post them in the comments.

Buddies

 Each week, Te Mahuri and Te Kakano get together to talk, share work, play games, complete tasks or to work as a team. This is a great opportunity for our tamariki to get to know each other and to help each other be great YMS heroes. For Te Mahuri they are learning how to share knowledge with those younger than them, to be patient and showing all just what great role models they are.

One of the latest activities was for them to create a gif of themselves. First they had to use screencastify to shoot a 10 second video of themselves. Next they had to download that video and upload it to unscreen.com. Unscreen removes the video background leaving just the students as the stars. At this stage the buddies chose a new background. Lastly they downloaded the gif and placed it on the slide for their classmates to see. Everyone loved seeing the different gif's of themselves and their classmates. Lots of fun!

Sticky Question (T3 - Week 9)

Well it's the start of another week so it's time for another sticky question. Remember to talk about it with your friends and family so that you can consider all the differing points of view

This week's sticky question is ...




Well? Can they? If they can, is it for the better or for the worst? I'm looking forward to reading your justifications around your answer to this question. 

Sticky Question (T3 - Week 8)

We loved reading all your comments last week around kindness.

This week our sticky question is ...



This is an interesting one huh? As always, we look forward to reading your thoughts.

Book Creator and Te Mahuri's Incredible Speeches

 Today the children of Te Mahuri started to present their Speeches to their classmates.  It was fascinating to listen to these children speaking confidently to their classmates.  It takes a lot of confidence to stand in front of a group of people and talk to them about a subject you have chosen and poured your heart and soul into creating.

What was equally as impressive was the respect shown to the speakers by their audience.  These children truly have mastered the art of supporting their peers to give of their best, of respecting others right to be heard and offering encouragement when it was needed. Tino Pai to mahi Te Mahuri.

You can see what the Te Mahuri children have been learning about in writing by going to this page.

In Cybersmart the class have been working on using Book Creator.  They copied and pasted their text from their Workbook into the book creator project.  Then they had to record their voices reading their speeches and they videoed themselves saying their speeches.

They have linked their speeches onto their blogs...Check them out!!!

Please leave positive and helpful feedback for the children to read and enjoy.  They have worked really hard.

Nga Mihi

Sarah Dods

Sticky Question (T3 - Week 7)

This week our sticky question is ...



The word kindness has really been bantered around in the media this year so we are really interested to know what your reflections for this are. Are these any examples that you could use to justify your answer?  Can't wait to read your comments.

Sticky Question (T3 - Week 6)

Fabulous ideas around our Rapunzel sticky question from last week. So many of you thought about how she was feeling right at that moment and what information she might need in order to feel safe and secure when leaving the tower. Great job.

This week ...



As always, we are excited to read your thoughts.

What I know about Book Creator

 Hi, I have learned that Book Creator is a fantastic tool for all sorts of things....You can r=create a book for a cartoon. You can draw pictures or upload pictures from your computer or from the web.  You can read your words onto book creator so that it reads back to you.  You can create logos or cartoon type words.  You can add in speech bubbles and or thought bubbles.  

Here is the link to a book I created

What do you think I could add to my book?

Sticky Question (T3 - Week 5)

We had some great responses to our sticky question last week. Thanks go to our Tuhi Mai Tuhi Atu buddies from St Mary's in Gisborne for their fabulous responses. We hope you enjoyed reading our responses too.

This week's sticky question builds on the story of Rapunzel. You all know the fairy tale and how it traditionally ends but in our sticky question there is a new ending. Have a read ...



Well? What should she ask the mirror about the world? Why should she ask that particular question? Looking forward to reading your thoughts.

Sticky Question (T3 - Week 4)

Last weeks sticky question provided some very interesting discussion around the order in which to put the events. Te Mahuri did a fantastic job at using their naughty-o-meter to rank the statements last week but more importantly, they really had to clarify and justify why they ranked them that way. Well done to Ruby for being brave enough to put her thoughts into a comment last week :)

This week's sticky question is ...



