Kia Ora. Welcome to the Arataki Blog. We are Year 5 and 6 students in Rooms 20, 21 and 22 at Forrest Hill School. Our motto for the year is We Are One. We are a community of learners in a modern learning environment.
On a bright but damp Monday the 10th August, a brave Forrest Hill School Year 6 community, led the charge to Wairau Intermediate. I was striding along from the bus to the main gates, not knowing what to expect, but finally having a chance to compare between schools after an intense visit to Murrays Bay Intermediate last week.
After what seemed like a family reunion with my fellow friends who graduated last year onto Wairau, I found I was in Group 3 for the day. From a possible 5 activities, our schedule was Music, Food Tech and finally Hard tech. I had the feeling that Hard tech would be my favourite activity and I wasn't wrong!
Entering the hard tech room was like walking into an old style garage with 4 brown, paint splattered tables crowding the room. Each table housed a strange blue mechanism that I was yet to find out what it was used for. Despite that, the thing that intrigued me the most was the wall of what seemed like tools of every shape, size and colour. The wall never seemed to end!
Getting to work, I started creating a dog tag. I used the strange mechanism to hold my dog tag while I smoothed off the edges with a rasp, and found out it was called a vice grip. By using a hammer and a brad with a raised letter on the end, I indented my metal tag resulting in the message saying, "Soccer is everything" Myself being soccer mad, wow what a perfect message!
Thanks Mr Murray and Wairau Intermediate tech staff, I had an amazing eye opening visit. Looks like you will be seeing me next year!
Westlake Symphonic Band by Daniel Ottenhof - A personal recount
On August 5th, Forrest Hill School students quietly strode towards the hall. We were naturally quiet-ish as Mr Marwick has been working with us on our noise levels. Sometimes we can be rowdy. This was a bright day, despite the rain, well many thought that because in Arataki we were missing out on reading. But I am not the many and I myself am pretty musical; I loved hearing the jolly sounds of Westlake warming up. We arrived at the hall; sadly I didn't have time to peer for too long through the windows and look at my future. As I entered the hall my sight reached a milestone as I saw the massive symphonic band. It was a wonderful noise they were making tuning their instruments, with notes splattering out all over the place. The first piece had a stunning title, "The Temple of ..." sadly I didn't catch the rest of the name which made it all the more mystical. This piece was actually better than the name. The piece was definitely good! If you heard it on the radio you would think it was performed by professionals. The band also performed a few more pieces but none stood out as well for me as that first piece. The flutes were sparkling much more than the original silver ore they first came from. I had my eyes on all the flutes; they were far more shiny then my old spectacle of a flute. Finally I stopped staring, snapped out of my shiny flute dream as it was time to move on to be absolutely ready for the next outstanding performance.
WBSB by Katelyn Lyford
Today, WBSB came to Forrest Hill School. They played 3 songs for us: Temple, Spacewalk, Fire and September. My favourite was Fire. September was a jazz song from Earth, Wind and Fire; a band from the 70's. The band was full of different instruments like French Horn, Crash Cymbals, Flute, Saxophones, (Tenor / Alto / Baritone) Trumpet, Marimba, Gockenspiel, Oboe, Tuba, Hi-Hat, Triangle, Trombone, Drums, Timpani, Gong, Bass Drum, Xylophone, Clarinet, Shaker, Bass Clarinet and Euphonium. That's a lot of instruments all playing together! And 70 boys all reading music to keep in time together!
Now back to my favourite song - Fire! Why? This would be because of its deep then high pitch, with me imagining a fire burning. Spacewalk made me think of an astronaut in space just floating .. seriously floating! Temple was a song about a school in Hawaii living in the shadow of a huge volcano. The music was very loud and if you tried to imagine hula girls dancing, you would hear why it was a celebration ceremony song. September - JAZZ - it was fast then slow - different paces of music. Mrs Robson was grooving in her chair! I so enjoyed WBSB entertaining me for half an hour on a wet Wednesday morning!
