Surfs Up!

Our camp was supposed to be this week, but it had to be postponed due to the weather.  We had one activity that we couldn't change, so we continued with our planned surf day with O'Neill Surf Academy.

The Year 6 - 8 students headed out to one of our local beaches.  We set up at 90 Mile, Te- Oneroa-a-Tohe and were split into two groups.

One group swam and played beach games while the other group was surfing.  The surfing group had a lesson on the sand before getting into the water to put the theory into practice.  A lot of the children are surfers or have had a go before, which means they were able to support and encourage the children who haven't.  

The sun was out and it was a beautiful day.  Everyone had so much fun! We are looking forward to the rest of our camp activities next week!

I'd rather KNOT

One of our literacy contract tasks this week was to have a go at tying a variety of knots.  To do this Kakapo Kids had to read and follow instructions from an online tutorial.

They practiced:
Overhand knot
Half hitch
Sheet Bend 
Slip Knot
Square Knot
Figure 8
Half Knot
Noose

After the practical practice, Kakapo researched the purpose and practicalities of each knot.  They asked themselves "what situation is this knot best for?" and "in a survival situation what could I use if I have no rope?"
After their research, the children are sharing their findings through their choice of presentation.  Some have already started, they are using explanation writing, posters, animation... Keep an eye out on the Kakapo Kids individual blogs for how they chose to share their learning.

Never Eat Soggy Weetbix...

...is just one acronym we found for North, East, South, West.

Kakapo have been busy inquiring and NAVIGATING through their contracts, learning all about NAVIGATION😋. 


We:
👉Have read about what a compass is and how to use it
👉Have labelled 16 points on a compass
👉Created an orienteering challenge (around the school) for a buddy
👉Learned about the degrees of a compass
👉Mapped, used scales and found coordinates and bearings
👉Found definitions, acronyms, synonyms and parts of speech for navigational language such as horizon, navigate, longitude, latitude
👉Wrote an explanation on two ways to navigate if you did not have the use of a compass or technology  

❤️💛💚💙 COLOUR KAITAIA ❤️💛💚💙

Today our school participated in a 5km Colour Run.

This was a fundraising event organised by another school in Kaitaia and the aim was to 'colour Kaitaia with positivity' and 'promote healthy living'.

Our school whanau supported this event with enthusiasm! When we got to the showgrounds it was like arriving at a party, there was music blaring and people everywhere dancing and talking.  Everyone had nice clean white shirts on.  The crowd warmed up together, we had lots of fun doing the crazy dance moves and stretches.

Then we were off! 

The course took us through town, lots of people were out on the streets watching and supporting us.  At certain points on the course there were colour stations where the marshalls bombed the runners with coloured powder - you didnt want to have your mouth open when you ran through!! By the end of the course there were no white shirts - they looked tie-dyed instead! 

Everyone cheered everybody else on when they completed the course and went through the FINISH line. It was an awesome morning out and so cool to do an event like this with the whole community. 

How will Kakapo SURVIVE Term 4?

Our shared novel this term is CUZ by Liz Van Der Laarse.

Our learning will focus on themes within the book, primarily survival.

Kakapo will be learning skills such as the importance of water, equipment, problem solving, safe plants to eat, shelter building, first aid, knot tying, surviving without the use of technology, improvising and the mental/physical strength needed for stressful/dire situations.  Other topics we will learn about include NZ geography, mapping and co-ordinates, working collaboratively, respecting others and their perspectives and an author study.

I have a few activities planned for camp to put these skills to the test!

 ⛺💦💪🌳👀🔥

Have you read this book yet?

No, we're not playing sleeping lions!

We are practicing mindfulness! 

We try to do this at least three times a week, as a way to find quiet, reflect and refocus. As a class we get comfortable and listen to a program from Mrs Cutler's 'Smiling Mind' app.  Kakapo realised that in our busy lives it is hard to find quiet- we are often busy, rushing, learning, playing, talking, going to after school activities etc and the only times we are quiet is when we are in bed about to go sleep.  We decided this is not good enough!

Mindfulness helps us to take a moment to relax and think.  We use this time to think about what we are grateful for.  Mindfulness is a nice way to lead into prayer before we go out to lunch or go home. 

 

EXTRA! EXTRA! READ ALL ABOUT IT!!

Our contract work for the past two weeks have had a focus on current events and newspapers. We have looked at archives (linking to our NZ history inquiry), had a scavenger hunt to understand how newspapers work, STEM challenges, investigated how articles are structured and how headlines are used to hook the reader.  This week we are writing our own reports our local newspaper THE KAKAPO EDITION. 

This morning was our first attempt at writing an article. We know that a news article explains a real life event.  They present a lot of information but does not use a lot of words.  Articles are factual and informative and use plain language. 
We know that an article needs...

A Headline - This is the title.  It needs to be catchy and hook the reader without giving away too much information.

A Lead Paragraph - This is the first paragraph of the report.  It needs to include Who, What, Where and When.

Body of the article - This gives more detailed information.  Includes How, Why and ideally a "quote". This is also where the writer includes any additional information that the reader may need to know.

Byline - the name of the person who wrote the article. 

Bread and Butter in a Bag

Kakapo Class have been learning about local and NZ history.  We combined this inquiry learning with our chemistry focus buy making bread and butter from scratch.

We made both the bread and butter in ziplock bags.  We learned that yeast is a living microorganism that feeds on sugar and multiplies when it has food, warmth and water. As the yeast grows it creates a gas called carbon dioxide which is what makes the bread rise and go fluffy.  

With the butter we put cream in a bag and SHOOK for a long time.  The cream changed from white to yellow.  We put the buttermilk in a jug and put the butter in a bowl.

It tasted DELICIOUS!! 

Have you ever made bread or butter by hand?

  

Kakapo Art Gallery

KAKAPO ART GALLERY
Sandra Silberzweig Inspired Portraits
Kaitaia, 2018
Indian Ink & Chalk Pastel on wet strength cartridge
laminated for preservation

Bright, bold colour broken up with pattern and negative spaces.  Learning included (but not limited to) researching artist and her inspiration through literacy, investigating shape, pattern and lines through maths, delving into colour (primary, secondary, warm, cool & complimentary) and coping with temperamental indian ink and messy, smudgy, chalky pastels.

Kakapo 2018