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The Pod in Action!

The weeks are rushing by furiously and our students have been very busy! There have been the staples of Maths, Reading, And Writing, of course, but we have also experienced Social Studies (NZ History), Garden to Table, Spelling, Handwriting, Swimming with coaches, Kapa Haka, and Te Reo Māori.

Writing workshops aim to focus on one skill. In the following short pieces of writing, the focus is to use many adjectives and adverbs to create descriptive writing. This was the picture prompt for the quick write:

A little girl named Marry Nguyen was lost in the dark room. It had a dark television. She turned it on nervously and then it had a lot of mixed colour in it. She thought it was just a background and one second later the colour it  starting to melt slowly and it had a smell sweetly, She tasted a little bit and it was not candy it was paint, and she feels dizzy now. [Sony, R17]

Tina opened her tired eyes and was shocked as she saw a humongous TV that was glitching. Tina was scared but shook off that feeling in her and tiptoed to the television. The TV glitched and glitched until all of a sudden this rainbow goo splashed onto the floor dripping from the inside of the TV. Tina watched as the goo dripped onto the floor of this dark room, Tina decided to be brave and touch this mysterious substance. Tina touched it softly and it gave her body a little tingle. After a while she was covered in this rainbow goo. [Bethany, R17]

He woke up lazily from his sleep. He went to the lounge five minutes later and went to the lounge to see the tv was colourful and the colours were dripping quickly. He went to get a ginormous bucket to clean up the super big mess. [Trinity, R16]

48 year old Sophia came from the giant rainbow TV and saw the most beautiful world in the universe that her eyes lit up with the colour of a rainbow. The rainbow  dripped lazily in a daze but the TV leaked on Sophia’s clothes and Sophia said “I don’t want to be here” and the TV put her back in the real world. [Dylan R16]

 

Here are some photos of The Pod in Action:

SLJ Taster – Superhero

Kia ora bloggers,

Have you ever thought about what would make a perfect or ultimate superhero?

Today the Year 5 students have been creating their own superheroes, using the Craiyon V3, an AI image generator. This is one of the fun Manaiakalani Summer Learning Journey taster activities.   Check out the Year 5 blogs to see our superheroes!

Here is the superhero Maxine from Room 16 created.

Have you registered for the SLJ? Here is the link https://summerlearningjourney.edublogs.org/

Blog you later!

Our Ako Hiko Film Festival Entries

Kia or Bloggers,

Every year Kauri Team students write, film and edit their own original movies. Here are the 6 we chose to share at the Ako Hiko Film Festival. The rest can be found on our individual learning blogs. Check them out! We are so amazed at all the incredible ideas students had!  You can see each student’s own edited film on their blog. So what are you waiting for? Go check them out!

From the Pod –

From the Den

From the Hive

Have you ever made a film?

The Den’s Maritime Museum Trip

The Den had a fantastic time at The Maritime Museum on Tuesday! The weather was perfect, and our sailing trips took us under the Auckland Harbour Bridge, where we saw bungee jumpers leaping off the bridge which added to our excitement.

At the museum we learnt about the migration of people throughout the world, and how Aotearoa was the last landmass to be populated.  People are still choosing to come to New Zealand to live, as it is such an amazing place.

Check out our day in pictures….

We also got to count down the cannon that is fired at the museum every day at 12noon.  The museum staff were VERY impressed when we did this in Te Reo Maori!

Can you count down backwards from ten in Te Reo?

The Hive’s trip to Maritime Museum

Kia ora bloggers

On Friday the 15th of September the Hive went to the Maritime Museum. Unfortunately, it was too windy to sail on the Ted Ashby, an old-fashioned sailing boat, but we still had a great time.
Here are the three top things we learned:

Number 1 – Sailing is hard work!

Number 2 – The Polynesians were incredible navigators!

Number 3: Class distinctions were very clear on the immigrant sailing ships that

arrived in New Zealand during the 1800’s.  If you were rich you would travel in style. You would have some space above the deck and better food.

If you were poorer, you would only have a bunk bed below deck which was dark and stuffy with little room to move. Often you had to share this with another member of your family. Food often went rotten and there wasn’t much fresh drinking water.

Would you have had the strength to travel like this to New Zealand in the 1800’s?

Blog you later!

Open Morning

Kia ora

Just a reminder that tomorrow morning (Tuesday 12 September) we are having an open morning at Ōwairaka School.

You are welcome to pop into your child/ren’s class any time from 8.30 – 10.00am to see what a typical learning morning is like.

We would love to see you, and I am sure your tamariki would love to share with you what they have been doing too.

See you tomorrow!

Pounamu Art in The Den

The Den have been learning about different pounamu shapes and meanings. They have also discovered that pounamu are a taonga (treasure) that is gifted to others.

The pounamu shapes and meanings we looked at were:

Each student learned about the different qualities each shape represented.  They were asked to think of a friend or whānau member, who might possess some or all of those traits.  That helped them decide which shape they would like to give them.

Which shape best describes you?

Dialogue Writing in the Hive

Kia ora bloggers,

This week in the Hive we have been learning how to write dialogue. We have learnt that there are two types of speech. Direct speech uses speech marks and indirect speech is when the author tells you (the audience) what the characters are saying.

Below is an example of the writing we created together in class.

Direct Speech

“Hello, Ian,” called Finlay.
“Helllllloooooo Finlay,” replied Ian.
Finlay shouted, “Get off the table, Ian!”
Ian cried back, “No I won’t!”.

Indirect speech

Finlay and Ian said hello to each other across the room. Finlay told Ian to get off the table but Ian replied no!

Direct Speech
“Say cheese,” the daughter told her dad. 
The daughter told her dad, “Say cheese.”

Indirect Speech
The daughter told her dad to say cheese as she took his picture.

Have you used either of these types of dialogue in your writing?

?Future Us?

Room 21 have been working on their portraits all term.

First, we brainstormed words that describe us. We used felts to write the words and watercolour paint to fill in the background.  Then, we traced around a photocopied image of our faces.  Next, we drew sunglasses and imagined a possible future reflected in them.  We also created a background for our portraits. We had to decide whether we would use warm colours or cool colours and then we created the backgrounds using acrylic paints.  Finally, we put all the pieces together.

What do you think?!

 

If you created an artwork like this, what kind of future would you draw in your glasses?

Get to Know You Ponder 8

Kia ora bloggers.

Did you know that the number 1 selling children’s book is The Little Prince (Le Petit Prince, written in 1943) by a French author called Antoine de Saint-Exupéry? It has sold over  140 million hard copies.

The second top-selling book is Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, by J. K. Rowling (1997), which has sold 120 million hard copies.

The Harry Potter series is one of my favourites but the most treasured book from my childhood is The BFG by Roald Dahl. Have you read this?

Please comment and let Kauri know your favourite books (that are appropriate for children). We are always looking for new books and authors to read.

Blog you later,

Jo