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.

The students in Ruru have been learning how to use adjectives to accurately describe themselves. They then had to draw a self-portrait based on their description. Ruru students now know how to draw key parts of their face as well. We used a combination of pastels and paint for our art.
"I am proud of the effort each student put into their artwork and descriptive writing!"
Izzy Clapham

In Term 2, the students in Kakariki have been rocketed into learning all about the Solar System. They’ve had a number of learning experiences outside, charting the sun’s position from East to West across the sky by observing shadows - and by interacting with digital models of Planetary Orbit! Kakariki has explored the order and positions of the planets through some of their writing activities, and even a few songs.

Kakariki has also engaged with the Term’s Topic by creating some incredible pieces of mixed-material visual art - already they’ve made Night Sky Vignettes from paint and baking soda; Geometric Shape Aliens from glue and paper card; Astronauts from pastel on black paper; UFOs from paper plates; and coming soon, the class will be constructing a vibrant, colourful model of the Solar System from papier mache balloons!

Weka students have had a busy and exciting start to Term 2.  They have made the most of the beautiful sunshine by tracing their shadows to investigate the position of the sun.  Also they have been exploring measurement using non-standard and standard units of measurement to measure distance.

A special highlight to start off their term was creating their Mother's Day gift.  These were made with huge amounts of love just for their mums!

"We are looking forward very much to an awesome term of learning and growing together!"  Tamlyn Leal

Takahe have been learning about lines of symmetry in maths and positive and negative space in art.

They were able to cleverly combine the two. Through creating positive space (where the shape is) and negative space (where the shape is no longer) a line of symmetry is visible.

"The children enjoyed experimenting with these concepts and created some amazing designs."   June Ivamy

Tui class undertook an ambitious art project this term and after weeks of hard work, they have produced some spectacular self-portraits inspired by the work of Chuck Close.
This American artist's abstract and mosaic style is labelled 'photorealism' and it is a combination of both a photograph and a painting.  Close creates his portraits by enlarging a photograph onto a grid and then painting the squares with different colours and symbols.  In Tui class, they followed a similar method.  The students began by using the ipads to take a portrait photograph of each other, thinking carefully about size, proportion and lighting.  The pictures were printed out as A3 size and the portrait outlines were traced onto gridded paper.  They discussed selecting different hues of a colour to outline the squares of a specific shape in their portrait with felt pen.  The inside of the squares were then lightly shaded with the same hue using coloured pencil.  After brainstorming a variety of patterns that they could make using lines, patterns were added to randomly selected squares.

"I am incredibly proud of the student's efforts and I hope that you enjoy their art.  Can you identify who they are?" Julia Wise

Some of our Kiwi Hub students made this art based on the Winter Olympics.  They chose the opposite colours to cold as they wanted a warm feel to contrast with the sport.  The black icons were based on the actual ones used to represent the Winter Olympics.  Dye was used for the background and the colours were blended light to dark.