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.

Our Weka children were very excited to celebrate Her Majesty, The Queen's birthday by honouring her with a royal portrait.  Mrs Leal said that a lot of love went into creating their artwork and the pride they displayed was heartwarming.

The Library runs different challenges during lunchtimes in it's 'Makerspace' area.  These have included Leprechaun Traps, Pots of Gold, various Lego and Duplo Challenges.  They are voluntary STEM activities to enhance children's science based learning and creative thinking.

A recent one was our Balloon Lego Car Challenge where children designed their fastest possible Lego car, powered by a balloon.

Coming up are Space Challenges, Unicorn Challenges, Ocean Challenges and many more.

To start our new school year we decided to have a look at being a 'Mt Carmel kid'.  The Kea children went outside to have a look at the Mt Carmel Kid mural on the wall and discuss ways in which we can become Mt Carmel kids by setting goals, seeking challenges and solving problems. This sparked our interest in self-portraits and puppet creating, by declaring and displaying  the children's unique and own identity showing how strong, imaginative and self-confident they all are.

All the children have been learning about bees and the importance of them. Everyone has really enjoyed drawing, painting and describing bees and their habitats.

Kakapo class have been busy learning about Volcanoes. In groups they researched, constructed and painted their own paper mache volcano. They then presented this to other classes in the school and demonstrated an eruption using baking soda and vinegar.

During Term 3, Kakariki have been learning all about forces and simple machines.  This week, they put their learning into action as part of our technology unit (toy making).  They used their knowledge of friction and wheels and axles to design and make peg cars.  They did a fantastic job!   It was great to see them working together collaboratively and continually evaluating their designs to improve and perfect their cars!

This term we have learnt about simple machines.  We enjoyed exploring and discovering the term, “levers”. Using our prior knowledge on levers we built our very own Popsicle Sticks Catapults during our weekly STEM lesson. We used technology and engineering skills to build our catapults; we used Maths to determine the supplies we needed, and we used science to test how far the catapults flung the marbles.  The children really enjoyed this activity which further developed their critical thinking, problem solving and collaborative skills.

We asked for your 'Lockdown Learning' photos .. and you sent us some really great pics.  Here's a gallery of those received  so far.  Keep them coming!!