We are continuing to collect data from our local rock pools. In a recent trip we went exploring around the Seatoun Headland. It is a rich and varied environment and we found many species we hadn't seen before.
Who has seen a Brittle Star? Sea Cucumber? Baby Paua, zooming across the rocks? We have!
This is the Marine Metre Squared Project in action. We use the quadrant to set a boundary and then count and record everything within it. We need to identify the species as well. How many different kinds of limpet are there? Quite a few!
A small group of us ran there to be in time for low tide. After data collection and discovering what we could we then had to run back to school. We arrived back 3 minutes after 3:00! Everybody slept well that night.
Curious Marine Scientists in action.
And it was a perfect day!
Marlon made this movie about our visit to the Worser Bay rock pool
Our Learner Attribute focus this term is "I am Connected." Marlon and Tommy made a movie to see what we think being connected means to us...
Brindas School
Bonjour, how have you been doing sorry we have took so long to reply 😅
We are connected
We have been connected to nature when we were gardening and pulling out weeds in the garden and helping the plants. When the year 10s and Gabrielle came to help us. We were connected by being with the year 10s from Scots college.
Positive Purpose
We have positive purpose days on Thursday and Friday and an example of that is moving bark chips and sand for the juniors.
Letters
We have written some letters to you, Te Aro school and Zurich school.
The letters will be coming to your school in maybe term 3 or 4. We hope you reply.
Brindas School, We have been friends for so long now and we are happy to reply for the first time in 2023 and ‘merci’ so much for the video and see you later bye 😃😃😃
From Worser Bay School /The Star Gazers
Writing by Marcia and Ethan
We made this movie for our friends in Brindas School in France to say "bonjour."
We have also been connected to our teacher and friend, Jenny who lives in London now.
Otto: It was good to see Jenny today. We haven't seen her in so long. I wonder how it has been in London. We know that she has visited Porugal, The Netherlands and is going to Italy soon. I wonder how it has been in Britain. Is it similar to New Zealand?
Chloe: Kids at Jenny's school get told off if they take off their shoes. They need to wear uniforms. It was really nice to see her.
Fabian: It was good seeing Jenny. We sang to her. I wonder when she will come back to New Zealand to visit.
Rowan: Jenny, I want to let you know that yes, we are annoying John for you!
Gigi: I wonder what different food Jenny has had in the different countries that she has been to.
Zen: It was nice to speak to Jenny. We would love to hear her talk in a british accent and say something like "A bottle of water!" I hope we get to Zoom call again.
Jasper: It was nice meeting Jenny. I wonder what food she likes in England.
Amelia: It was really cool to see Jenny. We haven't seen her for 6 months. It was very exciting. I didn't want to leave the call as she has been one of my favourite teachers. I wonder what the kids are like at her school. I wonder if they behave themselves.
Soma: Jenny said that the coffee is not so good. New Zealand coffee is much better. She is drinking tea instead.
Amber: I really liked talking to Jenny, but I really miss her. I wonder if we can facetime again... I wonder what life is like in London.
On Thursday and Friday we enjoyed Positive Purpose days. A big thank you to the Scots College students who came to help out!
Within the model of positive education, positive purpose is defined as understanding, believing in and serving something greater than yourself and deliberately engaging in activities for the benefits of others.
This will help us:
- initiate contributing to others in the school community
- develop a sense of responsibility to the world and a commitment to helping others develop leadership
- organise and implement activities for other students
- develop agency with an increasing amount of self-direction
- develop communication skills
Some of us ran workshops across the school
Thank you for the movie, Tui
Some of us moved bark and sand to make the playground a better place
Thank you for making the movie, Tui!
Working Hard Movie
Thank you, Lexi
Tommy: We had positive purpose days and the first day we had to move bark and more bark but luckily we had some year 10s to help us move the lots and lots and lots of bark and now the playgrounds looks amazing. We also did very fun computer ICT jobs I would like more positive purpose days and I would like to have more time doing the computer ICT.
Marcia: This week was really fun because on Thursday and Friday we got to do gardening with John and the other year 5s. We went over the fence to pull the things off so the plants that we were growing had good sunlight.
Chloe: This week my plus was working with Beth for the zine committee on the Positive Purpose days. I liked lifting sand in to the sand pit also working on the whare at lunch and working with the Autahi kids. Positive Purpose days was really interesting.
Ethan Q: I enjoyed doing the workshop with the juniors and teaching them how to make the algebra puzzles. I enjoyed moving the bark chips and pulling stuff out in the garden. I enjoyed being in the ICT group it was fun posting different things on Seesaw.
Zen: This week I like doing paper airplanes for the little kids because they seemed to fly like one hundred meters in the sky and the little kids liked it. I liked doing Positive Education.
Soma: My weekly goal was using positive purpose by helping little kids with learning, participating in groups, challenging myself and focusing on my report to try to get it done. My favourite part of the week was when my brother came to school and helped us move the bark chips to the playground and sand to the sandpit.
Scarlett: I showed positive purpose by helping moving bark and I helped in the garden and I did work shops with people that I have never worked with before. When we were moving the bark chips it was very heavy but I got it done.
