Angles not Angels 😇

Today Kakapo have been busy learning about angles.

Acute = less that 90°

Obtuse = greater than 90° but less than 180°

Right angle = a 90°angle

Reflex = greater than 180° but less than 360°

We have been using protractors to measure angles and practice labelling. 

We went outside on an angle measuring hunt amazing ourselves at how many angles we could find.  Right angles were the most popular though

Must watch!!

 

Te Hiku Movie Festival 2020

Our theme for the movies this year was “Life in Lockdown” or creating a music video. The movies have been played on the big screen at the Te Ahu Cinema in Kaitaia on Monday 19 October 2020. This is one of the lucky movies to be chosen from our school. Congratulations to everyone involved in the production of this movie. Please click on the link to view other Te Hiku Film Festival movies. Please enjoy and feel free to leave a positive, thoughtful and helpful comment below for the students.

Pompallier decided to create a narrative to go in a music video.

🧠BRAIN BUILDING🧠

 In Kakapo class we have been learning all about the brain.  Today we got into groups.  Each group was given a different part of the brain to focus on.  Cerebrum, cerebellum, brain stem, amygdala and the temporal/occipital lobes.

Each group had to read through and choose the information that related to 'their' part of the brain.  After identifying this information the groups dicussed which information was important.  They conducted further research to answer any questions they had or anything that they may not have understood.

THEN... Mrs Cutler gave each group playdough. Each group had a different colour.  The task was to use the playdough to create their part of the brain into a 3D model.  For this each group had to collaborate further to check position, scale and to join them up to build our brain.

PCS Cross Country Day

 It is that time of year again!

Despite all the rain, the mud, the slips, the road closures the track on Mrs Cutlers farm was not muddy at all! While we missed the mud a little bit the weather was awesome and we had so much fun.

We are one of the few schools to still hold our own cross country races on a 'real' track.  Something we are very proud of 😁 We support each other, cheer on our whanau groups, encourage and celebrate in everyones personal successes.  There is always tuakana teina too when the littlest children in the school run.

Check out some of the pics from yesterday

Term 3 - The First Normal Term of 2020 😉

Term 3 already!
We are back and ready to carry on the great learning we had begun in Term 2.
This term we are lucky enough to have a student teacher, Mr Hobson, with us for the entire term.
Though this is our most normal term of the year so far, we have a very busy time ahead with speeches & cross country and lots of other tournaments
How is your term going so far?

CHANGE of plans 🌎

In Kakapo we have decided that its not good enough to just KNOW about the problems facing our world...WE NEED TO TAKE ACTION!

After reading one of the texts (Down the Drain) on our contracts this week our discussion turned to sustainable practices.  Small choices that we can make that could help the world overall. This led us to talk about the packaging we have in our lunchboxes and the products we buy in the supermarket.  By choosing products in glass bottles instead of plastic, compostable boxes instead of plastic wrappings and bags is a small step but one that could convince companies to make changes.

We talked about the local businesses we knew that used paper straws, cardboard takeaway containers or paper bags.  We are choosing to support those businesses over others that use a lot of plastic.

One example Mrs Cutler asked us about was McDonalds.  What did we notice about their packaging? McDonalds is a major company with restuarants all over the country and they dont use paper straws.  So what can we do about this?

We are investigating ways to promote the businesses using sustainable products and practices and encouraging other people to support these businesses as well.  We hope that this is a positive way to get other businesses to change their practices too.  We are writing persuasive letters to McDonalds main office in NZ to ask them to consider a change in their packaging.

This is a little different than some of the learning we had planned to do this week, but that happens! It is ok, we are leading our own learning.

WATCH THIS SPACE - KAKAPO IS TAKING ACTION!  MORE UPDATES TO COME!

In Class Mahi Tahi

Even though we are in Level 1 - we have decided not to engage in Mahi Tahi with the three senior classes for the entirity of the term.  So... this week Kakapo had a contract activity that was Mahi Tahi as we know it..but with only our class.