Looking forward to reading your thoughts on this question. Don't forget to explain why you have chosen the three jobs as being the most important.

Week 3, Term 3

 WOW!!!! What a week we have had!!!! So much has happened and will keep happening...Ange and I feel as if this year is absolutely racing by.

This week the Sticky Questions have really got the children thinking and questioning their decisions.  The children have worked hard as a team and have started to ask some great questions to challenge their thoughts and come up with really great responses.

Friday sport was fantastic!  The hockey team, that I watched, played some great Hockey.  They are passing the ball between themselves and supporting each other on and off the field.  Great sportsmanship was displayed and all of the Yaldhurst participants represented our school beautifully.

We have noticed the children are really beginning to conduct themselves well and support each other to be successful learners.  They are willing to have a go at new things and persevere when the going gets challenging.  Great attributes to take into life.

Fractions and the column method have been our focus's in Maths this week.  T.M South have focussed on Report Writing, and produced some great examples of reports.  In TM North we have been utilizing our knowledge of Adjectives to write some Amazing!! Haiku.  Please take the time to read some of these when you are in the classroom.

We were very sorry to farewell Riley and Ava Thompson from Te Mahuri today.  They are to begin their new learning journey at Merrin School next week.  We wish them both the best of luck and know they will have a great time.

In the week coming:

We have MATHS Week,  this will be celebrated with some fun and challenging activities in the afternoon. All will be focussed on different aspects of Maths.

Wednesday and Thursday are our Student-Led Conferences.  The school will close at 12.30 on both of these days.  I do believe Kelly Club is open if you are stuck for somewhere for your darling to go for the afternoon.

Have a fabulous weekend.  We look forward to seeing you all at some stage on Wednesday or Thursday.

Nga Mihi

Sarah and Angela

Sticky Question (T3 - Week 3)

Well everyone it was great to get all your comments last week about which was better, being right or being kind. Thanks for joining in our discussion.

This weeks sticky question comes courtesy of 'The Philosophy Man'. We would like you to use your naughty-o-meter to rank these things from the least naughty to the most naughty and justify/explain your order.

As always we will be discussing this in class this week and we'll leave our thoughts in the comments but we would love to hear what you think too.

Te Mahuri North children are enjoying Roald Dahls BFG

This week we have been learning how to describe using Adjectives, synonyms and similies.  All of the children have done a fantastic job and are getting super duper good at this.  Ms Dods is having to 'stay on her toes' to keep challenging them to expand their vocabularies!!!!
We have been using the synonym wall and a thesaurus to help find new words to describe. 
This is the slide we have been using with the activities we have been working through.  I have just learned how to embed photos and pictures, so this is my first attempt...Phew!! What a week, you really never stop learning do you?
That's it from me now. Nga Mihi

Sarah Dods

What time is it? It's Cross Country Time!

Prior to the holidays we had started to practise for our school cross country. Each day we would add another minute we had to run for or an extra lap of the field we had to do. Some of us kept practising over the holidays but others did not.

On the day of the event we were all excited but a little bit nervous too. The ground was a little bit muddy and wet but the weather was fine and not too cold. The Year 4 race started at 1.45pm and the Year 5 race at 2.05pm.  Ms Lange helped us to warm up our muscles and then we were off. It wasn't just a case of running, we had to go over some obstacles too.



This is the course the Year 4's ran.

This is the course the Year 5's ran.

Ms Dods and Mrs Taylor were really impressed with our stamina and determination to finish the course. They said we were awesome. We were all impressed with all the parents who came to support us. Some of them even chose to run with us. Would we do it again? No! However we may think about doing it again next year :)

Sticky Question (T3 - Week 2)

Each week we will be posting a sticky question to get us thinking and discussing our thoughts. We will be discussing it in class and we are encouraging our tamariki to share the sticky question with their whanau too but we'd love to know what all our friends, families and community think, so feel free to leave us a comment with your thoughts on the subject.

This weeks question for us to think about is....



So what are your thoughts? Don't forget to explain/justify your thinking.

Encore! Encore!

