Monday 2 December 2019

Hola! Conversations in Spanish!!

Morena Bloggers,

We have been learning spanish, it has been AMAZING. We have learned so much, here is a snippet of basic conversations between two characters.

I hope you like it.




Have you learned a language this year?

Monday 14 October 2019

*Example post* Last Term - New Goals

Kia ora Bloggers,

So here we are, 14 October and the start of the countdown to the end of the year.
I have worked hard already, and this term is no different.

My number knowledge is a big thing I am going to be working on, at home and at school. I am working on Brick 21, 22 and 23. This means I have to work on learning my division rules of 3 and 9s, also factors, primes and multiples.

A link to the work I will be doing to practise these skills are
Divisibility
Factors and multiples

I am going to do my best to work on the a couple of times a week. I go on my computer at least an hour a day, and so I am going to spend 10 minutes before I do anything, working on these skills. I am going to try to, anyway!

Do you have any specific goals this term?

See ya in a few weeks when I review these goals, and hopefully get some number knowledge Brocks signed off :o)


Tuesday 6 August 2019

Oranutan's habitats being destroyed for Palm Oil plantations


For writing this term we are looking at persuasive language. This is an animation to persuade
you that the orangutans need protecting. Their environment is being destroyed for the
production of Palm Oil We can stop this by not buying products, that contain Palm oil.

By Bella and Brooke

Tuesday 7 May 2019

Powerful People

Toroa spent term 1 looking at the impact that people have made to the world. We asked big questions suc as, 'If you are powerful do you have influence?', 'Can you have influence without having power?', 'How do people use their power?'

From this learning, and discussion, students were invited to choose not only who they wanted to research, but also what to create to show learning.
There were no limits to what the students could do as an exhibit.

Engaging the students in what they were interested in was a huge success, as the learned about who they were passionate about, and they created in a way they were interested in too. Engagement was high, and the outcomes were fantastic.

We had an Expo to show and share the hub's work. Here are some images of the work.



















Please leave any questions in the comments section. 

Thursday 4 April 2019

Survivor day 4


A fun filled day 4 of activities for Survivor!
Baseball maths, Atlas Challenges, Battle Ball, Afghan cooking! You name it, it's all go in Toroa!


Kahu Kiwi trying to master their spaghetti tower!

Korowai students channelling their inner Bob Ross!

welcome to the snake pit! Harakeke make a statement with their flag!

#FearTheBear! Kahu Kiwi runs strong with their spirit!

Whitau making quite the contraption.

Mr G running the atlas challenge! (Remember those...?)

Korowai thinking about eating their tower.... (Yum!)



Digging for gold! Trying to find M & M's through the cream! Hope you're not dairy intolerant! (don't worry they are not...)

Tristan testing out his  strength and balancing skills!

Ben's been hitting the weight room! 1st place for Harakeke!

Bring on the last day of survivor. Where we will see who will be crowned top house!

Tuesday 2 April 2019

Toroa Survivor2019 - Day 2 Pics!

Kia ora!

Today has seen Survivor continue into Day 2, with kids thrown right into a mixed bag of competitions, with little information to go on for what each challenge would involve.  Students had to choose between representing their house in the 'Buckets,' 'Losing Your Marbles,' 'Lava,' and 'Dress to Impress' challenges.

Here are some snaps of what teams came to discover the challenges entailed.



In 'Buckets,' teams played Bucket Ball, trying to eliminate the opposing houses' buckets by throwing their dodgeballs past the opposing team's keeper and into the bucket.



In 'Losing Your Marbles,' students had to build the most interesting and complex marble run that they could, given the paper plates, newspaper, and toilet rolls that they were supplied with.



In 'Lava,' students found themselves having to move their team from one end of the 'river' to the other, using only two small squares of carpet.



In 'Dress to Impress,' students had only newspaper and tape to channel their inner Coco Chanels and Calvin Kleins, creating the most eye-catching and fashionable dress for the catwalk.


Finally, a few students were identified as 'Masters' by their houses, and were tasked with re-creating Edvard Munch's 'The Scream.'  There were some beautiful pieces created from this that we will post at the end of the week.

The afternoon brought a frantic Cantamaths competition that had everyone desperate to prove their problem-solving prowess.  Scores will be averaged across the houses and tallied for the final scores, but there were some impressive runs from each house.  The placings will be quite tight.

That's all for today.  See you tomorrow for Day 3!




Monday 1 April 2019

Toroa Survivor 2019 - Day 1

Kia ora whanau,

Survivor 2019 kicked off with a great April Fools prank where we told the students that it had been postponed until next week...some believed it, others realised the date!

After this short delay we got into it with the groups creating flags and chants for their house. This showed some amazing leadership and it was great to see the students trying their best. The flags are still drying, but this will be proudly displayed during the week and will be part of our finale game on Friday.

Here are some snaps of Day 1.

 Korowai started with the blind minefield: using trust and communication. 

Each house get to do all of the activities, and those with the most points/best times, will will points for their houses. These are totalled up throughout the week. 


 Whitau started with the Spelling Bee




 Kahu Kiwi- Number slap, what's the best strategy to slap the numbers in order in the fastest time possible? Everyone has to be involved.



 

 Harakeke made a good start on the general knowledge quiz- categories including geography and travel, sport and leisure, entertainment and science and nature


Students had 90 minutes to design and make a flag, as well as come up with and learn a chant for the house. 









See you tomorrow for day 2!


Friday 22 March 2019

#theyareus

Aroha nui to all those who are suffering after the terrible attacks on the Mosques in Christchurch.
Here is Marshland School's tribute.

Monday 11 March 2019

Geometric thinking

Gillstrom/Davies (Gillies) numeracy group were given this problem. Students were asked to work through it with very little pre-teaching. 
We wanted to see how the students used prior knowledge, and also how they would be able to give reasons for their answers. We are trying to develop using mathematical language, and sharing ideas.


This is how we did...




We are looking forward to discussing why there were so many different answers!