Art Days

On Thursday and Friday of last week we had an art adventure.

We started off the day finishing our sunflower painting. These were done using Indian ink and water colour paint. They were observational drawing based on the sunflowers we have grown in our class.

We read the book The Nickle Nackle Tree by Lynley Dodd, the same author as Hairy Maclary. We drew some of the birds from the book, painted them bright, bold colours, outlined them with vivid and carefully cut them out. We carefully glued them onto our giant tree that we made. We added the final details with vivid.

In the afternoon, a visiting art teacher came and took us on an art adventure, we couldn’t make a mistake. We had to divide the page into 9 squares. In the top left we did a scribble without taking the crayon off the page. The middle top we took or crayon for a walk, all the lines had to be straight. The top right was fill of spirals, we couldn’t lift the pencil off the page. The middle square had 4 lines which made a mountain and a river. On either side we extended the lines. On the bottom left and right we drew some sunflower leaves, and again we couldn’t take the crayon off the page. In the final square we had drew 2 koru.

In the top 3 squares we could only use blue and white paint. We had to mix them to make shades so you could see the pattern. It was really tricky but everyone did a great job.

For the middle 3 square we carried on doing the sky with the blue and white. For the hills we added in yellow paint, and had to mix our own greens, so we got a range of colours and showed textures with the colours.

The final 3 squares we did the background green and then coloured the objects with red and yellow paint.

We are really proud of what we came up with. It was cool how they looked really random to start with then they came together and looked awesome.

On Friday afternoon 6 room 13 people got to go and do an extra art session with Rei. These people were Kayla, Kimberley, Samantha, Jonathan, Te Ahu and Kairon. During this session they used sign maker vinyl to make Taradale inspired tiles. An interesting fact for the vinyl was, every square metre of it is worth $1000. They will be finishing these off next term.

It was a great art day and a bit J

Read-a-Thon dress up day!

Today was the dress up day for Read-a-Thon.  Don't we look amazing!

Taradale Intermediate Visit

Today the year 6’s walked over to visit Taradale Intermediate.

We meet in the hall with Greenmeadows School, here we were greeted by the Principal Mr Coxon, Ms Eddy the Deputy Principal, Mr English the lead teacher of technology and the school leaders.

In our 7 groups we went over to the technology classes and spent an hour doing an activity.

The seven classes were:

Cooking, hard materials, digital media, visual art, bio tech, sport challnege, sewing

 

In each class we created an example of the types of things made when doing that subject.

In cooking we made cakepops,

Hard materials we made acrylic shapes 

Digital Media made a reverse video clip (we will upload this when we get it)

Visual Art we used du kit to make small objects such as hamburger, pianos, sushi, icecreams etc. (These will be delivered to school when they have been dried)

Sport Challenge we played a new game based on a traditional Maori game.

Sewing we made scented stuffed strawberries

During Biotechnolgy we had to solve the murder mystery of Professor Felix, to do this we tested his drink to see if it was power aide or poison, it was poison!!! We had to test artificial urine and blood samples. We also made some sherbet.

 

We had morning tea in the playground and then did another class.    
At the end we all meet in the hall again, asked some questions. Humo did an amazing impromptu thank you to TIS – Awesome!
We then strolled back to school in time for lunch.

It was a great first introduction to intermediate. 

By the Room 13 year 6’s J

Andy Griffiths inspired Crazy Machine and Inventions.

Andy Griffiths inspired Crazy Machine and Inventions.

Over the last couple of weeks we have been using an awesome book to inspire us with our writing and get everyone enthusiastic about writing.  The book is called Once upon a SLIME – 45 fun ways to get writing…FAST! By Andy Griffiths.

We have been writing Bad Mummy and Daddy cartoons, writing crazy baking accident scenarios and matching character quotes to the different characters.

