The Blooming Piwakawaka Sunflower Competition maintains momentum.....

Since the beginning of Spring the children in the Piwakawaka class have been embarking on a wonderful Sunflower growing competition. Each child received sunflower seeds to plant and grow at home. Every week the children bring in their sunflower measurements, photos and graphs to share with the class and use for our Thursday Sunflower diary writing program. (see Photos below)

The children cannot stop talking about their sunflowers and they have really enjoyed learning new fun facts about them. Including learning about Heliotropism and how sunflowers have the ability to turn their heads toward the sun! With so much interest in the sunflowers we began exploring them further.

“I find comfort in contemplating the sunflowers.” – Vincent van Gogh.

Vincent Van Gogh's sunflower canvases proved extremely exciting for the children and they wanted to research these in more depth.

The children had the most wonderful time replicating Van Gogh's famous sunflower paintings and adding their own personal flare to their creation.

"Our Sunflower journey has been a wonderful ongoing investigation and a fantastic opportunity to talk about sustainability and how we can grow things from seed over and over just by putting in a little extra time and hard work. I am so proud of my inspirational creative gardeners- Keep up the great work Piwakawakas, I am so proud of you all." Mrs Kingstone

The students in Ruru have created their own art pieces based on the Northern and Southern lights. Students have learned what causes the Northern and Southern lights to occur. They are also known as Auroras. As a class, we investigated, and found out that scientists discovered that the sun gives off a bit of electricity, especially when there's lots of eruptions of hot gasses from its surface. These gases released by the Sun contain electricity. When some of this material escapes from the sun, and makes its way all the way to earth, it hits the top layers of the Earth's air, zapping it. That causes those layers of air to glow. The auroras are usually seen in the North Pole and South Pole and appear in a range of colours, making it appealing to the eye. We all loved looking at pictures of the auroras and were inspired to create our own!

The students learned new techniques on how to blend chalk pastels together, using either a toothbrush or their fingers. We discussed why we'd have a black background and not a bright blue sky, to make it realistic for nightime. We added snow to the mountains as there is snow in both the North Pole and South Pole. For those who added trees in their art, we discussed why we should use black and not green, to create a shadow effect for nightime. Stars were added and are not so obvious to see, which was deliberate, due to the aurora glow! I am so impressed with how well these art pieces have turned out!

"Keep up the good work Ruru"!!  Miss Clapham

Students in Kakariki are putting together a visual display for our topic of Fairy Tales & Stories - our learning intention is to use stencils, collage, and découpage to create a mural display of colourful leaves, of our favourite story books and of handmade Fairy Tale Pages, adorned with students' writing and illustrations. After brainstorming, our first steps have been to create an array of magically colourful leaves - decorated and cut out - and to craft a vast supply of "parchment", made from ordinary printer-paper, weathered with creasing and stained with tea! Our left-over parchment can then also used for lessons throughout the term, to show off our work in Handwriting, Creative Writing, and Visual Art.

We have budding entomologists in the Weka classroom who thoroughly enjoyed discovering and exploring the world of Minibeasts.

They loved learning about different minibeasts and classifying organisms into living and non-living things.  They found the lifecycle of the frog and butterfly very interesting and were intrigued to learn about the different stages in each lifecycle.  They were fascinated to learn how minibeasts can be harmful and useful and enjoyed working in groups to find out which category different minibeasts went in to.  Learning about how and why minibeasts camouflage and adapt to their environment was insightful and they created beautiful camouflage critters to represent the term of camouflage.

They were given the opportunity to prepare and present speeches.  Their speech was on an exciting trip into the jungle, and they were sharing a new species of insect with the class that no one had ever seen before.  We ended off the minibeast topic with a beautiful bug ball.

"I was extremely proud of the effort, excitement and enthusiasm that went into these speeches.  They were outstanding and I loved learning all about their findings.  Well done Weka’s!  I think you are the coolest entomologists in town!"  Tamlyn Leal

With an emphasis on Māori language Week and to make a connection with traditional mythical legends. The Year 4 Takahe class has embraced Māori mythology and researched the Taniwha. Large supernatural beings that live in deep pools in rivers, dark caves, or in the sea, especially in places with dangerous currents or deceptive breakers.
The children have depicted their Taniwha creations, using a range of coloured pastels, that have been blended to create and enhance a captivating graphic of the dwelling monster.
Susan Pohlen. 

Tui Class are proud to present the geometric designs they have created with paint on canvases.  Their designs were inspired by tukutuku panels which are a type of ornamental weaving used to adorn the inside walls of wharenui.  After researching different tukutuku patterns, the students chose their favourite one to replicate using masking tape on a canvas board.  They then selected a base paint colour and created three different shades.  Vertical stripes were then painted on the canvas using the different shades, and then the masking tape carefully removed.

As part of Kakapo's topic they are researching NZ early explorers. They have been learning about Captain Cook and his long journey to New Zealand. The life and challenges the crew aboard the Endeavour faced.
A small part taken form Jacob Parker's Writing:
"200 years ago, 1768, James Cook and botanist John Banks set sail on a mission to claim Southern countries. There were 94 people aboard the Endeavour. The food wasn't so great. They would have porridge, soup with meat and even a biscuit called Hard Tuck. On HMS Endeavour was a cat. There was also another type of cat that kept the crew in order. The terrible Catt of 9 Tails. If they disobeyed an order they would get 12 lashes on their bare backs."  Lana Ferencz 

Kea Class spent their first art lessons creating Painted Paper butterflies.  In Week 1, they made painted paper by loading several colours in similar tones onto their paintbrush and spreading the paint across the page.  The children enjoyed seeing the colours mixing as they painted.  In Week 2, they cut out wings using their favourite painted paper which they added to cut out paper bodies.  Next the children added antennae and googly eyes.  "Our butterflies are proudly displayed in Kea Class".  Nicola Frogley.

Term 3 topic is all about minibeasts and Pukeko children have created caterpillars out of recycled egg cartons.  They planted cress and mustard seeds and will now be waiting in anticipation in the days and weeks ahead to see their results.  Learning about caterpillars and healthy eating is a very positive message, Harold who visited us last term would be very proud of Pukeko's efforts.  "Watch this space".  Julie McClay.

Ngā mihi o Matariki, te tau hou Māori – Happy Matariki.
The Piwakawaka class were very busy celebrating Matariki last week and learning all about the nine stars of Matariki.
They started the week by writing their ‘Matariki Hopes and Wishes’ for the new year ahead. The children were very excited to create their heitiki’s with Mrs Smith from the Te Puna group. A Heitiki is a small, carved ornament, usually of greenstone, worn suspended from the neck. It is often incorrectly referred to as tiki. We created our heitiki using polymer clay that was then baked in the oven.
The children then used their hand eye co-ordination skills to learn how to plait and create their own pois. A poi is a traditional performance accessory that Maoris use for Kapa Haka and other various traditional performances. They used the poi’s to dance to their song ‘Tarwhirimatea’ and to farewell Mrs Cosford from their class and wish her well on her new journey.
They finished their week by creating their beautiful Kiwi pictures, based on the book ‘Little Kiwis Matariki’ by Nikki Slade Robinson. These are hanging proudly in Piwakawaka, if you would like to come and admire!
"We really had a wonderful week exploring Matariki and learning new and exciting facts about this wonderful special time of year.  Ma te Atua koe e manaaki."  Katie Kingstone and The Piwakawaka Tamariki.