Thanks!

Kia ora koutou,

We just wanted to say thank you so much for all the lovely presents and kind words we received from the Karaka kids and families over the last few days.  We've had a great year and are so pleased you've all been a part of it!

Have a great holiday and we'll see most of you next year.

Observational drawing

We've been drawing what we can see. Check them out

Conscientious objectors

In literacy over the last few weeks we have been learning about WW1 and the students have written plays about conscientious objectors.  Check out the photos.

Batik

We were lucky to have members of the Indonesian community join us in Karaka.
They showed us how to the tjanting to drip wax onto the patterns we drew onto fabric. It was harder than it looked, especially since the wax solidified if you held it at the wrong angle.
If you did it too slowly then there were big blobs of molten wax on the fabric. We look forward to getting the fabrics back once they have been coloured for us.

Keizo & Aaron rocking it out for their inquiry into reducing electronics

If the captions on this video don't work please click on cc to make them pop up.

Taking Action - Presenting to the community

Yesterday lunchtime we had a number of parents come to visit us in Karaka. All the students presented their learning, research and a creative way to show their inquiry topic.
Examples of this were buying fair trade, reducing the discarding of electronics, more bike lanes,  reducing the bad products used in make up, stopping animal cruelty and not using animals for testing.

They were all very engaged in this process. It was a great motivator having an audience to view our learning and discuss some of the issues we had researched.

After lunch we also had a visit from our buddy classes so we could share this with them as well.

Link to making your own found poetry

We have begun to learn about the technique of Found Poetry.
Here is a link to a poetry resource that allows you to have a go online.
Check it out :-)

http://www.readwritethink.org/files/resources/interactives/Word_Mover/

Student experts as teachers

In maths this week we have begun to revisit our addition and subtraction strategies.
Students in the class have volunteered to teach others strategies they know to help them build on their maths knowledge. This will happen twice a week.
It was great to see the engagement of students and eagerness to take on the responsibilities of teacher and learner.

Freya and Tara's Inquiry Response

Check out the advert created by Tara and Freya using Wideo.

CLICK ON THIS LINK to view it.

Getting ready for inquiry sharing next week

Here are some sneak previews of what we have been working on.  Come and see the finished products next Thursday from 12.30 - 1pm

Visit from Stacey Gregg

Karaka was visited by author Stacey Gregg today.  She shared with us her writing process and told us about her new book "The Diamond Horse."

She shared three great tips with us:

1. Do your research.  Stacey travels all around the world to find out about the history of different places so she can include them in her books.

2. You must plan.  If you don't plan your work, you might not know where it's going, and so your story might go nowhere!

3. Get somebody else to have a look at your work, help you edit and give you suggestions.  Stacey said she sometimes rewrites her books ten times or more until she's happy with them!

She awarded Rosettes to Lola M, Lola F, Elliott and Immanuel for their awesome contributions during her talk!

Links to World War 1 Videos and Websites

MARK BRIGGS - Great War story (objector)

Conscientious Objectors of WW1 - BBC News

Animated Maps of the Western Front - BBC History

Illness and Injury - BBC Schools

Weapons and Technology - BBC Bitesize

⚽Sport report -futsal.⚽

15/9/2016

Today Karaka had a mini futsal tournament. Five students from Wellington East Girls coached and reffed for a bunch of teams from Karaka. I spoke to them and this is what they said “we like playing with you guys and it’s cool to see familiar faces (from the winter tournament).”

I also walked around and talked to the students and took lots of photos

Here are some of the stuff they told me

(ps sorry if what you said did not make it in the final edit!-lola)

Laura-rose said this ”The dodo doughnuts have shone skill it’s nice to see them working together no one is left out and every one has made this an extraordinary team!”

Aaron said his team was great (non-bands) and he is having fun and getting a lot of experience in futsal!

Cara said her coaches are amazing and she was have a heap of fun her team (ketchup) won 2 games and worked well together.

Anokha said it was all right she got hit but was ok her coaches were great her team (ligers) won 1 game but participated more in previous sessions.

Anikha said she had fun her coaches were nice/cool/friendly her team (lion tamers) won all of their games she thinks they did well.

Thank you for reading By Lola Mackie Karaka (ps I did take more photos!)

Sports report