Celebrating Success! - by Bella

Our inquiry related to celebrating success. We came up with the idea of successful role models. There were some challenges while we created our movie about role models but we got over them and had some fun at the same time.

Whānau commenting: positive, thoughtful and helpful

Having created some screencasts to share what a quality blog comment is and looks like, learners in Room 10 did a wonderful job of supporting whānau to begin commenting on their personal blogs last week. We're so looking forward to reading more and more comments from whānau!

For our Whanau: Quality Blog comments! - by Henry and Pupuke

Pupuke and I created this screencast to show our families what we mean by "quality blog commenting". Hope you enjoy! (Henry)

I created this screencast with Henry so our families can learn how to write quality blog comments (Pupuke).

Checkmate!

What a lot of thinking and concentration was needed this morning! Coach Paul from Chess Power visited Ruapotaka to teach everyone in Rooms 10, 11 and 12 how to play the game of chess. Now that we've learnt the names of the pieces and how they move around the board, it's time to work on strategy!

Maths time! - by Henry

When I came back from being sick we had to do maths which was amazing! We made 3D cubes. We had to use stick and straws which I was so excited to do. I was working with Saluselo and Shakaia. Then I made another 3D shape. That's what I learnt about for maths.

Frosted curls and a golden star

Despite today being the shortest day of 2016, we finally replanted our Room 10 garden! We read the information labels, planned our plot and measured the distance between each plant. Lots of digging, lots of earth and lots of smiles as we watched our garden take shape. We will water and watch to see how our native grasses and other plants grow. The coprosma, Golden Star, reminds us of Matariki.

What is the area of our garden?

We are learning about area. We are learning to measure the area of a rectangle. We started by working with a buddy to find out how many squares of paper it took to cover our paper "garden".  We all agreed that it took 18 squares.

Henry's tips about taking your Chromebook home

The Times They Are A-Changin'

What excitement! Mary, Kuini, Henry and Saluselo rolled out their new Chromebooks today while the rest of Room 10 used more traditional ways to record their learning.  Henry was amazed by the number of emails that had arrived in his inbox since December.  Kuini enjoyed browsing through our blog at her own pace, thinking about some of the things we experienced last year.

A colourful start

To begin our new year in Room 10, we are thinking about ourselves, our learning and our goals.  We are each creating bright and inventive self-portraits in the style of the Spanish artist, Pablo Picasso, as we make a colourful start to 2016.  What do you notice about our pictures?

Whakarongo mai!

On the last day of Term 3 we enjoyed listening to the different speakers at the Year 4-6 speech finals. As well as Zion speaking about crocodiles, Tupouseini shared her knowledge of moa and Bella spoke in her first language, Tongan.  Next we were part of the audience listening to the Year 7 & 8 speech finals about rugby, friendship and goals for the future.