Practicing Peaceful Play! - Our Manaiakalani Film 2015

We hope you enjoyed the Film Festival as much as we did!  Here is Room 9's film.  Which aims to encourage our adults to show positive sideline behaviour.  When kids feel good, they play good!  Check it out and remember to leave a positive, thoughtful and helpful comment! 

Rocket Making - Our Big Reveal

Today Room 9 made straw rockets as part of our Big Reveal day for Inquiry.  We found out that this term, we will be exploring the topic of Earth and Beyond.

Through making straw rockets, we learned that the less air escaping, the more air pressure there was that would allow our 'rockets' to fly.  Some also found that shorter straws meant less space for the air to take to get to the paper and thought it made their rockets more powerful.  Some also found out that if they were too heavy from sellotape, they wouldn't fly as well.

We wonder how REAL rockets fly...We will find out as the term goes on!

(Sorry for low quality - still working out sharing systems between phone, google drive, youtube and blogger!)

Losana's First Scratch Game

Click the green flag to play the game that Losana coded using Scratch!

Timeus' First Scratch Game!

We have been studying Practicing Peaceful Play - this means in real life and when playing games in our online life.  We explore making games ourselves and showed Whanaungatanga by sharing our games with others.  Scratch was the tool we used and we found this challenging but FUN!  Here is Timeus' maze game.  Can you make it to his yellow stars?

The Kia Maia Whanau Fun Day!

This is a video of the Kia Maia Syndicate practicing peaceful play.  We gathered together in the hall and played some team building games.  We had a great time!  You could try out some of these games with your own classmates!

Capturing a Moment in Time - by Toma

It’s only mid-night but the freezing air beats me down. My team mates on the sideline are in a warm spot in their jackets but it feels like there are polar bears trying to stop me from getting to the try line.

I get 4 points from scoring.  Now I go to take the kick but my legs are freezing.

To me it feels like I'm in Antarctica, but I will be brave and go for the kick. When I step back and look at the ball and then the goalpost, in my brain I’m saying to myself “I will get this kick over.”

My heart is beating a million beats per hour.  My fans are screaming at me and they are saying, “Get it over! Get it over!” I look at the ball, then I look at the goalpost. I look at the ball, then I look at the goalpost. I look at the ball, then I look at the goalpost.

My fans are shouting at me like a monkey in a zoo. I get annoyed. Then I look at the ball then I look at the goal post one last time.  I try going with what my heart said and it said I will get it over. Then I step back and then I take a little jog, then…

How the Heilala Flower Came to Be

Tevita and Toma created this myth about the heilala flower.  One of the most precious flowers from Tonga.  Please watch and enjoy!

Marwa Shares her Feelings

We are learning different feelings in Te Reo Maori.  We had to show our feelings by taking selfies.  Here is Marwa's collection of feelings!  Kei te pehea koe?

Makin' Music!

Room 9 were learning how music can support a story.  We watched Peter and the Wolf, and talked about how the different sounds made us feel different things.  We then had another look at our own Maungarei Myth and the different characters and moods in the story.  After that, we were challenged to create our own music to suit our own story.

 Click on this link to listen to our story!

Calais and Toma's Maungarei Myth

Long long ago in 1915, there were six ANZAC soldiers called Tolly, Pompom, Coco, Tangaroa, Kauri and Gaza. They were looking for some German enemies and some pig to eat.

Then they found some German soldiers hiding between the dark trees.  One of the German soldiers aimed a gun to the youngest ANZAC person - his name was Tolly.  He said, “Don't shoot me!”  Then another German man came and said, “Here are some gold gems.  Do not drop them, or else.”

Tolly - the youngest one - grabbed the gems then as they were running the oldest German soldier was shooting the ANZAC soldier, Coco. Coco saw a plan in his mind and said, “Run there!” They were running to kill Tolly, because he stole the gems from the German man.  Then the german man said, “Go! Go! Go!” They ran as fast as they could Totally didn’t know that he was dropping the gems as he was running.

The oldest brother said, “Where are the gems?” Then the youngest brother said, “I panicked so much that I dropped them when we were running away from the German enemies.”