Today we read the chapter called Crazy Machines and Inventions. The book showed us heaps of examples of invention illustrations from Andy’s books (his illustrator is Terry Denton). Our mission was to design our own crazy inventions, either using his ideas or creating our own crazy ones. We had a massive range of ideas including, a superfast flying machine, a crazy helmet that puts ideas into your mind, a cloning machine that creates things out of thin air and DNA and a gun creator machine that lets you pick what is included.

Here are some of our crazy machines and inventions…

 

By Jonathan, Caleb, Isabelle and Nick.

Typing Skills

As a part of handwriting we have started doing typing skills. Mrs Colliss found this website for us to practice on. The aim is to have 0 errors and the fastest time possible.

http://www.learninggamesforkids.com/keyboarding_games.html

Some people are going to have a go at home so they can try and bet Mrs Colliss.

 

Ancient Egypt Day

 

Our Preparation for our Egyptian Day started earlier in the week when we made our Egyptian style collars and hats. We used cardboard and paint to create these. The reason we made them so people could use them as part of their costumes later in the week.

 

On Thursday most of us made some Egyptian Bread in class. We mixed the flour and salt, and then added the yeast and water mixture. We had to knead the dough and then form small disks out of the dough. We then left it to rise and Mrs Colliss took it home to bake. In class we also worked together to make some hummus.

 

While most of us were making the bread a small group were outside tending to the garden with Isabel’s mum. They planted some new winter plants and picked the rhubarb. They had a special helper, a cute, little white cat. 

 

Friday was the day we were all super excited about. DRESS UP DAY. Most people turned up to school looking very different, there were wigs, makeup and a whole heap of bandages.

We started in Room 13 were we begun making Scarab Armbands (we are finishing these next week). We also had our ancient feast, which included, dates, raisins, almonds, apples, plums, marshmallows plus the bread and hummus we made yesterday. We were lucky enough to have an extra treat. Isabel’s mum used the rhubarb that was picked yesterday to make a rhubarb and apple crumble along with custard. Yum!

The armbands Room 11 made with Mrs Colliss

After morning tea we went to Room 14 and completed activities with Mr Papuni based on the Egyptian Gods. Halfway through the middle block we went over to Room 11 and made clay Eye of Horus tiles. After lunch we went to school singing, then finished off the day with Mrs King doing Ancient Egypt games like tug-a-war and javelin.

It was an awesome day!

Cooking with Mrs Bevis

PART ONE

Five lucky people got to go down to the school kitchen to make a feast. Chloe cut the ham into cubes. Shohei cut the cauliflower. Jack cut the broccoli. Michael grated the cheese. Justis grated the carrots. They made macaroni cheese with cauliflower and broccoli. There was also a coleslaw. They had to clean up about 6 times during cooking. Shohei’s favourite part was pouring the pasta into boiling water. Chloe enjoyed cutting the ham and mixing the coleslaw together. Grating the cheese really fast was something that stood out for Jack. Justis enjoyed peeling and grating the carrots. Michael liked grating both the cheese and the carrots.

By Jack , Michael , Shohei , Chloe , Justis and Isabel M,     

PART TWO

Today we had the most fabulous lunch In room 13. We invited Mrs Bevis, Mr Lister and Cameron. We had macaroni and cheese with ham broccoli and cauliflower. We had a side dish of coleslaw and juice. we set the desks into two long tables and set all the plates cups and  cutlery. We had the best feast ever!!

By Ethan ,Tahlia , Humo ,Nick and Samantha.

Stu Duval Visit - Thursday 16 May & Friday 17 May

The brilliant Stu Duval visited Bledisloe School.

 

He drew one of his famous chalk pastel masterpieces, it took him only about 3 minutes to complete. The picture matched the story he was about to tell us. The told us an unpublished story called Wild the Wind.

 

The story was about a young boy named Angus who lived at Piha in the 1900’s. He was sent to WW1 with his 2 brothers in law, they were part of the ambush at Gallipoli. The 3 kiwi boys fought valiantly against the enemies.