The task was to create a functioning water wheel using only a selection of resources and supplies - rubber bands, skewers, balloons, paper plates, paper cups, tape, hot glue, straws, egg cartons.

 

This task required all of the 4 Cs (Collaboration, Critical Thinking, Communication and Creativity).  The main communication came when groups were planning - there was a lot of discussion around everyone's understanding on what a water wheel was and its purpose.

Check out the video of one of our water wheel designs and see the individual blogs to find out how Kakapo Kids found this challenge. 

🌿 Rainforest Art 🌿

Lately, Kakapo have been looking at environmental sustainability and deforestation.  This led our inquiry to the rainforests of the world.  

From this, we looked at different rainforest plants.  Kakapo kids had to choose rainforest foliage to draw as their background.  We used crayon and dye. 

We learned:

• about foreground and background
• how to create depth and realism using colour (darker for objects further away and lighter for objects closer)
• layering for a 3D effect
• Adding detail and texture for realism

After our backgrounds were ready we researched birds that life in the rainforest.  Using the same learning, we created our birds adding detail with colour and texture.

We made our birds sit off the page to add realism and a three dimensional effect.

Our art is on display at the front of our class.  They are vivid and bright green against the navy walls - just how we think the rainforest would look. The photos don't do the art justice! Check out our individual blogs to read more about our integrated learning and see our art a bit closer 🌿

Figuratively speaking....

This week, Kakapo have been working on Figurative Language.

We have been doing a few different tasks focusing on our learning about metaphors, similes, personification, alliteration, onomatopoeia and idioms. 

Powerful Paragraphs 💥

In our literacy warm up's we have been looking at an image.  We use the photo to write a moment in time OR describe what we see.

We look carefully at the photo using our senses.  We look with our maths eyes.  We look with our imaginations.  We look at the small details.

We have ten minutes to write.  After we have written we have time to check back over our paragraph.  We share and discuss.  We share the figurative language we have heard.  As an audience could we imagine what was happening? Were we hooked? Did we want to know more...

We then have some time to rework our paragraphs.  We are trying to improve our paragraphs by checking for language features and organisation, spelling, punctuation. Do we have different sentence types to add interest?  

We share with a buddy and check again.  

Idioms 📕

In our contracts there has been a different idiom.  Without googling or asking someone we need to explain what we think the idiom means.  Our first idiom was "never judge a book by its cover"  

Poetry Bus Stop 🚌

We had five different poems spread around the room and a information chart of figurative language. We read the poem and discussed as a group what language features we found in the poem.  Then, Mrs Cutler would yell "BUS STOP" which means we moved to a different poem.  We could go to whatever poem we wanted to each time we moved.  This was a fun way of identifying language features.  

Check out our individual blogs to see some of our Powerful Paragraph examples! 

🦋🦋🦋

Last week when we arrived back at school, some students noticed that the swan plants had grown a lot over the lockdown.  They were healthy and big with caterpillars AND there were several chrysalis hanging in the plants and along the fence and classrooms.

We shared with the school to be careful and only look at them - no touching!

The following day, the same students watched a butterfly hatch.  They noticed another chrysalis was black and looking ready to hatch.  They set up an ipad to video the hatching.  The girls decided that a time lapse went too fast so they videoed with the idea of speeding up the footage and adding music once the butterfly had hatched.

The girls were SURE the butterfly would hatch soon..but when they checked every 15 minutes or so...still no butterfly! At lunchtime they ate next to the ipad to make sure nobody accidentally knocked the camera.  After lunch there was still no butterfly!

The end of the day arrived and all the children had to go home, luckily one of the girls is Mrs Cutler's daughter so she was able to stay and watch the camera and the butterfly because she did not have a bus to catch.

Finally the time came and the butterfly hatched!

The girls communicated all evening, sharing footage and deciding how they would edit, and what music they would add.

The next day the movie was sped up and shared with the school.  The girls also decided to take photos of all of the stages to share the butterfly life cycle with the junior classes.

