Eastern Zones Cross Country

Well done all who went to Eastern Zones XC today. You showed great perseverance and determination. 21 children attended the event and it’s exciting to have 3 of these children representing the Eastern Zone in the upcoming Interzone Cross Country. We congratulate Theo, Pyrenees and Ella Mac on their terrific accomplishment.

Social Positive Purpose Group

Positive Purpose Groups: We are brainstorming ways to contribute to others in the school community. Doing things for others is purposeful and meaningful and benefits our own psychological and physical health. Please chat with us at home to generate more ideas. We want this to be the term of action!

Please add ideas to our Padlet: 

Brain Growth and Struggle

We have been learning about brain growth and struggle. We know that we need to embrace struggle and accept challenges for our brain to grow.

We know how important mistakes are for our learning. We make mistake dances to celebrate!

Fulop: We focused on making our brains grow. The activity was to emphasise perseverance and to show how the brain learns. We started with a scrap piece of paper. We had to draw a perfect square in the middle, not on the edges. We did it. And that was when The Challenge began. We had cut out the WHOLE square in ONE straight line. Sure, first thought? Impossible. Utterly impossible. Well, no. I started to catch onto the way when Nicola announced that you can fold, and I immediately realised somehow folding had something to do with it. Later, I was still searching for the answer, and every way seemed to sort of change as I nearly accomplished it. In the end, I had to get help, but I kept on trying! For people who passed through “the Square”, there came, “The Oblong”... I tried that, but that was even more mind-boggling! But In the end, I managed square! When you learn something, new, delicate pathways will form, connecting two Neurons. If you keep learning it, and keep getting better at it, it will become a strong pathway, as if the brain paved it. It could also happen that when you learn about something that was an old pathway, it could strengthen. The last possibility is that two pathways you have already connect, forming a stronger pathway. The Brain is very interesting, Isn’t it?

Beatrix: It was really hard and I struggled a lot but I persevered and got it in the end. I tried it two times and it didn’t work but I tried again and I got it.

Charlotte: When you try something for the first time you will make a delicate pathway e.g. I was doing a math problem that was hard. But if you keep on trying and it will make a stronger pathway.

Hadley: It was an interesting feeling. I was annoyed at myself for not getting it but I was also growing my brain. It was quite complex to talk about.

Hunter: New pathways in your brain are delicate and easy to forget and break.but if you repeat and keep learning it the pathway will strengthen and strengthen so that it will be very hard to forget and break. The path ways can also connect with each other and join the learning together. The struggle was annoying and it made feel mad.

Olive: The struggle made me feel a bit panicked but when I calmed down I felt more confident. My brain is growing!

Sabine: I persevered by trying new ways if others didn’t work. I made a few mistakes but that’s ok because mistakes help your brain grow!

Yoichi: My brain grew because now I know what to do and what not to do.The struggle made me really frustrated and I started to think it was impossible. I persevered by not giving up, trying and then I DID IT!

Optimistic Human-Beans

In our Positive Education programme this term is based around Optimism! We started our work around this on Tuesday. We thought about the relationship between being Optimistic and using a Growth Mindset.

We made a loose connection between the seed and bean (so we could use the reference from the BFG... of course!) Naturally, we drew ourselves as beans. Creating a positive affirmation  for ourselves. We are looking forward to learning more in this space to help up to be more optimistic in our everyday life. 

Marble Run Fun!

In Māhutonga Matariki, we were inspired by the Weta Workshop's creative marble run competition. 

"Your mission is to take your marble on an EPIC journey through whatever your imagination and materials can conjure. When you’ve completed your structure, set your marble in motion and film the journey!"

We had to think like engineers and anticipate what the marble would do. We needed to practise our physics and geometry skills.

Nye and James were inspired by the prizes and wanted to turn Nicola into a dwarf or John into the 'creepy guy', Gollum, from the Lord of the Rings.

 

Nic and Mikayla's Whānau Group: Learning about Puanga

In Nic and Mikayla's Whānau group, we wrote collaborative poems to signify the importance of Punaga. We also created some star art! It was great to learn with other people across the school.

Here are some of the poems that we wrote:

Cupboard Spooks

During lockdown, We had a task of making a movie. We created one, by the name of Cupboard Spooks. It was, in a way, difficult to make, especially since visiting each other was banned. But what we did was that we cut the clips together to make it look like one house. We actually worked way over the deadline. We finished on about the week before the last week of school. We created the special effects. It was a really cool experience, and we want to make a sequel.