Digital Technologies

Piako Tahi enjoyed following this algorithm today in class...
Maybe your children could show it to you at home? 
The link is:  http://www.drawastickman.com/episode1

Goodbye Thomas!!!

Thomas and his Mum are off to the South Island for new adventures!! We wish them luck and will miss Thomas at school!

Teddy Bear Explore

WOW!! So much exciting fun bringing our Teddy Bears to school this week for Teddy Bear Explore!!  Here are some of the activities that our Teddy Bears got up to... Dancing, hut building, costume making, mask making, bear hunts, hospitals and much more!!

 Charlotte made a cool car for her teddy!!

 Teddy Bear Picnics!!

                  Shelby's super hero teddy costume             Counting and sorting Teddy Bears       

                              Teddy Bear hunts                             Jasmine made a seat in her car for her teddy

 Hut building for our teddies

                   More hut building for teddies                    Mack made a bed and looked after his bear

 A cave for teddies to hide in

 Clever costume designers making outfits for teddies

                  Photos of teddies doing different things             Bella's backpack for her teddy

 Rin and Anna looking after their teddies in hospital and doing some dancing with their teddies

NZ Birds Explore

This week we have been learning all about NZ Birds!! We really enjoyed walking around the school to see all our native bird murals and visiting our nature area to do some bird watching. We have also had fun learning about camouflage, flight, bird parts... through many activities. We looked at the Bird of the Year website and saw how many birds in New Zealand are endangered. We read information about the Wildbase at The Esplanade and saw some videos of how the birds are looked after and then released.

 Bird Watching                                              Making Fantails

 Check out these cool owls and penguins!!

                         Trying different bird beaks                  Checking the book for the fantail's colour

More creative bird making 

 Charlotte's group of kiwi                                 Ilma's owl on a branch

 Theo's kakapo flapped it's wings and made a BOOMING sound!

All the clever, creative work on our WOW Wall

Pounamu Atawhai - Book Sharing

It was so fantastic to have Pounamu Atawhai come and share their amazing children's books with us!!
They had written, published and illustrated the books themselves and we really enjoyed listening to them!!
Thanks Pounamu Atawhai, what a lot of hard work you put into these :)

Mazes Explore!

This week in Explore we have been learning all about Mazes! In our afternoon workshops we have been learning about algorithms so we have been using algorithms in Explore too to help us get through a maze. We worked together with our friends to make the best mazes possible. We have had so much fun learning about mazes this week!

Construction Explore!

This week in Explore we learned all about Construction! We learned about the different ways machines can help us to build things and all the different parts to remember when building a house. We talked lots about having a plan before you build and practised planning in our minds or on paper before we started constructing! Check out these photos of us hard at work! 

 Aria, Alya, Evie and Yuito worked together to build this house out of our sticks and balls! 

 Diederick thought hard about including some pipes in his building so that the family could have showers with clean water! 

 Paige W and Lachlan constructed this cage for the 'scary cheetah' at the zoo! 

 Evie, Aria, Harper M and Zoe worked together to build their house!

 Michaela was a Tohunga when it came to following her plan to build! 

 Jaxon H was hard at work building lots of 'Ninja Towers' for the ninjas! 

 Ryan W and Luke worked together and followed their plan to build a huge house!

 Penny worked so hard to construct this cube from a net without needing any help! 

 Charlotte spent a long time getting her house perfect!

 Cassiaus was so proud of his cube. He even drew faces on each side of people he knew!

 Daniel was so creative with his building! 

 Harper G, Harper B and Eva did a great job building a huge living space for their family! 

 Alannah loved making a home for her dolls house family! 

 George worked so hard to make this amazing house! 

Bede got very creative and used the cube net to draw a floor plan for a house. He even labelled each of the rooms!