Buddy Class Artwork

On Friday we spent the afternoon working with our buddy class in Kowhai. They visited a colonial cottage during the week as part of their 125th celebrations inquiry. We decided to take the image of the cottage and teach them our indian inking technique. Kowhai students chalked the outline of the cottage and applied the 1st coat of paint to their pictures.

Next Friday we will add the 2nd coat and then the inking can begin. We are all looking forward to seeing how the final piece will turn out.

Puberty - Survivor styles

There was no reward challenge... or immunity at tribal council, but the race was on!

Students started off in their groups lined up at the edge of the netball court. One at a time they had to complete a circuit of the court to complete their task.

Station 1 - Diagram of the reproductive systems. Time to memorise and move on.

Station 2 - Find a label from either the male or female reproductive system.

Station 3 - Correctly place the label on the diagram using blu-tak and race back to your team to tag in the next competitor.

It was great to see everyone working as a team to talk tactics, racing back to recheck answers and support their group members.
Team work won on the day - the tribe has spoken!

Matai's Trip to Turnbull Library

Matai’s trip to Turnbull Library

On the 21st of October, Matai went on a trip to Turnbull Library. We met two teaching staff linked to Turnbull Library. Morgan and Anna were our education advisors.  When Matai got to Turnbull Library, we got taken into a room with four tables and three things on each table. Some of the objects on the tables were books, newspaper and music tapes. Then Matai was asked what was on the piles. We had to decide the things we would you keep and what you wouldn't keep if we were archivers at Turnbull Library.

Next  we went to a big touch screen table to search up things in the library. You could search up your ancestors. After that, we went to search on an iPad on a website called digitalnz. On that website, you could see documents and images for the history of New Zealand.

When we were finished with the iPads, Matai split into two groups. Group A and Group B. The two groups went separate ways.  Group A went upstairs and Group B stayed downstairs first. Group A was with Morgan and  Group B was with Anna. The students in Group A went with Morgan to a room past all the researchers to a table with a whole lot of old things from CQS that where in the library. Group B visited the World War 1 exhibition with Anna. At 11:45, the two educated groups swapped and Group A went downstairs and Group B went upstairs. At the end, Matai meet up and thanked the staff for helping us on our trip. 

       

By Seraphine, Matthew.F & Kelly

Turnbull Library WW1 exhibition visit

Turnbull Exhibition Of World War One         

On the 21st of October 2014 we went to the National Library. There was an art exhibition about world war one. We saw lots of diaries of the soldiers that had really annoying handwriting to read. Another thing that we saw was some sketches of old fashioned grenades that were really powerful. There was this pen and seal that was in a glass container that they had used to write down that world war one was finished.That pen and seal in the glass container was borrowed from parliament.  

We also saw a painting of the Gallipoli war they would dig holes into the sand bank and sleep in the holes with their legs sticking out. I forgot to tell you but when our class first walked into the exhibition there was a whole wall filled with words that the  soldiers had written in their diaries. They had heard the gun noises in world war one for example BOOM!, POW!, WOOSH!, CABOO! And PEE UUUUU CRACK! They also had drawings that they drew of guns and all sorts and bombs. It was sad though because there was a picture of a soldier that had lost one of his eyes and it was bleeding really bad. We thought it was fascinating but sad in the same way.      

By Holly & Jack and Siena

Link to World War One exhibition information:

http://natlib.govt.nz/visiting/wellington/a-contemporary-conversation

Link to World War One archives at Turnbull:

http://www.archives.govt.nz/world-war-one

Archived CQS images at Turnbull Library

During our visit to Turnbull library we were able to view a number of images that related to Clyde Quay School. Due to the age of these items we had to practice our 'gallery walking' as it was an eyes only experience! Thanks to Turnbull library and especially Morgan for organising these items.

Links to the items we viewed:
http://goo.gl/nzw4pI
http://goo.gl/QkaNl3
http://goo.gl/I9AKZX
http://goo.gl/fNeeFC
http://goo.gl/cUnUdH
http://goo.gl/f5vR46
http://goo.gl/GuR7Ac

How to make DigitalNZ sets for research online

It is all about the anecdote!