Locky: I was involved in positive purpose this week like building the whare. We picked up bark all the way for big kids. We finished it off in 2 days. We helped in the garden for a long time. We got really dirty but that makes it good. We’re putting in hard work I love putting hard work.
We were very proud of all of our students who went to Eastern Zones XC. They showed wonderful resilience and perseverance. A big congratulations to Charlotte who got into Interzones.
Eastern zones was very tiring. It is where year 5 and 4s run 2 laps of Scots College field against other schools in the same gender and year as us. Me and Soma were going at the same paste and we were sticking together. The order for Eastern zones was year 4 boys year 4 girls year 5 boys year 5 girls year 6 boys year 6 girls. For characters I dial up was zest, bravery. When worser bay school was waiting for their turn to run we were all saying Worser bay.
By Cara
Eastern Zone Cross Country was fun and hard because we needed to do three hole laps. It was very hard that may not seem that hard but the laps were long. Everyone ran so fast. It was very hard to keep up with everyone because everyone ran so fast I was very nervous at the start but it is kinda cool because before we started I was very nervous but when we started after about the first lap i started to get very very very very very very very very very tired but i tried hard and eventually got through it and came 44th.
By Tommy
The hooter went off. I shot like a bullet. I couldn't believe my eyes when I was coming first. I rounded the first corner trying to get a big lead as I went up the first hill, my legs were burning as I tried to keep the same paste. As I ran up the second hill I could hear people cheering go Worser Bay. I finished my first lap as a girl from Miramar north school came close to passing me. I speeded up as I could hear people cheering my name.. As I got down the first hill I had moved down to second and stayed there for the rest of lap but fell back into sixth and that's where I finished at the end of the race I thought I’m going to inter zones for my third year in the row.
It was great to get back to Akau Tangi for a day of sports. We used a Growth Mindset by trying new things and getting stuck in. Trying new sports is beneficial for our bodies and minds! When you learn new things, your brain grows. When you process a positive experience it enhances Positive Emotions too!
Thank you to Lext for putting this movie trailer together:
We have been working through Algebra Puzzles. We know that accepting challenges and sticking with a problem helps the brain to grow. We have been making our own puzzles!
We came up with a co-constructed success criteria:
Include 4 or 5 pictures The puzzle needs a good starting point Make the puzzle 4 or 5 lines It needs to include some numbers We need to remember to do the multiplication first
It needs to be simple and clear
We are producing quality work!
Bug Algebra by Kyran
Ocean Algebra by Violet
Why puzzles in Maths?
1. They develop Critical Thinking skills so that you can problem solve in different situations
2. It exercises the brain. Practising these types of puzzles helps the brain to make connections. It helps your brain get used to focusing on a single problem.
3. It will help you to be a more successful Mathematician. You will be able to apply logic to work out Maths problems successfully.
Sarah Flannery, at age of 16, won the Young Scientist of the Year award in Ireland.
This is Sarah talking about Maths and the role her parents played in her own amazing achievements. “My parents definitely let me see that mathematics was this beautiful subject. I think a lot of people never even hear those two words in the same sentence. So they gave that to me, and they gave me, through these different puzzles, where even I thought I couldn't start out on them, they showed me, no, you have lots of tools, and techniques, and ways to visualise, and get started, and you can do it.”
With the start of the new term, so starts a new Inquiry. Whilst we will continue to delve into Moana Mana throughout the year, it will bubble next to our new focus of Whakapapa, Identity, Origin and Culture.
The Big Questions that will drive our inquiry are:
Who we are?
Where we come from?
What makes us unique?
How does our culture influence us?
Who belongs within our Whānau?
We started with a 3 sessions unpacking the central themes within this unit in Philosophy 4 Children sessions. Here are some examples of what was discussed.
Where we come from?
What is culture?
From this point, we went a step further and tried to encapsulate our understanding of what we had been discussing and represent it in an artistic form. The results were really interesting certain images and ideas came to the fore. Names, Family, Interests, Gender Identity, Part of the Earth, Flags, Respect for Others were all common themes that the children used to
You can find some of the final products below, or come in and have a closer look in the classroom with your child.
We were all so proud of all of our students who ran the Worser Bay Cross Country. Lots of Perseverance, Resilience and Grit. Students set goals and experienced positive Accomplishment.
Rézi: The year fours jogged down onto the beach, eager to start the race. I was watching from on top of the grass. ‘Go!’ shouted John as they set off running at full speed. I started to cheer, as they had just run past me and their first place, ran through the funnel winning the race. My stomach suddenly burst into butterflies as John called us down to the beach to line up, and start the race. ‘Ready, set….. Go!’ shouted John as I quickly thought over my plan. I was going to try jog at the start, and when everybody would be tired, I could try to sprint to the end. It backfired though because at the start I actually realised it wouldn’t work cause everybody sprinted and I knew I would end up last if I tried my plan, so I tried sprinting as well. BAD IDEA. I was exhausted by the time I got halfway through the 2nd lap, and from there I felt blood or something like that in my mouth, and my heart felt like it was going to burst. I overtook my friend, but then she overtook me and thats how it went for a little while. We finally arrived at the funnel, and in the end my friend was in front of me and as I crossed the finish, I counted what place I came and I was sixth girl in year five!
