Sticky Question - Week 9

 Our sticky question this week is ...

Well there you have it you awesome Heroes! As always, we look forward to reading your thoughts on this one.

Sticky Question - Week 8

A really interesting divide last week over whether you would rather talk to animals or be able to speak all the languages in our world.

Here it is! Our sticky question for the week...

What are your thoughts? What would your friends say?

Art Exploration :)

Hey everyone, Well it is a very special time of year for us here in New Zealand as Matariki starts today. Now some of our overseas visitors might be a little confused about what Matariki is. But let the confusion be no longer. Matariki is the Māori New Year.

Matariki celebrations were once popular, but stopped around the 1940s. In 2000, they were revived and today are becoming an important part of our traditions again. Traditionally, Matariki was a time to remember those who had died in the last year. But it was also a happy event – crops had been harvested and seafood and birds had been collected. With plenty of food in the storehouses, Matariki was a time for singing, dancing and feasting. A true New Year celebration!

In Te Māhuri, and at Yaldhurst, we have a number of activities and celebrations planned. Part of these celebrations is to explore Matariki art through New Zealand artists and then use that knowledge and understanding to create our own artwork. At the end of term we will be showcasing our artwork to our whānau, holding a silent auction of artwork and a 'Guess the Artist' competition featuring some famous faces as well as some less famous staff ones.

In our class we have been building up our art skills and knowledge. We don't know which artist we will choose to focus on yet, but we have been trying out some different skills based on known Matariki art and New Zealand artists. We have looked at artwork by Manuel Mitchell, Reuben Paterson and Raewyn Harris to inspire us. This is some of our work so far. As you can see it is all based around a koru.

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Reuben Paterson is well known for colourful designs that fill the page with koru, colour and glitter!

 

Raewyn Harris makes all kinds of artworks including abstract art around New Zealand themes using koru.

 

Manuel Michell does really detailed digital art using Koru and Mathematics principles such as Reflection and Rotation he calls 'Fiboru' (Fibonacci x koru)

Pretty cool isn't it? Remember don't forget to keep checking back with us as we head towards the end of term and our finished Matariki artwork. In the meantime, happy Matariki everyone!!

Sticky Question - Week 7

 Wow, we loved reading all the responses to last week's sticky question. It was great to see you explaining your reasoning too.

This weeks sticky question is ....

What are your thoughts?

Problem Schmoblems :)

 We are excellent problem solvers in Te Mahuri. No problem is too big or too small! Today we were given two tasks around pentagons.

For our first task we had to identify the vertices in this regular pentagon.   

                                                      

Next we had to join each vertex of the pentagon to the two vertices opposite. Of course we used rulers for this.

Lastly we had to count up how many triangles we saw. We all rushed back to our teachers with the number 10 and we were surprised (and a little confused) that 10 wasn't the answer. They encouraged us to look closely and search for the bigger triangles not just the small ones. Just like that the excitement continued. For any of you giving this a go, we won't spoil it by telling you the answer.

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The second task involved us learning about the concept of tessellation. Once we understood this we investigated whether the regular pentagon would tessellate on its own or if it needed another shape. 

Did you know that soccer balls also use tessellation with pentagons and hexagons?

Sticky Question - Week 6

 Welcome to our weekly sticky question... 

What do you think? We look forward to reading your answers and your reasons why you think what you do.

We are all Spelling Specialists in Te Mahuri!

This week we have been finding fun ways to learn about sounds and practise our spelling. 

Mrs Taylor's group have been using the Readiwriter programme which has made a fun change. Cooper told Ms Lange 'I have to learn the word 'questionnaire' this week!!'. 

Some of Ms Lange's group have been making Kahoot quizzes to test their spelling.  Look out families you are the next targets for these quiz-masters! Ms L was impressed they thought of a way to do this using Kahoot. It also means they get to practise the editing skills they have been honing in writing.

Here are some pictures of Zoe, Emma and Jhyral learning how to play 'Switch It'. This helps with listening to and identifying sounds needed and sound order in words.  At the end of the session Jhryal worked out 'champion' - isn't he though!

 Lovely Literacy Learning happening here!         (and some alliteration too!)

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Some ways families can help at home: 

- getting your TM learner to write their spelling words in sentences. 

- asking them to explain this week's spelling rule.

- notice words in their books, on TV that have that spelling rule.

Te Mahuri Students learn everywhere, all the time, anytime!