We were lucky enough to have another journalist visit us on Friday. Eric came along to talk about interviewing skills, questioning and using recording equipment. He brought a recorder and microphone along and we were able to practice conducting an interview by setting the correct levels, recording and then playing it back. There was a bit of cringing and laughter when we got to hear our own voices played back. A big thank you to Eric for spending the time with us and giving a crash course in operating the equipment. 

After hearing from two journalists (who have to interview people for a living) we have been able to cross reference the information they have given and build some class criteria for interviewing people for our oral histories. Matai have developed a range of big ideas that we would like to find out from the ex students who will be interviewed by us. The next step will be to practice using the equipment, build on our questioning skills and most importantly listen to what others are saying and let the conversation direct the way we question in the interview.

In the afternoon we went to our buddy class - Kowhai. We did a little buddy reading and began to teach them some of the things we had learnt about interviewing and questioning. We will continue this next week to help them get ready for their own interviews with parents and grandparents, as part of their term 4 inquiry.

Quality Children's Programming

In one of those strange conversations that occasionally pops up in Matai - we somehow got onto the topic of Woolly Valley. Here is a link to the tv series that is available on nzonscreen.com

http://www.nzonscreen.com/title/woolly-valley-1981

Also available on this web site is the link to all the Terry Teo episodes. We have all 3 books in the class library and they have almost been read till they are falling apart. Another quality piece of kiwi literature/entertainment!

http://www.nzonscreen.com/title/terry-and-the-gunrunners-1985/series

Hunting for the Gold

A local journalist came to visit Matai today. She gave us some handy tips on interviewing and questioning in preparation for our oral language interviews.
Here is the slideshow of images from the 1930s, 1960s and 1980s to look at the 'bigger picture' for these eras. This also helped us to think about how we conducted the interviews and thinking about the kinds of questions we could ask to get the most information without being too formal. On the final slide we have recorded some of her handy hints to help us on our way.

Visiting the tiles

During the card shuffle we found one photo of two students painting tiles.

The caption told us that they were a couple of the artists who painted tiles at the top of Elizabeth Street in Mt Victoria. So we decided to go and check them out as a number of us had walked past them but never actually LOOKED at them. With sunhats on we marched up the hill to look at the student's artwork from 1979.

History Card Shuffle

After exploring a couple of photos and looking at them in detail it was time to check out a few more.
We looked at a range of photos dating from 1908 till 1994 and recorded our observations and questions of them. After completing this task it was then time to begin the card shuffle. They had to match the correct photo to a specific time and a comment (from old Even Posts). This task ended up taking all day as we looked further into the history of the school and using our detective skills to make correct matches.

Then and Now

We have been looking at a number of old photos taken of Clyde Quay School. This has been a leaping pad to collect information for our inquiry into Clyde Quay and our 125th celebrations for next year. Starting from week 4 we will begin to record oral histories of present and past students and teachers. To begin the term we looked at a couple of  photos and learnt how to study a photo in depth. Here are the photos that we studied. After looking at them we decided to get out of the classroom and see if we could recreate the photos in 2014.

BUILDING THE SENIOR BLOCK OF CQS 1935

http://goo.gl/kkmLFS

CLYDE QUAY PLAYGROUND 1943

http://goo.gl/8XAvmY

Gymnastics 2014

Gymnastics has started again for 2014. It is great to have Abe back in the school and helping us to build on our skills from last year. Matai will have gymnastics every Tuesday and a gentle reminder for all students to wear appropriate clothes for jumping, stretching and flipping :-)

Art Exhibition

After completing 5 workshops we completed our own artwork in response to our views on Clyde Quay School. The class wrote a blurb to explain why they had created a piece and the meaning behind it.
There was a great whanau turn out to view the exhibition. If you missed the viewing here is a very speedy video!

Gallery Trip

In term 3 we visited the Wellington Gallery to view the exhibition by Seung Yul Oh as part of our art inquiry. Unlike other exhibitions, this allowed us to touch the exhibits for a full sensory experience. As part of the visit we also took part in a dance workshop.