Whakairo Art by Madeline

For art we have been designing and creating Whakairo: Maori carvings. Our first creation was individual. As you can see in the video.

1. Ruth talked us through making it.

2. We penciled it out.

3. Added korus.

4. Put in the hand of our whakairo, something that said 'us'. E.G Someone who likes soccer, they would put a soccer ball.

5. Then we outlined it with Black or brown pastel.

6. Finally we dyed our Whakairo red or brown.

Our second creation, is still at work. It is a Kowhaiwhai panel patten. Before we dye or paint it, we designed it in our design and art book. We then experimented to see if we would like to pastel, dye, water-colour or paint it. We did this by drawing our design, and then moved from table to table. Each table had either Paint, dye... Here are our Whakairo.

Watch our blog to see our finished Kowhaiwhai panels.

By Madeline

Cause for Celebration 5: Briar, Matt and Maia

Today we had a fabulous first assembly. This was because of the outstanding year 6's (and some teachers) running it. Matt and Maia were two of these people. As MCs they were flexible and they were good speakers, considering they were the first MCs of the year.
Briar won the first merit certificate of the year for displaying exemplary work habits. It's no surprise as she is a very hard working student. She's sure to be successful all her life due to her wonderful personality.
Anton, Jordan and Max were also very helpful as technicians so they need to be acknowledged. Assembly wouldn't have been assembly without these guys.

Room 11's Kowhaiwhai

This is Maxi and Langi explaining the process of making a digital Kowhaiwhai pattern.




This is room 11's Kowhaiwhai patterns.

Cause for Celebration 4: Willie's Tournament

On Friday me, mum, dad, my two brothers and my sister went to Rotorua because my brother and I went to represent the best all over NZ in touch. On our way to Rotorua we went to a lot of towns made out of all roofing iron. One hour later we arrived at the holiday home where we were living. Once we got to our house we had 2 bunk beds and 2 bedrooms. We also had a pool for everyone, a game room and a television room. When we played we had 4 draws and 2 losses. If we won at least 1 game we would have made it to the finals and maybe won the trophy for Auckland. On our way back we stopped for ice cream. We came home on monday at 2 .00pm

Willie in his touch uniform.

Our Class Pets by Mia V and Eva

In Room 11 we collect soft toys, all sorts of them but they have to be strictly animals only. All the animals have a name like Sam the dog. There's 14 animals but if you count the triplet bears as three there's 16 animals in total. In our class we get to look after a animal for the day if Ruth has seen us doing what we should be doing. Ruth calls the pets her furry friends. The one thing we do not have is a giraffe furry friend. If you did not know, Ruth loves giraffes. Our furry friends put smiles on faces. Our furry friends give us comfort for the day. All us kids love our furry pets.

Front row: Triplets, Harry, Alice, Soso, Floyd

2nd row: Pipi, Gorge, Poppy, Sam, Dudley, Garry

Back row: Bluey, Geoffosaurus

The Word Wizards Reading by Jordan

Today the Word Wizards got to choose a novel or book to read from a brand new colection of books from Scholastic called The Core Reading Library. Each book comes with a bookmark which gives you a selection of activities to do before, during and after reading the book.

The book I am reading is called UFO (Unavoidable Family Outing) by Dave Hackett. One of the before reading activities I had to do was 'Atlas' it said: Look up an Atlas and find out how far it is from Sydney to Cape York. Estimate how long it would take to drive there. I estimated it would be 1900 Kilometers from Sydney to Cape York and would take two and a half days to get there. Everyone in the Word Wizards got a different book and when we have finished the one we are reading we get to choose a new one.

I am excited about getting to choose my own book and that there are so many to choose from.

Cause for Celebration 3: Otto

In the holidays I went to Canberra, Australia to play futsal. We took two teams called Rio (the team I was in) and Sampa. Rio came 5th out of 8 teams but we were so close to getting into the quarter finals. I scored 5 goals. I played up 2 years this means I was playing with 11 year olds and I was only 9. Our goalkeeper got MVP (most valuable player) out of everyone there. We won two games and lost the rest. The wining team was called the New South Wales Lightening.

By Otto

Cause for Celebration 2: Mia M

Today Mia brought her violin to school and performed a piece of music called 'Bouree' by Handel. We were VERY impressed. She played with confidence and great flair. We couldn't believe she remembered the whole piece of music (it was quite long) off-by-heart. Impressive.

Then Mr Barker arrived with some visitors and so Mia played another piece of music called 'Humoresque' by Dvorak. It was also amazing.

Thanks for sharing Mia. You are a wonderful musician!

Cause for Celebration 1: Maia

This year we will posting about all the things we have to celebrate in Room 11. This means all the successes we have such as, examples of great work, acknowledging outstanding attitude, effort and persistence, and recognising children who are great role models and who demonstrate our school values. I am sure we will be posting a lot!!!

Our first 'Cause for Celebration' is this excerpt of Maia's writing. I am sure you will agree that this piece of writing is funny, smart and really quite clever. If you know Maia, you can probably imagine her reading it!

The Incredibly Preposterous Story of Dollinger the Giraffe

Dollinger the Giraffe was born on April 1st. In giraffe lore this meant that she was destined for great things, like bird spotting or playing the trumpet. Actually, it turned out that she liked neither of this things, but instead preferred writing poems about elephants' feet and designing ropes.

So altogether she was not what giraffes called a typical 'April Firsty'....

First Day of School 2012

Well, the first day school back at school was lots fun! We talked about how to build positive relationships and what should go on our class treaty. We did a bit of writing and practiced drawing koru patterns which will decorate the whakairo we design tomorrow. We also learnt a couple of new days called 'Noodle Rush' and 'Class Photo'. What a busy day!
I was really impressed with how respectful and responsible all the pupils in Room 11. They are going to be excellent role models for the younger children at Grey Lynn School. We are going to have a spectacular year!

We'll be seeing you soon...

Lady Bug Note Generators

Alyssa's Inquiry Project

Felix's Inquiry Project

Thomas's Inquiry Project

Tom and Jackson's Inquiry Project

Big question: What is a whale?
Supporting questions: How long is a whale? What colour is a whale? Where do whales live? What do they eat?

Big Idea: Relationships can be positive and negative. Some humans like to kill whales. Some humans try to save whales.