Our school was delighted to be able to host some fantastic members from the Canterbury Symphony Orchestra (CSO) this week. We were the first school they had visited since our country had come out of lockdown and we were excited.


Some of us thought that the sound would be too loud but it wasn't loud it was great how the different instruments combined to produce a beautiful piece of music. Can you guess what movie this piece is from?



One of the students in our school is a Junior Ambassador for the CSO and it was lovely to see her join them for a piece too. Mia you were awesome!

The members of the CSO informed us about the different families in the orchestra. They even invited some of our students to try them.

 Your final piece was our outright favourite.


We thought the whole experience was fantastic! We listened. We learnt. We loved! Thank you soooooo much CSO for this awesome experience.

Did Someone Call for a HERO?

Here at Yaldhurst Model School we are very proud to say we grow many HEROes.

A Yaldhurst Model School HERO is a Healthy individual, Enthusiastic learner, Responsible citizen and Open-minded explorer. Our tamariki are always showing us their HERO qualities both at school and in the community. It is a beautiful sight.

Today there were double the heroes around school as we celebrated other heroes as well. There are many heroes out there that are not just of the Super Hero variety that we regularly see on television or  in the movies and it was great to see so many of them represented today as well. What qualities do you expect to see in a hero?

It's Shopping Time!

Being able to understand our money, the different types, how to add it and to know how much change to give or to receive, is a valuable life skill that Te Mahuri students have been learning about in Maths over the past two weeks.  The children were able to earn money for all the different activities they did as well as HERO cards they were given for showing their YMS HERO qualities. These are some of the many things we were asking them to do:




At the end of each day, the amount of money they had earnt was added up and as the week progressed the children were excited to see and work out their earnings. Now I can hear you asking, what were they going to be able to spend their earnings on, and the answer to that is in our very own Te Mahuri shop. We asked our whanau for help with old toys, books or baking so that the children had a variety of items to spend their earnings on  and our whanau were extremely generous and we cannot thank them enough. Check out our awesome shop!



So as you can see, our children were spoilt for choice and were absolutely overjoyed and super excited when it came time to spend their money that they had earnt. Some children spent a long time considering what to buy, others were straight on in there spending quickly. Some children spent all their earnings on themselves, others bought things for others. Some spent all their earnings and others have kept some of their earnings and intend to spend it on some free time next week. No matter what though, they all enjoyed themselves and learnt a lot too!

What are your thoughts?

This week we are going to be looking at the idea of reasons and reasoning. We really want you to to give reasons, listen to reasons, sort the different reasons and engage with others in a way that might change their minds. All this we will be doing as the week goes on, but firstly, let's consider the following ...



So what are your thoughts? What would your answer be? Why? Put your answer and reason in the comments. Check back throughout the week to read the other comments and to see the variety of responses. Leave them a comment to explain why you agree or disagree with them. Let's see what we all think.

Our New Book and a Secret Code

For those of you who are have been checking out our class website, you will know that we started a new shared book at the end of last week. The children were presented with 3 very different books to choose from (see picture below) and in a democracy rules decision, The Dragon Defenders was chosen. This was a very popular choice.

This book is not disappointing us. We have had opportunities to imagine what it would be like if we lived on the same island as the main characters. Some of us were concerned that the boys had never seen a smart phone! We have thought about the different characters we have heard about but are yet to meet and  have considered why we have our own opinions about them even though we have only met them through the thoughts of our main characters.

This book also has an interactive component to it. When we got to page 51, there was a coded message that they boys had found but none of us knew how to decipher it. Here is the message, what do you think it says?

Exactly! We had no idea other than it was probably written by someone who calls themselves 'The Pitbull.' We came up with a lot of ideas of what it could be though. Then we used an app on Mrs Taylor's phone, AR reads. When Dylan put the camera over the page the code changed into a special message. Check out what Dylan deciphered.


Cool huh ?! We know it is quite hard to see the video but we know you get the idea. Well we are super excited now. We knew that dragons were involved somehow by the title but this is the first mention of them in the story. I wonder what else we will need to use the app for?

