Science Fun

Last Friday our class had a fabulous day taking part in some very fun science experiments. 

We discussed what we thought 'Science' was and what 'Scientists look like and decided that 'Scientists' are people who ask questions and want to know why things happen. We are all scientists.

With each experiment the class thought about the following questions:

• PREDICTION - What do you think will happen? 
• EXPLANATION - Can you talk about what is happening?
• CONCLUSION - WHY did it happen? 

The first experiment was called 'Magic Milk'. We needed; milk, food colouring and dish washing liquid. 

The students added milk, then drops of food colouring, then the fun began when they dipped their skewer in dishwashing liquid then into the milk. The reaction and responses were awesome especially from our little visitors from Te Pihi.

The second experiment was called 'Crawling Colour's. Hemi, Jacob, Larell and Edmon set this one for the class. We predicted how long it would take for the colours to start crawling. We were so surprised when it only took 30 mins for the colours to move! We predicted it would take 2 or more hours for the paper towels to absorb as much water as they could. Then they would be saturated!

Our last experiment was called 'Lava in a Cup' using oil, water, food colouring and salt. The class discussed why the oil would settle on top of the water and it was great to hear words like 'density' and 'lighter'. We all had a lot of fun creating the lava using the salt!

Check out our class site to find out more - Science on our Class Site.

Raranga Matihiko - Follow Up - Waitangi Visit

Our class is very lucky to have visited Waitangi and the Raranga Matihiko Classroom twice this term.

Our visit two weeks ago was an amazing experience for all the students as they encountered new technology learning that they had not seen before. We have been learning about Polynesian navigation and the teachers in the Raranga Matihiko classroom, Whaea Monika and Whaea Kristina, encouraged the students to put themselves into a voyaging world. They were challenged to sculp pou using Sculp GL that represented different forms of navigation i.e. tides, wind, birds. These were then printed on the 3D printer for the students to take it home. 

The students then created an object or thing that they might see in the voyaging world using Paint 3D. Lastly Whaea Kristina took a photo of each student and added their pou, Paint 3D object and their avatar into our own Virtual Reality Voyaging World.

Thank-you so much to Whaea Monika, Whaea Kristina and Whaea Kerry for giving us the opportunity to experience such a range of learning in the Raranga Matihiko classroom. We feel privileged to have been part of your classroom at Waitangi! 

We hope you enjoy our videos as much as we enjoyed making the items that are in them!

Beach Education Day - Ahipara - with Te Tinana and Te Putake

We had a fantastic day at Ahipara to learn about beach safety from the team at Surf Life Saving New Zealand. The education team taught us how to keep ourselves and our whanau safe at the beach. We were able to look around the Surf Life Saving Club and find out about the equipment that they use when they are on patrol. Then the best part was when we went down to the beach and did some fun activities in the water. Thank you to the Surf Life Saving team and all our whanau who came to support our learning on the day. Click on this link to look at more photos from the day (more photos will be added next week!)

Te Hiku Kura Film Festival Highlights

 The Te Hiku Kura Film Festival was a huge success. Our students had a great time taking part in the film making process. Our wonderful local film maker, Harley Alexander, has put a clip together of the highlights of the film festival. It is a fun reflection on the effort, creativity and talent  that was shown during the Te Hiku Film Festival!

Please click on this link to check out the photo album from the film festival too!

Te Whare Tui Camp 2020 - Coopers Beach

WOW ... what a spectacular 3 days we had on the Te Whare Tui Camp at Coopers Beach. The students in Te Tinana and Te Manga were amazing campers who took part in all activities with enthusiasm. 

The students on our camp were aged from 7-9 years old and they conducted themselves in such an awesome manner. Some of these students had never been away from home without their whanau. They each showed our Paparore School Values of Hiranga (Excellence), Rereketanga (Diversity), Ngakau (Integrity), Porihanga (Community and Partnership) and  Kaitiakitanga (Caring for the Environment) in everyway. 

The students took part in all the camp activities; giant water slide, confidence course, slippy hockey and kayaking. There was also good old camp activities like table tennis, trampolines, board games and court games plus we all got to spend our afternoons at Coopers Beach. The students were able to swim, build dams, sand castles, use the playground and chill out with each other.

Our school camps are such a pleasure to be part of and these would not happen without the support of our school whanau, staff and our BOT. We were so well supported on camp with a great group of parents and staff. Thank you so much to all of you for everything you all did.

A super special thank you to Mrs Davan and Hannah for being our 'Camp Chefs'. You both did such a great job running our camp kitchen with all the great help too! Also thank you to Sir and our BOT for paying the full costs for our camp as we were unable to fundraise. We all really appreciate this. 

To check out more photo's of our camp please click on this link

Waitangi - Raranga Matihiko

Our class had the opportunity to travel to Waitangi last week to take part in the Raranga Matihiko digital learning classroom and visit the Waitangi grounds and museum. This term we are learning about NZ history with a focus on traditional sailing and navigation methods used by early Polynesian voyagers and European Explorers.

We looked closely as the pou surrounding the waka, Ngātokimatawhaorua and did sketches. Whaea Kristina told us about Kupe and we saw his pou with a wheke (octopus). Ngātokimatawhaorua was built to mark the centenary of the Treaty of Waitangi’s signing in 1940 and was built by members of New Zealand’s northern and Waikato tribes. The waka is launched every year in February as part of Waitangi Day celebrations. 

The Waitangi Museum was an amazing learning experience with so many hands on experiences about NZ history. The students were so engaged with every part. In the classroom we had the chance to use the VR glasses (virtual reality), Tinkercad, Sculpt GL, Book Creator and Paint 3D. It was great to visit Waitangi where our learning really came to life. We look forward to visiting again in Week 5. 

Thank-you to Whaea Kerry, Whaea Monika and Whaea Kristina for a fabulous day of learning outside our classroom.

Te Hiku Film Festival 2020

 Te Hiku Manaiakalani Outreach 2 Film Festival 2020

Our theme for the movies this year was “Life in Lockdown” The movies have been played on the big screen at the Te Ahu Cinema in Kaitaia on Monday 19 October 2020. This is one of the lucky movies to be chosen from our school. Congratulations to Zana, Alani and Koda for the production of this movie.

Click on the link to view other Manaiakalani Film Festival movies. Please enjoy and feel free to leave a positive, thoughtful and helpful comment below for the students.

The following film was made by Te Manga for our Term 3 Class Assembly which was ironically cancelled because of Covid. It was not entered into the film festival but we really enjoyed making it. It's called the Lowdown of Lockdown.