September 12

Right Place, Right Time

We have been learning about being in the right place at the right time when we are online. To help us navigate to the right place we learned about how to create and personalise bookmarks. Then we made sure that our Bookmarks Bar was well-organised so that we can quickly find the online places that we need. 

To demonstrate our understanding of the use and importance of bookmarks, we created a poster using a blank Google Draw canvas. We had to create a poster, which included adding a link to text, adding a link to an image, and using word art. These were all new skills for us in Google Draw.

Here is a slidedeck of some of our finished posters.

Category: Ako | Learn, Hanga | Create, Tohatoha | Share | 2 Comments on Right Place, Right Time
September 6

Social Media

Last week we learned about four different social media platforms: Facebook, Instagram, Tik Tok, and Snapchat. We learned that sometimes what age the app suggests is appropriate to become a subscriber is quite different to what our parents or commonsense.org might think about this topic.

This lesson tied in with what we’ve been learning about our digital footprint and appropriate audiences for different types of information. We also learned that if we falsify our birthdate when signing up for an app then we lose the protection of the law if something goes wrong for us online.

Here is an example of the information we gathered.

Category: Ako | Learn, Hanga | Create, Tohatoha | Share | 1 Comment on Social Media
September 4

Kuaka hub post 5

I have uploaded some shots of kuaka hub students strengthening their taha tinana pou on this week’s blog post. This ties in with our ongoing focus on te whare tapa wha. These shots show our students being active during the school day with activities like boxing, production dance practice, P.E and fitness.  Awesome work team!  Strengthening your tinana pou often results in a healthy mind (hinengaro) and spirit (wairua) as well as your body!

Category: Hanga | Create | 3 Comments on Kuaka hub post 5
August 29

Kawa of Care

We have been learning about how to look after our chromebooks – the Kawa of Care. This is an important topic because our chromebooks are expensive and we want them to be useful for many years. To demonstrate our understanding of the Kawa of Care we created some comic strips using Google Draw.

This is our first time using Google Draw so we had to learn how to search for images on the internet using the Explore tool, and how to crop and resize our images. In Google Draw we learned how to insert a callout shape and how to use the align tool to center our text inside the callouts.

Here is a slidedeck of our comics. We hope you like them.

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August 29

Kuaka Hub post 4

It has been really busy over the last week in the Kuaka Hub.  We are learning a range of dance items for our upcoming production which will be performed in a few weeks.  Our students have been split into four groups and they have to learn the dance moves for their group’s dance item.  This has involved lots of training and listening and even some practice in their own time!  Some other upcoming focuses are our Kia Kaha anti-bullying program and our narrative writing sample, which we’ll begin next week.

Thanks, Mr Baker

Category: Hanga | Create | 2 Comments on Kuaka Hub post 4
August 22

Kuaka hub post 3

Greetings whanau

Week 4 has been just as busy as usual.  We have tried to get a bit active this week with the weather stopping us from going outside too often.  We had a go with our fitness routine in the hall and that proved to be really fun and a lot of effort went in! We also had a go with learning some of our upcoming dance routines for production this term.

Inside the classroom, we continued with our novel study focus.  All the students are making great progress and it is great to work with the groups and hear how they enjoy the stories. For writing, we have worked on the ‘show not tell’ concept for writing descriptively.  In maths time we’re continuing with our fraction work, learning to order fractions by size and engaging with equivalent fractions.  Another really useful focus for us has been our work on the te whare tapa what Hauora concept.  This idea supports wellbeing and is based on the four pou that holds up a whare – taha hinengaro, taha wairua, taha tinana, and taha whanau.  We’ll unpack this learning in more detail in upcoming posts.

Thanks, Khub

Category: Hanga | Create | 1 Comment on Kuaka hub post 3
August 16

What We Share

This week we learned about the positive and negative aspects of sharing information on the internet. Some of the positive things are that we can be connected and find out what our friends and family are doing. One of the negative things is that people can find out our personal information if we are not careful about our privacy settings.

We played this fun game called Mindful Mountain to practice our understanding of what can be shared publicly and what should be kept private.

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August 15

Kuaka Hub B class – 2nd post

This is our second blog post and wow, we’re already into week four this term! Over the past week, we have completed some great novel-study work during literacy time. My students are doing a great job managing their workload and ensuring all of their tasks are being completed within the correct timeframe. We used investigated descriptive language features as well. We identified what they were and how they add impact to narrative writing, and then we wrote our own.  Some of the examples we discussed were:

  • Similes: it was as cold as ice
  • Metaphor: the puddles were lakes
  • Personification: the clouds danced across the sky
  • Onomatopoeia: Boom! The lightning flashed in the sky
  • Idiom: ‘hold your horses!

The Kuaka Hub has also worked on some great ‘one-point perspective’ art over the last week. We learned to follow step-by-step instructions to add a ‘frame’ around a point in the middle of the page. By using this point to guide the rest of the additions to the room, the perspective looks as though you are looking into the room! Some of the other things we got up to were – Production Dancing in the hall and we checked out the cross-country track at Holben Reserve.

Thanks, Mr Baker

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August 5

Kuaka Hub B class blog post 1

Kia ora

Welcome to the first post from Kuaka Hub B!  The Kuaka Hub is a year 6-7-8 class from Foxton Beach.  Foxton is located near Palmerston North, in the Horowhenua.   We have a very vibrant and active hub and we enjoy working on art focuses and we have learned lots of ICT skills lately.

Recently we have been working on novel studies, using texts like Holes, Danny the Champion of the World, and The Giver.  We have also aimed to improve our personal fitness through activities like skipping and jump jam because we have the cross-country run in week 8 this term.

Hopefully, you have enjoyed our first blog post. Keep your eyes peeled for upcoming blog posts.

 

Thanks, Kuaka Hub!

 

Category: Hanga | Create | 4 Comments on Kuaka Hub B class blog post 1