Jack: I was on the starting line “321 go!” I was off! we had to run to the big rock at the end of the beach and around a cone then run to the sand dunes. up and over I went. I was so excited I was in first place. I went for loads of high fives as I was going past. I was still in first. I was at least 5 meters away from the finish. My friend was catching up but I kept the lead yay! I came in first place. Next was the year 5's after that was done, I went to congratulate the winner…
Archie: YAAAAY!!! That was the sound of the year 4’s finishing their race. Next up was the year 5’s…I went over to congratulate the winner. Then we had to wait for the other year 4's to finish. The year 5 race is to the big rock at the end of the beach, and then start going back. When you get to the halfway point, you go up a pathway in the dune, then across the grass, then you do the same thing again. “Can all the year 5’s come over here now?” yelled John. This was it. This was the moment I had been waiting for! “Okay” said John, “line up on the starting line! On your marks, Get set, GO! We were off! I was about fourth to last, but that was only because technically everyone was sprinting, well I was just setting a reasonably fast pace. We were nearly at the rock, (Jeffery). I sped around the cone next to Jeffrey in third place, (so far). Then we raced up the dunes, and sped across the grass. Then suddenly…We were on our second lap! We jogged down to Jeffery, and then I was in first place. We sped up the dune, (for the second time) raced across the grass (for the second time), then we were on the last stretch! Me and my friend were neck and neck, Then for the last 10 metres, gave it my best... I sprinted and won the race in first place!
Marcia: “Go!!!” John shouted. I ran as fast as I could then I paced myself, getting ready for the end…. Half way there I shout in my mind as I dodge the rocks racing towards me. I finally make it to Jeffry (The rock) then I run round the cone and turn back running closer and closer to the sand dunes. I get up the sand dunes onto the grass and down back on the sand. Yes! I’m on my 2nd lap but just as I get halfway, spit gets stuck in my throat I try to cough it out but I couldn't do it so I had to stop and walk the next few metres. I didn't get it out but I felt better. When I got back onto the grass, I knew I had to keep going then I made back onto the sand and once I did my friend sprinted and went all out. I did the same, but I did not go as fast as he did and then I made it to the end and I came 4TH GIRL IN YEAR 5!
Amelia: Cross country was really fun. On your marks, go! and we were off. "Come on Amelia, you can do it, run like the wind. Go Amelia." I said to myself "remember your goal. Go, go, go." I had just gone around the cone at the end of the beach. My friend passed me.
"Come on, you can do this. Go, go, go." Screamed Nicola. My friend passed me. I sank back to 3. Boom! I was in 2nd again. We were side by side. Everybody was rooting for us. I had just finished lap 1. In the end, I got second.
Mind Maps are a great way to organise our thinking, a tool for identifying and memorising connections and they show what we know about a subject. We have been using mind maps as a way to summarise and organise all of our learning for Moanamana. We have been impressed with the quality of the work, much of it done collaboratively.
It is interesting to see how knowledge can be constructed when we work together.
Mind map and artwork!
The next step is to make a mind map about a chosen subject and to use this as a tool for planning a report. Some of the topics we are exploring are, Human Impacts on the Intertidal Zone, The Life Cycle and Reproduction of Spotties, The Hermit Crab, Marine Reserves and many more. We are conducting research so that we can write using the 'voice of the expert' about our topic.
Last week a group of about 30 of us braved the wet weather and launched ourselves into the hills. The Orongorongo Valley has been a popular destination for Wellington trampers for years and we could see why. The tramp follows a pretty gentle incline for just over 6 kilometres into the river valley. A further 1.6 kilometres up the valley lies Turere Lodge our destination. The hut sits on a bluff above the river, a spectacular view of the surrounding hills, in this case cloud and mist covered.
Damp and Happy!
Torrential rain kept us indoors. According to the kids, some of the highlights of their overnight stay were:
"Playing boardgames". Maggie
"Playing games, sharing dinner, bonding and getting to know people" Nikita
"Playing in the river bed on the way back when I found that dead goat" Oscar
"Arriving at the hut, getting dry" Lucca
"The walk in, in the rain, it was so wet and soooo cool. I loved it!" Zen.
Crossing that bridge!
Our Learner Attribute for the term is 'I am Connected' and this tramp was all about that. I am connected to the environment and the natural world, te taiao, I am connected to my friends and their families, I am connected to our school community, te hapori, and I am connected to my feelings.
We have been ramping up our Cross Country training and working on our Positive Health. We are getting ready for our school event next Thursday. We have set training goals.
Regular exercise has lots of health benefits for ākonga, such as:
improving fitness
providing an opportunity build and enhance Positive Relationships
increasing concentration
improving learning focus
enhancing Positive Accomplishment
building a stronger heart, bones and healthier muscles