Friday 7th August, Arataki said goodbye and good luck to Mrs Leggett. Baby Number 2 is due in two weeks. There was so much food at our shared lunch! Rumor was that Sophie and Ben are the favourite names so the two Sophie's and the two Ben's were the ones to give Mrs Leggett the card we made after we have sung Kaiako at assembly. (next post)
All
living things need water to stay alive, and plants are living things! Plants,
however, need much more water than many living things because plants use much
more water than most animals. Plants also contain more water than animals -
plants are about 90% water. The amount of water a plant needs depends on the
type of plant, how much light the plant gets, and how old the plant is. When
plants are not watered properly they wilt. This is because of something called
turgor, which is water pressure inside the cells that make up the plant's
skeleton. Water enters a plant through its stem and travels up to its leaves.
When a plant is properly hydrated, there is enough water pressure to make the
leaves strong and sturdy; when a plant doesn't get enough water, the pressure
inside the stems and leaves drops and they wilt. Our Proof ....
We have started Term 3! Our Science context is Plants and Growing. Week 1 we have planted the Grass Head Men. Watch this space over the next few weeks for the progress.
When we do an Inquiry, an important step is an outcome.
Room 18 found a Cooks Petrel on the courts outside their room early in Term 2. This began a very interesting Inquiry for them into this bird. Sylvia, the Bird Rescue lady looked after the Cooks Petrel until it was well enough to be released. Mrs Spray then organised for Sylvia to visit Room 18 and tell them all about the work she does.
Room 18 started collecting donations of blankets, pillow cases, and towels from the school as these items Sylvia needs when she looks after the birds. They also decided on a Mufti Day with a Onesie theme! the Gold Coin donations were given to Sylvia to help her in the work she does.
Its always good to try a new activity - and some of us discovered we are very good at Table Tennis! Session One was interesting as we found the little white ball not always easy to keep on the bat. The grip we had sorted by the end of the first session; most of us found the regular grip the best. Only a few use the Chinese Pen Grip. Beat the Champion was a favourite game. Sebastian, Daniel, Gordon and Jessica were our weekly champions.
We were very impressed to have Des Hunt at our school. It was so cool that he showed us his history as a writer and how he had become a famous book writer. He said part of trying to have a book published were rejection letters. Dr Seuss and J K Rowlings received rejection letters for their work just like he did for his first book. Don't give up. Think about the audience you are writing for and keep making your writing better.
Des Hunt was a science teacher. He uses science through all his books. He did science experiments for us. They were really cool. Science is awesome!
To show us how to write a story that keeps the reader interested right through to the end, he started with 2 broom sticks. He had connected these 2 broomsticks side by side together and had a magnet at one end. Des called the broomstick the book. He started with a big round magnet and gave it a little push along the broomstick track. It rolled a little way down and then stopped. The reader couldn't get into this story. Something was missing.
So he added a hook at the beginning and gave the ball another push and it rolled further and grabbed onto a magnet he had placed a little way down the track. The reader was hooked! The reader now wants to keep reading this story! Introduce the characters and the setting in the first part of the story in a way the reader just has to know more.
From here the reader wants to see the action happening so make the story build up through the problem then to a climax near the end. And that is what makes a great story!
Our favourite part was at the end where he had a huge build up to the main event. He told us about his machine he had invented that was radioactive. He put on all his safety equipment and warmed up the machine. It glowed and flashed and when he added heat it started to blow up a balloon. The balloon got bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger - this is all the suspense and excitement building up to what was going to happen. He added water and heat and loudness them BAM! The balloon was so big it finally burst with a huge pop! This was the climax to his story!
Newton and Alan were successful in gaining the most votes for the new design and layout of Rooms 20 and 21 to make change it into one learning space. The students in Rooms 20 and 21 were given the challenge of measuring tables, chairs, desks and classroom furniture, then by using a scale work out how to organise the 2 classroom spaces into 1 learning space. After all students had shared their designs, Newton and Alan's design has been put into place.
Room 21 and Room 22 have swapped classrooms! Room 21 is now in Room 22 and Room 22 is now in Room 21. Mrs Robson and Room 22 are going to be focusing on how to learn in a digital environment with their chrome books. Miss Phillips and Mrs Leggett and Rooms 20 and 21 are going to be looking at how to work within a modern learning environment - sharing a double classroom space and what this will look like. The door will stay open to Room 22. An exciting term ahead while we see what our challenges are and how we will manage them.
Thursday 14th May was moving day. With Miss Phillips and Group 3 out at their last session of Water Wise, the students did an awesome job of moving and setting up their new classroom space. The wall displays were taken down and put back up be the students and the desks arranged to fit the room. We kept safe by having a spotter behind when climbing any higher than standing on a chair.