The incidental learning that came from noticing chrysalis was huge! The school enjoyed watching the video, the junior classes especially.

Hanging Baskets

Today we finally got to pot up the hanging baskets that Mrs Cutler bought waaaaay before lockdown.  We used to have hanging baskets but the plants kept dying because we didnt have a proper watering system.  We tried really really hard to keep them alive!

This time the hanging baskets are different, they hold water a little better and we decided to put different plants in them.

We chose succulents because there are lots of different colours and shapes AND they don't need a lot of attention to live ... a bonus when we still haven't sorted a watering system.

We have learned about how succulents have 'pups', and how they can grow from a leaf!

We love to beautify our school and we cant wait for our succulent baskets to take off!

Emotion Wheel

This week one of our contract tasks was to think about what colours & patterns came to our mind when we thought of these emotions:

Excitement * Sadness * Happiness * Anger * Pride * Scared

We had to think of ways to represent what each of these emotions mean to us and translate that emotion into art.

The instructions were to only use colour, pattern, shapes and symbols to represent the feelings. No cartoons, faces or words.

This is what each member of our class came up with.  Have a look - can you guess which emotion is which?

Let's Reflect - tcelfeR s'teL

With the news that we will be returning to school next week I asked the Kakapo children to reflect on their time in lockdown.  These questions and answers will be added to their Lockdown diaries and time capsules.  

I asked them to think deeply about their answers, to answer fully and to also discuss with their whanau.  

This week is for reflection and next week is for moving forward with a new normal.

Update: The answers the Kakapo children gave me were AMAZING.  I am so proud to see how they were able to think about their time and acknowledge the changes they have seen in themselves (as people and learners), in the world and the environment.  

Concrete Mural

One of the tasks I assigned the Kakapo Class this week was to create a concrete mural.

This could be on their driveway, a footpath, the path to the clothes line...anywhere they had a patch of concrete.  If children had no concrete they were tasked with problem solving this.  What else could they use?

We looked at examples of murals and how they were different to a regular chalk drawing we might do.

I will update this post when more concrete mural creations are shared.  Check out the individual class blogs also!

Lest We Forget

This week, Kakapo's contract had a definite ANZAC theme.  Over the past few weeks we have been learning about war time and how that affected NZ and NZers.

Children got creative making their own poppies to put in their windows ready to Stand At Dawn on Saturday with the rest of NZ.  We had poppies created out of shells, cupcake holders, origami, drawn, 3D poppies... it was amazing!

To help discuss the long term effects of the lockdown on NZ I asked children to plan a holiday anywhere in NZ.  We discussed the importance of seeing our own country and putting money back into it also.  We wrote information reports about the place we wanted to visit in NZ.

We had an ANZAC video to watch with comprehension questions.  Time lines and decimals for maths.  Plus lots of little tasks to help around the house as well.

Kakapo are ready to stand at dawn tomorrow in remembrance and acknowledgement of ANZAC day.

Safe At Home

Covid-19.  Global.  Pandemic. Lockdown. 

We are not stuck and home, we are SAFE at home.

We are three days into the lockdown. 

Since we have been at home we had a few 'hangouts' to keep in touch and see how everyone was doing. Kakapo Kids completed the work that was set for them from this week before we knew schools would be shutting.  Mrs Cutler gave the kids a challenge on Thursday and then gave us task about Anne Frank yesterday.  

We learned about Anne Frank, this put a few things into perspective for us.  We compared Anne's situation with our own, read, answered comprehension questions, took a virtual tour through the annex reflected on our own questions. We talked about what we are grateful for and what changes will happen environmentally because of this.  We talked about this being a reset... what changes will we make after this?  What little things do we really appreciate now? How lucky are we that we are home with our family and safe. During the holidays Mrs Cutler has made  a task board for us if we get bored.

The Kakapo Kids are writing in a diary like Anne did, recording their thoughts, feelings and activities during this time.  They are also making a time capsule.  Because this is a huge event in history and they are a part of it.  

