Scooter Skills

We recently had a visit from a scooter instructor who took our class for some skill development and made sure that we knew how to use our scooters safely. 

We talked about the importance of wearing a helmet and how to wear it correctly. 

We also discussed how to use a scooter safely on a footpath (being aware of cars and driveways).

And we got out on our scooters to practise some skills (like stopping, weaving around cones, crouching and jumping).

Locarno, Nerys and Cole were our best jumpers

What Is Your Mindset?

As part of our Inquiry this term we have been looking at fixed mindset vs growth mindset. A fixed mindset is when you believe that things like our skills and talents are limited or fixed, whereas a growth mindset is when you believe that, through effort and practise, we can increase or grow in achievement. 

We have been looking at some things we might tell ourselves when things seem too difficult and then thinking about how we might change these into a more positive and hopeful statement.

We made some charts to show different fixed mindset statements we could make and how we could change them into growth mindset statements. Here are some of the results...see if you can use any to help develop your own growth mindset.

In the Beginning...

We have been looking at the myth about Ranginui and Papatuanuku in Maori culture recently from a story called 'In The Beginning'. The story says that their children were tired of being kept in the darkness of their embrace and separated them, creating the earth and the sky. 

We created our own versions of their children...

Tangaroa - guardian of the ocean (by Rosaline)

Rongo - god of peace and agriculture (by Ayana)

Tū - god of war and mankind (by Nijel)

Tanē - guardian of the forest (by Caleb)

Haumia - god of wild and uncultivated food (by Mahdi)

Cross Country

We had our annual cross country this week. Aside from the race, we had other activities to help promote health and fitness, such as skipping, an obstacle course and goal shooting with a football. 

Students made great efforts with their run and Masi from Haumia achieved 2nd place in the Year 4 Boys race...well done!

Cultural People

As part of our Inquiry and Visual Art this term we have been looking at different cultures around the world. Each class has been given two countries to create a painting of a boy and a girl dressed in typical or cultural clothing. 

Many are still underway in one of the empty classrooms and they are looking awesome...

Haumia has been given the responsibility to paint a Burmese boy and a Samoan girl. We worked hard to complete these during the week when the seniors were at camp. After some research into what clothing they could be wearing, we drew around a template, adding the shape of the clothing, painted in the base colours, then used masking tape and stencils to add colours and patterns on top. Every student in our class contributed to our paintings. Here are our finished products...

Burmese Boy

Samoan Girl

When they are all completed the plan is to have them cut out and attached to the fence alongside the playground.

Geometry

After discussing symmetry we brainstormed ideas about what kinds of things around us might be symmetrical, then we created our own symmetrical pictures by folding and tracing. 

Here are our finished products...

...pretty impressive!

The next step was to use these images to show how a surface can be covered by shapes using translation (sliding the image), reflection (flipping the image) and rotation (turning the image). We did this digitally, using scanned images of our pictures. 

These show TRANSLATION...

These show REFLECTION...

These show ROTATION...

Squash

We are learning to play squash for PE this term. We have a portable squash court set up in the hall and our squash instructor, Jude, has taught us about the lines on the court (the top line is the outer line, the bottom line is the tin line and the middle line is the serve line). We have been practising our serves and rallies. It's trickier than it looks! 

Here are a few photos...