What book are you reading at the moment? What are you enjoying about it? Should it be one of the choices for our next shared book?

A Beautiful Friendship!

Music and Art are fantastic friends. This week we have been exploring Wassily Kandinsky who is known as the painter of sound and vision. We used Chrome Music Lab to experiment with our own images as music on our chromebooks.

Connor was our expert and he showed us the programme and how it works. Thanks Connor! It was our turn next and we got the chance to 'experiment' with different images and the sounds they made. Then we came back together as a class to share our findings. It was great being able to see and hear what everyone had learnt. Next we went away again to create our own masterpiece now that we had more 'expert' knowledge. We had a lot of fun and we were proud of our finished pieces. Mine is below and all the students have posted their masterpieces on their individual blogs so make sure to check them out.

It's great being back :)

I know it will come as no surprise that we are happy to be back at school. Our class have quickly adapted to the changes we made to our classroom and daily routine and have been absolute YMS HEROes.

We have had a number of children still working from home and we have been able to use Google Meet so that they are part of the work, instructions and messages that we give even though they are not physically in the class with us.

We have a new shared book and as you can see from our class website we had a choice of what that book would be. When all the votes had been counted, we chose The Butterfly Lion by Michael Morpurgo. So far we have laughed, we have compared lives and then today we were upset at what had happened We are loving our choice of book. You too can hear the story as we read it aloud on our class website under shared story.

In Maths Mrs Taylor's teams combined Maths and Art on Friday and we looked at M.C Escher's work. This was building on our 'Learning from Home' work that we were doing while we were on lockdown.  During lockdown we looked at Paul Klee and Mondrian. Escher uses tessellation to create his pieces.We have really enjoyed creating our own masterpiece inspired by M.C Escher's work.  Check out our work. We are not finished yet but you can see the effect of our town terrific tessellations.

Well we hope you have all enjoyed being back at school. What did you miss most about school?

School is Re-Opening!!

Hi everyone,

Like lots of people, we have been getting ready to re-open our classroom on Monday 18th May. It's no
secret that Ms Dods and I were excited to hear that we were moving from Level 3 to Level 2 and that
schools could re-open. We have loved spending time with our class in the mornings on our hangouts and
seeing all their awesome work, but we are really really happy that we will be back in the classroom with all our fabulous students. We have missed spending our days with them.

With the level 2 restrictions, we have had to make some changes to our classroom routines. We now
have two doors working and we will enter through the door we would normally use and then when we
leave the classroom we go out the door on the right. There are signs on the door to help us remember to
do this. The two doors are separated by our cubbies.  Everytime we enter or exit the classroom, we need
to remember to sanitize our hands with anti bac. We have placed bottles of this near the two doors on the
drink bottle table. Easy right?

The next change we have had to make is that you won't be able to choose spaces in the classroom to sit
and work. You all have your own spot and that is where you will sit for all of the sessions. We have done
this so that you are all spaced out and not too close to other students. We have placed your red cubbies in your spot too. Your red cubbies not only have all your pencil cases, mini whiteboard and headphones
but it also has all of your books and scissors for you to use as well. This is so there doesn't have to be
a lot of moving around to get the resources you need.

Many of us will also be keeping our bags at our spots too. This will either be on the back of a chair or
under a seat or table. This will mean we won't have to stand around waiting for others to get things out
of their bags or to put things away. Our drink bottles will stay in our bags too.

We've made this video to show you the main changes. I think you'll see that our classroom is still mostly
the same place you left it around 7 weeks ago. It was a safe fun place then and it will continue to be that
now.

Of course one of the biggest things we can all do to keep ourselves safe is to regularly wash and/or
regularly sanitize our hands. We've spoken about this when we come in and out of the classroom but
this will also happen throughout the day too, particularly around morning tea and lunch. It will also
happen when you walk through the school gates in the morning as well. 

I know many of you have asked about the playground and the good news is that our playground is open.
Over the past weeks you will have heard the term 'social distancing' or 'physical distancing' and this is
something that you will hear at school too. We will all be working together as one team to not be too
close to each other in the classroom or the playground. We know that you will come up with some
awesome games that take this into account.

