Cultural Dress Day 2013

It was great to see so many students dress up in their cultural costumes. It is a proud moment to wear something that represents your life. Here is a short clip of the Year 5 and 6 students strutting their way down the red carpet!

Sustainability - Beautifying areas with portable gardens?

For Rich Task this term we will be continuing with the design process we have been exploring.

This term (through the idea of legacy and what we leave behind) we are creating/designing and building a portable garden, staying true to the theme of sustainability and reusing and recycling materials. This will also require us to use scientific procedure to understand more about the order of nature and use it to assist our attempts to recreate it.

Another part of our learning this term is the gardens and we will be hoping to plant, grow and harvest produce to sell at the farmers market on September the 13th.

It is a short term, so let’s hope for perfect growing conditions.

Portable? Beautiful? Get your thinking caps on Room 18!

Holidays!

With the holiday break almost here it's time for you to look forward to a well-earned break. 

Whether you are going somewhere or just planning on chilling out, post your ideas for your holiday break right here. Tell us all about it!

What are your holiday plans?

If you are going anywhere in particular, share a website link.  

What are you looking forward to doing?

Brian Falkner Visit - What if?

Today the Year 5 and 6 students were lucky enough to have a visit from world famous Kiwi author Brian Falkner. He told many inspiring stories about his work and shared with us some of the amazing books he has written. Check out his website for more information about his work and books here.

One of the ideas he gave us was that sometimes it's a struggle to come up with ideas for writing a story. He said we should try using the saying 'What if?'

For this post you can try the what if challenge. You should try to include A.5 different what ifs or B. link them together. Here is my example A. :

1. What if - I was given one million dollars and had to think of all the ways I would use it.
2. What if - I built a flying space suit and soared into space to discover new life forms.
3. What if - my dogs started talking to me in posh voices and were actually undercover scientists.
4. What if - we could control robotic machines with only our brains.
5. What if - everything were a dream.

Example B.:

1. What if - I walked into the classroom early one morning to find the desks were piled up to the ceiling.
2. What if - an army of ants had moved the desks and it had become their new kingdom.
3. What if - I decided to fight back with an android fly spray army and Room 18 became a war zone.
4. What if - the ant King asked for a truce and I agreed and I decided to become part of the ant kingdom and we began expanding all across Balmoral School.
5. What if - we succeeded and the ant King and I became the new rulers of New Zealand.

Now it's your turn! Please read other peoples work and make a comment about it.

Room 18 sure can dance!

Room 18 shared their amazing creative dance at the end of Term 1. This dance was created for our Rich Task  and aims to reflect New Zealand immigration, history and cultures. Check it out and leave a comment.

Philosophy Ideas - Imagine

In class at the moment we are having some interesting discussions based around the lyrics of John Lennon's song Imagine. We have analysed the lyrics and create a range of questions to generate in depth discussion around these.

Room 18 - for this post you are to respond in detail and with reasons to one of the following questions. You will also ensure that you are reading other peoples posts and respond to one of them as well.

QUESTIONS:

1. Can we all share our money?
2. Could we live without religion and live in peace?

Camp - Harlem Shake

Wow - what a great time we had at camp! Plenty of fun, risk taking and persisting at the wonderful Henderson Valley camp Carey Park.

As part of our camp concert some of the students, mostly from Room 18 came up with the idea to do their version of the Harlem Shake.

Find the link to the clip here.