There were a few teary eyes in the hall by the end of the story.

After the story we had a quiz and the first class that got 2 questions correct won the picture. We were so, so close to winning (Mrs Colliss was tempted to whisper an answer in Humo’s ear, but she didn’t want to be a cheat!) Room 14 now has it proudly in their room L  

Last night he did another performance for families in the school hall. He told one of his favourite stories, Pudding Pirates and drew another picture that went with the story. They held an auction for the picture and Jonathan almost won it, but was just outbid. In the end it was sold for $115.

Today we were lucky enough to again have time with Stu. He talked about how he writes his stories and showed us his writing scrapbooks where he keeps his ideas (they were amazing!) He gave us some writing tips such as, using the 5 senses in our writing, don’t repeat the same words, choosing the right path to create an interesting story.

One thing that stood out for a lot of us was creating a hook for the reader in the first sentence to catch their attention. He read some great examples from his books.

Some people were lucky enough to purchase one of his novels or reading books.

Mrs Colliss brought a book of short stories to read to the class. Stu even signed it for us.

 

Welcome back to term 2

Peppermint

Peppermint is our class mascot, he is a sock monkey Mrs Colliss made him while at her old school in Raumati. As a class we decided his gender is a boy and his favourite colour is purple. When our name gets pulled out of a container we get a choice to take him home or not.When he is with us we write a fiction or a non-fiction story about what we did with him, we can also take photos and add pictures. The aim is to be creative. Liam is the first person to take him home.  

By Tommy, Te Ahu, Liam, Kairon, Michael and Jack

Ancient Egypt

This term our topic study is Ancient Egypt. We have written what we know and what we want to know. We have collected lots of books about  Ancient Egypt that are displayed in our room. We have started doing our title pages in our topic books. We are looking forward to carrying on with our interesting study.

By Kimberley, Kayla, Isabel and Nikita  

Senet

Our topic this term is Ancient Egypt and a game they used to play was Senet. Everyone enjoyed the game from Pharaoh to farmers.

We decided to make our own game of Senet. We first made salt dough we added half a cup of salt and one cup of flour and we mixed it and added small amounts of water until we had a squishy piece of dough. We crafted pyramid type pieces and put our table number on the base. Mrs Colliss put the pieces in the oven for four hours. We are going to paint the pieces and make the board game. We are looking forward to play the games when it is done.

By Ethan, Humo, Caleb, Bryce.

 

 

Shared Reading Groups

On Monday the 6^th of May we stared to read horrible science books. There are 5 groups. Our groups are our desk groups.

The books are:

Vicious veg

Blood bones and body parts

Deadly Diseases

Angry animals

Fatal forces

One person reads and the rest follow along with the reader, using our own copy of the book. You have a choice whether you want to read to the group or not, some people like reading aloud and others prefer to listen.

By Pasa Justice Seth Sam Shohei and Nick

Our garden

Last term, we planted some sunflower, lettuce and silver beet seeds. Now this term our sunflowers are growing very tall, also the lettuce we planted in the garden is growing bigger and stronger there is also some cauliflower which is starting to open up so we can see the white cauliflower. The garden is really standing out and is being very successful. We are very proud of it.

By Shirley, Micayela, Anna, Samantha, Isabelle and Tahlia     

 

 

 

CBG Certificates!

Over the course of the term, people who are caught by the duty teacher using one of the 3R's (Respect, Resilience and Responsibility) in the playground are given a little slip called a CBG (Caught Being Good).
These slips are given to your teacher who records them down on a chart. When you get to 5 you get a special certificate in assembly. Then when you get 10 you get a special school badge.

In today’s assembly two special people in Room 13 got a certificate, they were Sam and Kimberley.
Well done us! J

By Sam and Kimberley.