So there you have it. In 4 more sleeps we will be back together in our classroom again. We can't wait!!
What have you missed about school since we've been in lockdown?

Wonderful!

Hi everyone and welcome back to another week of our wonderful learning at home. You maybe wondering how we have been doing this so today let's look at this.

We have been using google meet to get together each morning. This has been like our carpet session where we find out what is happening each day, celebrate our successes and look at what challenges we had yesterday. It has been fun catching up with each other this way. Here we are this morning. We were missing some of our students today but we hope they'll be back with us tomorrow.

After our hangout we then make a start on our Reading, Writing and Maths work. This has not been to difficult as we would do this if we were at school too. We go to the class website and look at our group planning docs to see what to do.  Easy! It's easy because this is what we would do at school too. Our teachers leave us videos that explains our learning and we can watch these as many times as we like. If we have any questions or are unsure of anything we can email our teachers or leave a comment in our workbooks. Our teachers check these all the time and comment on what we have done. 

We also have some great activities/competitions that we can choose to do after we have finished our Reading, Writing and Maths each day. This week we have been taking part in the Sports Lockdown Championship. We have had to compete in events at home and then share videos and photos of us doing the events. This weeks events were vacuuming, emptying the dishwasher, star jumps, press ups, tidying our rooms and setting the table. 

Well there you have it. That's how we've been learning and working while we have been staying in our bubbles. What have you been doing?

Aha! What a Genuinely Glorious Group

We are indeed just a genuinely gorgeous group of individuals that are all working together during this lockdown period.

You all know that we have been meeting every day using google meet. You've read about our online quizzes. We've also had a crazy hat/hair/wig meet. This was such a fun way to end an awesome week last week. We truly had a lot of craziness going on. It's great to see that even though our way of working at the moment is different, we are still able to laugh, smile and have some fun. Okay we have had more than 'some' fun, we have had a whole heap of fun! :)

This week is no different. Our quiz this week is about the teachers. Tamariki will be trying to guess which teacher has done different things or whether the information about that teacher is true or false. For those playing, I'll give you a little hint. One of the questions is, "True or False - Mrs Taylor has a cat called Humphrey." The answer is ..... false. Actually Mrs Taylor is allergic to cat hair so there is no cat called Humphrey. There is a teddy called 'Teddy' though. Friday is also the 1st May so we are having a "M" party on our hangout.
                "A party at 9am!" you say.
                "Absolutely," I say, "it will be a blast."

While we have been at home, we have been continuing with a shared story. This term our shared book is Possums 2U by Vince Ford. Vince is a fabulous New Zealand author who writes about life in New Zealand. Ms Dods has been recording herself reading each chapter. These can be found on our class website if you are interested in listening to this awesome story. We are enjoying it. Alongside having to answer some questions, we have been getting busy and creative based on different things that have happened in the story. These were our choices last week:



So as you can see, we could choose between making a possum, a poster, a cartoon, a shelter, or even a possum trap. Here is some of our awesome work:



See, I told you we were a genuinely glorious group!
See ya next time :)

Looking Back, Looking Forward

We have continued staying connected with our online learning this week. Many of us are enjoying telling each other some great jokes at the start of our hangouts. Some jokes are funnier than others!

Today we also did a quiz using our baby photos. This week I asked the children to send me a photo of when they were a baby or a toddler. I know that many of our families enjoyed the chance to look back and to see the photos that were taken and to discuss the different things that were happening at the time of the photos. We then used these photos and created a kahoot (cos Te Mahuri loooves kahoot) to try and guess which of our students is in the photo. It was a lot of fun!

If you would like to have a look at our then and now photos then check out this presentation ...


It's important to be able to look back and reflect upon times past. It's also important to be able to look forward and consider what might come. In the future I hope that our students and families look back on this time and that they will be able to reflect on some of the positives rather than just the negatives. I also hope they can look forward with hope at this time and not dread. And as I look to the future, I look forward to being able to see our students again face to face. While being online together has been fun, our face to face interactions are awesome too. Stay strong beautiful people, you really are an awesome group.