Suddenly, it was raining and the ground was shaking underneath them. It was the gold gems!  They were really magical gems!  Then the brothers thought that they can call it the six ANZAC brothers of Maungarei mountain.  

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/45/NLS_Haig_-_Troops_moving_up_at_eventide_-_men_of_a_Yorkshire_regiment_on_the_march.jpg

The Seven Brothers of Maungarei

Room 9 has been studying myths and legends.  As part of this study, we have been learning about Pourquoi stories - or 'Why' stories.  This is our class myth about why Maungarei (Mount Wellington) exists.  We used a story map and TOPS to help us organise our story.

Here is the final story!

Why the Owl Stares

Why the Flamingo is Pink

Why the Zebra has Stripes!

Why There Are Clouds

This is another Pourquoi Summary that we created.  Did you know Pourquoi means 'Why?' in French?  It is a story that explains why something is the way it is today.  It is like a myth or a legend.  Enjoy!

Pourquoi Story - Why the Flounder is Flat

This term we are learning about Myths and Legends.  We had to read an existing legend and then summarise it in our own words.  We then had to illustrate our sentences and finally, we put it together in this short film.  Enjoy!

Mary-Jane explains her stick pattern

This term we have been learning about algebra.  We have been trying to notice patterns and continue patterns using our number knowledge.  This is Mary-Jane, Marwa, and Cerenity's ice block stick pattern.  Mary-Jane created a Google Drawing to help show her thinking.

Kauri tells us about his Hero, Daniel

We were learning to take notes.  Did you know that when you take notes, you should try to use bullet points to organise your information?  These are Kauri's notes about his hero - his brother - Daniel.

Losana - Evaluating Heroes

Room 9 were using their critical thinking skills to learn that Heroism can be subjective.  Subjective means that it is based on your own personal beliefs.  We had to choose a hero, and evaluate whether or not they were heroes, and come up with our own personal opinion.  This is Losana's evaluation of the Hulk.  You can check it out by clicking here...

Kiwi Can - Praise and Compliments

Today in Kiwi Can we learned how to give compliments and how to accept compliments!  Compliments are sometimes also called giving praise.  Praise helps to build people up and make them feel good.  Giving praise means we are building positive relationships with others.  Our challenge is to give more praise to each other in Room 9.  Here are some photos from today!

Greater than, less than, equal to SYMBOLS!

Many of us have identified that to get to the next level in Algebra, we need to know and use the greater than, less than and equal to symbols correctly, so that is what we have been practicing!  We made number equations using our bodies to help us understand.  Check it out!

Welcome to Room 9 2015!

What an amazing start to 2015!  Today, Room 9 started their learning about the Key Competencies. These are important to us because they are skills that we can practice, that will help us with our learning.  We can remember the Key Competencies by thinking about the acronym 'TRUMP' (Thinking, Relating to Others, Understanding and using signs, symbols and texts, Managing Self and Participating and Contributing).

We created practiced our 'U' Key Competency by brainstorming and creating symbols to represent a given Key Competency out of modelling clay.  Check out our creations!

"The pink person is asking questions when they are not sure.  The red person is sitting up on the mat, ready to learn.  The blue person has their ears open to listen.  The yellow person feels proud that they have finished their work.  The white face is looking up and thinking about how to solve a problem." 

- Alethia, Toma and Timeus.

"This is a group of people that are connected because they are holding hands.  They are all shouting 'Yay!!' because they are happy that the lonely person joined in their team." - Frances, Mahara, Destiny and Ngatokorua.

"Symbols are all around us!  The heart represents feelings, the pen represents writing and creating symbols, the phone and tablet represent places you find symbols and the arrow represents directions.  There is a book with maths symbols because you use and see symbols a lot in maths too" 

-Marwa, Jose, and Cerenity. 

"The purple person is looking up while they are thinking.  The question mark represents asking questions.  The pink ball is a brain, because that's what we use to think!  The yellow person represents putting our hand up to share ideas.  The green book, you can see something scribbled out, because when we think, we think of ways to do it better and we recraft to make our work better." 

- Mary-Jane, Kauri and Dupri.

"These two people are connected and sharing knowledge, represented by the book in the middle.  The hearts represent that they are happy to make connections with each other." - Gary, Alone, Lizzy, and Kanye and Losana.