Our learning has always been accessible online but these challenges gave us a chance to practice some remote learning skills.  Skills like being a problem solver, an active learner and how to be proactive and manage our time, ourselves and our learning. We will need these after Easter when Term 2 starts back remotely!

Check out the individual blogs to see what the Kakapo Kids are up to during this Rahui. 

Float, Float, Float Your Boat ... ⛵

For Mahi Tahi last week Mrs Cutler gave out this challenge...

This task required all of the 4 Cs but especially Critical Thinking and Communication.

The time limit was a challenge but the boats that were created were amazing.

We looked at the successful designs and discussed why and how they were successful.  We did the same for the unsuccessful boats. Photos to come!

Mahi Tahi 2020

For those of you who are new to our blog, Mahi Tahi is where the three senior classes come together and work on a range of tasks. We chose the name Mahi Tahi because it means 'working as one'.  We used to meet twice a week, but this year we have two new teachers in the senior syndicate.  So while Mrs Cutler is the "Original", this year she is making sure we ease into the learning for everyone who is new to Mahi Tahi ... the teachers, new students and the year 5s.

Search our blog with 'mahi tahi' to see some of the awesome activities and learning we did in 2019.

During Mahi Tahi we learn about the four C's.  Collaboration, Communication, Critical Thinking and Creativity. The activities range from STEM to baking to art to school beautification to maths challenges.  Children are grouped randomly - we do aim to have one person from each year level in a group.

The aim is to instill 21st century skills in a way that every person gets to shine, take leadership, share ideas, follow leadership and practice the 4C's.  Now that you know what Mahi Tahi is - keep an eye out for some 2020 Mahi Tahi posts!

Kakapo Confessions

We read William Carlos Williams poem "This is Just to Say" about him admitting, and apologising for eating plums without asking. We discussed what it means to admit or confess something.

Kakapo kids brainstormed their confessions and ideas.

Using a similar format to Williams poem, children wrote their own poems.  We spent a lot of time re-working our writing to ensure we had interesting words that created a picture for the reader.  For example - rather than using 'yummy' to describe a chocolate, 'gooey' was used.

When it came to publishing our poems the criteria was to use a background image that related to their confession. The font had to be readable - so we had to think about the background picture.  Can the words be seen with a different colour, or was a bolder font or highlighting needed?

Children worked on a shared document to publish their poems.  There was a few challenges around this (such as accidental deletion of slides) but these were ironed out quickly luckily.

We really enjoyed reading each others poems.  We have given each other feedback and have reflected on things we may change if we did this task again.

You can read the poems by checking out the individual blogs.  We'd love to hear what you think so please leave a comment!

Fantastic Fonterra! 🥛

Today we had a visit from a Fonterra milk tanker. We learned all about how the tankers collect the milk from the farms and how they keep the milk cold on the journey. We heard about the sustainable practices that the Fonterra factories do. It was really cool to hear from the dairy farming families about cows and milk. Everyone got to have a close look at the tanker and the machine that monitors the milk. There were a lot of sore ears after everyone honked the horn!! Here is a picture of some of our students and the tanker.

Everyone was lucky enough to receive some yummy flavoured milk from Fonterra too. After the visit Kakapo kids had lots of questions about milk production, export and sustainable businesses. We continued with our own passion projects around these questions and presented them in different ways, sharing our learning with the class.

School Art History

Last year Mrs Cutler had a plan to beautify the face of some steps at our school. Every child in the school had to create a self portrait using only their house colours. Our whanau groups are inspired by saint - Aubert (red) Marcellin (yellow) Chanel (green) McAuley (blue).
The criteria for the portraits was to: 
Use only your house colour
Create a detailed picture of yourself 
Add your name 
Think about the background/foreground and how to manage the colour

                                 

This project was so fun, and as well as livening up the boring wooden steps this is a memory of the people who were in our school in 2019. Mrs Cutler is hoping to do this project each year - its almost like a time capsule! When you walk into our school you can see the colours and faces - we love it!

Welcome to Kakapo 2020!