What a Week!

Wow! We have some awesome tamariki and whanau in our community that have engaged with us and the learning we've set and we couldn't be more proud to be apart of it. We have loved seeing you all through our video hangouts and we thank you for welcoming us into your homes and connecting with us. We have met some of your pets, told jokes, laughed and smiled. We've loved it!

Ms Dods found this beautiful video courtesy of Visit Auckland that reflects on this time and with still so much uncertainty about what is to come, it really is a timely reminder that our strength is in unity and that there will be an end to this strangeness.



Sit at a distance, stand as one.
When the time is right, we welcome you.
But for now, listen.
Our Earth Mother is breathing.

Kia kaha, and we'll see you all very soon.

Task #6 the Easter Edition!

Welcome back everyone, we hope you are all well in your own bubbles!

We are excited to see everyone once term 2 starts on Wednesday 15th April. We are fully organised and ready to go and will be emailing our students and their families at the beginning of next week.

For those of you who would like another challenge over this easter break then this task is for you. There are two to choose from but I know you will have fun no matter what you choose.

From our whānau to yours ...

Monster Results for Task #5

What another fabulous task! There were very different ways that our students made monsters but all were very cool and we absolutely loved seeing them all.

Here's what we did:

Well done everyone, another great success!!

Terrific Task #5

Good morning ...

Task #6 is finally here. There is only one task but we hope that it will allow you to be as creative as you can.

So as you can see, there are no rules to this task. How will you make your monster? What will you use? Will you do it on your own or have someone help you?

As always, we look forward to your brilliant blog posts that introduce us to your magnificent monsters.

Have fun :)

Woohoo! Task 4 Completed!

Welcome back everyone and well done for those of you who took part in task 4. Remember you had a choice between two different tasks this time. The first choice was to make a paper plane and then fly it the furtherest by facing backwards. The second choice was to choose an artist and let their work inspire your own art work.

Two great tasks and here are our results:

Great work everyone!

Task 5 will be available tomorrow.

Art or Paper Planes ? Task #4

Welcome back everyone, to our next set of tasks. There are yet again two tasks that you can choose from or if you have time, or are inspired by both activities, you could choose to do both of them.

The first choice is ...

Cool right? There are so many different paper plane designs that it will be really interesting to see which design you like.

The second choice is ...

I know that some of you are slightly puzzled by task #4b so I have put together a little presentation of some ideas that might help you understand what this task is asking of you.



So there we go, those are the two choices for your next task. I wonder which one you will choose? Maybe you will attempt to complete them both. Either way  the choice is yours.

Good luck and have fun!

Task #3 Completed

Wow another amazing challenge has been completed. Well done to everyone that took part. We loved seeing your inventiveness in the amount of clothes that you could wear and in your Lego creature designs.

Here are our results ...

What is next? Hmmmmm could it be art, music or an engineering challenge? Maybe it's all of those things or maybe it isn't. Yup there's no clues about our next challenge so you'll just have to check back tomorrow.

Task 3a - The teachers results ...

Hi everyone,

Matua and I had sooo much fun trying challenge 3a. We raided the wardrobes and fancy dress cupboard!! Matua managed to wear: 2 Dressing Gowns
1 fur coat
7 shirts
4 pairs of shorts
2 winter vests
1 leather jacket
1 ski jacket
6 hats
1 tie

I managed to wear : 1 Fur coat, 1 necklace, 1 tutu, 3 hats, 1 surf life saving shirt, 1 pair of gloves, 1 t-shirt, 2 shirts, 2 dresses, 1 pair of trousers.

The end result was we both became overheated and very hot and flustered. You can see us taking the clothes off and counting everything. But here we are all kitted out in our finery!

 Such a fun and very silly thing to do..and what a mess to put away at the end. Have fun on this challenge and for our next class challenge all.

Ms Dods and Matua