Year 3 Snorkelling Challenge

Year 3 classes complete a snorkeling challenge at Reotahi Marine Reserve last week. Click here to read all about.

Room 13 Mini Challenges

Our concept this term has been Challenge. Mrs Wendt set us some fun mini challenge activities i.e. domino runs, juggling, sled skiing, balance board, string games, origami, computer activities(agent ani, questionaut), and elastics. We had to use skills such as persistence, resilience, risk taking, and problem solving to overcome the challenge.

Juggling Challenge

Lots of classes made their own juggling balls with balloons and rice. Making the juggling balls was the first challenge. The next challenge was to actually learn how to juggle. Some people have become expert jugglers. How did they manage to do this? The Habits of Mind of PERSISTENCE and RESILIENCE springs to mind. Our expert jugglers kept trying and didn't give up. These habits can be applied to any situation - school work, sport, learning a musical instrument or learning any new skill. Here is a link to Room 19's blog showing Finn D juggling.

http://debhstfrancis.blogspot.com/search/label/Challenge

Challenge!

Our term focus on challenge has started with a bang with lunchtime challenges and lots of exciting learning in the rooms as well.

At lunchtime today we had 40 minutes to complete a wearable arts challenge.
40 minutes to make an outfit out of only newspaper, rubber bands, string and cellotape.

Here are some photos of the day. : )

Sleeping Beauty - Our School Production

In Term 3, the whole Senior Syndicate was involved in our school production - Sleeping Beauty. Each class was responsible for one scene each which meant there were some tricky changeovers of actors for the key roles. With the direction of Ms Jan Fisher and a lot of hard work from the teachers and students a very professional show was put on for parents and friends. Click here for a link to Room 19's blog to see some photos of some children before the show went on.

Room 13 Maui Comic Strips

We looked at a Story Library book that had various Maui stories presented as comic strips. We decided to retell our favourite maui story as a comic strip. We created our comic strips first as a story board, then dropped our pictures into kidpix to colour them in. We then imported our kidpix pictures into comic life and added our text and speech bubbles. These are the comic strips that have been completed so far.

Room 13 Cultures

In Room 13 we made a comic life presentation about our Cultures. We got pictures from google images, we created a picture using kidpix, took a photo of ourselves, and wrote a greeting. Our images were about traditional food, symbols, activities, and what we are famous for. Each child's comic strip portrays their own culture.

We pray for the children of Christchurch.

A big part of our school culture is to care for others and help them where we can.

The children in Room 10 wanted to do something to let the children of Christchurch know that we are thinking of them after the recent earthquake.

We made slideshow of our prayers for them and sent it to their schools.

Here it is to share with you.

Art based on Maori Myths and Legends

Room 19 ART

This term our learning focus is CULTURE

We are learning how people keep their culture alive though traditions, beliefs, stories and the arts.

We have created these fabulous artworks after being inspired by the author and artist Warren Pohatu. In his book ‘ Maori Animal Myths” he retells legends from the past about the animals that were considered part of the ‘great family to which we all belong’.

Purpose:

To create an artwork based on a Maori animal myth.

To develop an understanding of traditional Maori culture through their myths and legends.

To use hot and cold colourways to create impact.

Process:

Read “Maori Animal Myths’ and examine Warren Pohatu’s art to use as a model.

Choose an animal and create a pencil sketch.

Section the background and fill with patterns and designs.

Both animal and background are made into a blackline drawing using vivid marker.

Use dye to colour drawing. If animal subject is coloured in hot colours the background patterning will be in cold colours to create contrast and impact.

The School Motto.

We developed a new school motto last year and have spent the first 3 terms of this year introducing it to the children and talking to them about what it looks like in action.

Room 10 have taken their own photos and used comic life to illustrate what they think following the school motto looks like.

Marae Experience

As one of our immersion experiences for our Culture learning concept we planned a marae experience for our children. During Weeks 1 -3 every class worked in their Whanau group to learn the protocols of being part of a Powhiri. We all practiced what to do as tangata whenua and manuhiri as well as learning prayers and songs in Te Reo Maori.

On Monday of Week 4 the whole school, in Whanau groups took turns as the tangata whenua and manuhiri on our 'school marae' (aka the Old School Hall). Each Whanau group had senior students that had learned the karanga and mihi. They did an excellent job, taking on their responsibilities with maturity and dignity.

When Whanau groups were not involved on the 'marae' they were split up into smaller groups to take part in Maori cultural activities such titi torea, weaving, art, string games and making putiputi. It was a fantastic experience for both the children and teachers.

ICT OPEN DAY

For the last three years we have been part of a Professional Development programme that focussed on developing our skills and knowledge around learning and teaching with ICT. Along with five other local schools we have worked hard to increase our personal and collective understanding of what it means to be 21st Century Learners - our children. As our contract nears its completion we decided to celebrate our new learning with our community. We held an ICT OPEN DAY on 20 August 2010 where parents and friends of the school were invited to come and look at what is happening in our classrooms across the whole school. The day was a huge success with approximately 75 people turning up in the pouring rain to see how our children are being taught, and are learning, through the integration of ICT tools.

Welcome to Our Learning Blog.

Welcome to the new learning blog for St. Francis Xavier Catholic School in Whangarei.

We are going to use this blog to share our concept based learning with you.