Taradale Art

Taradale Art

Last week we did some art inspired our local community, Taradale. First we did a light sketch of our Pau. Then we did the background which was a river. Then we outlined it in vivid and coloured it using both twistables and coloured pencils. We used a photo we had taken our trip to remind us what it looked like.

Next we did a pencil drawing of the Taradale Clock Tower. We were going to go for a walk down there but this afternoon was the day it decided to rain, after weeks and weeks of no rain. We did a lot of detail but left them black and white.

Then the final step was Otatara Pa. We went to Otatara Pa the previous week and took lots of photos. We used these to draw the palisades in charcoal and did clouds and smudging a bit to add detail. Don’t they look amazing!

By Sam & Bryce

Otatara Pa

The whole senior school walked down to River Side Park where we visited the pou and ate lunch. Otatara Pa was where the Maori used to fight. Hoani our te reo, teacher took us on a guided walk around the pa. We saw the palisades, and kumara pits.  We learnt lots of information about the pa and Taradale on the way, such as Feint, which when Taraia made some of his mean go down to attack Otatara while his good men went in from the top and captured Hikurangi, the chief.

By Kimberley & Shirley

 

Our Pou / Tutaekuri river

On our walk to Otatara Pa we stopped to eat by our Pou. We learnt that the river Tutaekuri was named the Tutaekuri because a chief who spotted a group of people who looked thin and hungry. He slaughtered their dogs to make food for them to eat.  After they ate they threw the guts of the dogs into the river and from then on it was called Tutaekuri river. We learnt that Tutaekuri means dog guts in Maori.  We looked at the Pau and discovered that the blue and brown on the Pau meant water and land. We also found out that Teari’s mum painted the Pau.

By Isabelle, Humo and Kayla

Bryant House

Last week on Monday we went for a walk to Bryant House, retirement home, to interview them with our questions. We got partnered up with the residents of Bryant House. We asked them our questions some people got lots of answers and some people didn’t get as many. The reason we went was to try and learn more about people living in the Taradale community. When we got back to school we compared the answers to the questions, because we had answered the same questions.

Some examples of the questions and answers are…

Q. What has been your proudest moment and why?

A. Getting married because all of my family was with me.

Q. What changes have you noticed in the world?

A. There was no electricity, telephones and fridges, unlike now.

Near the door there was a box full of chocolate eggs, they have a competition where they have to count them and guess the number of eggs there are. The nearest person who guesses the number of eggs gets all of the eggs. We wished we could enter.  When we left we were given a cold drink of juice.

By Tommy and Pasa

Cotton Ball Catapults

On Monday for maths we made some catapults because we don’t swap on Mondays for maths because we want to work with our class mates and do problem solving together. We used Popsicle sticks, paper clips, rubber bands, plastic cutlery, sellotape and cotton balls. We did a test fire outside room 14 and then it was time to fire. 1^st place was Te-Ahu, Seth and Kairon 2^nd place was Caleb and Ethan and 3^rd was Tahlia, Chloe and Samantha.  On Tuesday we fired it inside we used the same catapult 1^st place was Nick and Justis 2^nd was Caleb and Ethan and 3^rd was Tahlia, Chloe and Samantha. Next week we are starting the focus on problem solving and will rotate around the 4 classes.

By Tommy, Isabel and Isabelle.

 

Lego Figures

After popular request, we created lego avatars like last years class did. Don't they look cool!

http://www.reasonablyclever.com/mini-mizers/classic-kid-safe-mini-mizer/

 

 

 

 

NZ ART

Over the last few weeks Room13 has been doing New Zealand seaside art, based on the artist, Sarah C.

Our Inspiration by New Zealand Artist  Sarah C.

 

 

We have been doing step by step instructions in pencil, then we went over that in vivid, making sure we rubbed out the guidelines. After that we painted each segment separately, waiting for each section to dry before we started the next part, this was so the colours didn’t mix.

Don’t they look amazing!

By Pasa, Humo and Anna