We have some very creative writers in this school!

This week we’ve worked on the 100 word challenge where we have 10-15 minutes (depending on how generous Stacey is feeling!) to write on a topic.

The first attempt was quite a challenge but we didn’t let that beat us and today we came out with some amazing pieces of writing.

Here is some of our writing today:

On Halloween I heard a mysterious sound. I got out of bed and I saw a ghost. I screamed. For a second I thought the house was haunted. Then I thought it was a dream. I froze and went back to sleep.

By Rickon

Halloween

The house on the hill had always been frightening. You see no one ever came in or out of it. All you could hear was the sound of trapped souls screaming into the darkness. The night of the Halloween was always mysterious, because it was was one night of the year when the screaming could not be heard. Most people thought it was strange, others swear that it’s haunted. Hundreds of people venture up that hill but none ever come down. Everyone knows that something is living up there, but no on knows for sure what. Except me, The Corpse Bride.

By Isla

It was midnight and everyone was asleep, except me. I am planning to escape from this prison. I hate it here so I will escape through the hole in the wall and then I will get revenge and rule Halloween.

Now that I am out I will get out of these horrible clothes and into my black dress, my boots and my spider earrings. Now I can go to my haunted house that a lot of people think is frightening and mysterious, but it’s not. When I entered my home I heard a scream, for a minute I thought it was strange but then I realised that it was normal.

By Keeva

Today we had an AMAZING trip to Mount Lees near Feilding. As we are an Enviroschool we were lucky enough to be invited to take part in a regional Enviroschool hui to learn about Forgotten Fauna – native fish, bats and lizards. Attending with us were 9 other schools from around our region so it was great to mix and mingle with other children who have a similar interest in environmental studies.

In the morning we learnt about bats and how they use echo-location to find food etc. Then we went on to learn about lizards which by far was the most anticipated session for our children and it was VERY exciting when they were allowed to actually hold a lizard. Following on from the lizards it was on to learn about fish. We were astonished to find out that there are currently 35 named species of native fish in New Zealand. We also learnt that whitebait are the babies of several native fish, which are seriously endangered – certainly made me rethink my taste for whitebait fritters thats for sure!

After a delicious lunch of sausage sizzle we got to play a game while the teachers / adults learnt about the different enviro educators around the Manawatu. We finished the day with a taking action activity where we made lizard tracking tunnels and water scopes.

As per usual the children really out did themselves when it came to representing our school in a respectful way so on the way home they were treated to an ice block to finish off another fun day of learning.

Here are a few photos of our day……

Want to know more about native trees and their importance?

Click the link below to view our collaborative slideshow.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1_U67YZHp3AMcNCqu-6TjAtEgjeCFPLcFlljfNJEekkQ/edit#slide=id.p

Today’s challenge was to learn about photosynthesis and then create a resource to help our community learn about it. This is part of growing our understanding about native trees.

Here is Keeva and Mikaire’s video which explains, in their words, how photosynthesis works.

Isla and Luca decided to use Google Slides to explain photosynthesis. You can view what they’ve created via this link:

PHOTOSYNTHESIS by Isla and Luca.

Tyrese, Rickon and Hunter also decided to use Google Slides as well to explain their understanding. You can view theirs here:

PHOTOSYNTHESIS by Tyrese, Rickon and Hunter.

Maybe you’ve learnt something new today. Share your thoughts in the comments, we’d love to know what you think.

What a great day of learning we had yesterday! Following on from our visit to the Science Roadshow we tried challenges they set.

We made jumping beans. They look like they have a life of their own! We then had an assignment we had to find out the science behind the jumping bean, find out about real jumping beans, and then design a playground for the bean.

What a great challenge this was! Not only did we learn some new science information we had our key competencies put to the test. How did we react when it didn’t work? What did we do when we fell into the learning pit and struggled to get out?

There was so much learning going on it was hard to keep up.

Check out these videos of what we created.

This week we had a visit from Rowena who is our EnviroSchools facilitator. While she was visiting she ran some activities to help us learn about native tree identification. The first activity we had to do was match the leaves she had in the classroom with what was on our paper. As we went along she told us many interesting facts about native trees.

After this we went outside on a hikoi to see what we had in our own school gardens. We found lots of lemonwood, some lancewood, kowhai and harakeke.

Today Rickon and Luca had the opportunity to show what they remembered about Rowena’s visit when they were challenged to teach Isla and Keeva (who were away during Rowena’s visit) about native trees. It was great to see some tuakana teina in action.

To finish our afternoon we spent time preparing and planting kowhai seeds. Hopefully we successfully get them to germinate and grow so we can plant some in our ngāhere or give them away as gifts at Christmas.

Our native tree knowledge grew a great deal this week…..if you see one of the children around make sure you ask them share what they’ve learnt with you.

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This week has been a busy one for the lovely, learners of Pukeokahu.

On Monday we went on a trip to town to see Whaea Leah and join with Papanui to learn about Mātāriki. We finished the day with lunch at the park before heading back home.

Back at school, we have been learning about fractions. Mikaire, Rickon, and Hunter have spent the week learning about parts of a whole. We did this with playdough and practiced cutting it into equal parts.

These boys have also been working on tasks after reading their story. Mikaire designed a weapon that the characters in his book might use to help them and Hunter and Rickon drew a picture of an elephant’s habitat. They also made an amazing recreation of Tsavo National Park.

Isla, Luca, Keeva and Tyrese have again been busy with their Chapter Chat tasks. Today was the last day of Chapter Chat – Slime which is a bit sad. In two weeks we get to start the new Chapter Chapter called Wild Robot.

 

We have been reading the book Slime. In the story Ned finds 100s of jars of gunk in his sisters room. One of our tasks last week was to make our own gunk. Today we finally got to make it.

There were things like cornflour, hair gel, washing powder, soap, dish liquid, food colouring and sand used to make all kinds of different gunks.

This type of playful learning helps the children foster the key competencies. While they were building the gunk they had to make decisions, share equipment and ideas with others. They needed to be creative and use their imagination about what gunk may be made from.

Watch this space for their gunk recipes.

Below are some photos of the gunk making process.

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Today we made pizza as part of our learning about fractions. We had to answer some maths questions to unlock the pizza ingredients first.

Each person got to make their own pizza and add the toppings they wanted.

Today we took part in our first Chapter Chat which is about the book called Slime by David Walliams.

Here are some photos of us chatting on Twitter and some of the activities we created.

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