Making the world a better place

Karaka kids have been exploring some of the products we use every day.  Where do they come from? What are they made from?

Unseasonal change workshop

See if you can spot your trees starting to grow on the Unseasonal Change facebook page.

Fair trade chocolate

During inquiry this term we have been finding out how we can make the world a better place. We have split Karaka into two groups to do a short inquiry into either deforestation or fair trade chocolate. The chocolate group have been investigating what the difference between fair trade chocolate production and non fair trade chocolate production is. Here are some photos of them investigating:

Here are some of the things we have learned so far:

Fair trade groweres are guaranteed a minimum price for their cacao. This makes sure that they get enough to cover their basic needs. (Jackson)

Fair trade chocolate has no palm oil (Lola F)

Fair trade chocolate ensures the farmers who work hard get the money they deserve (Kolya)

When you buy fair trade chocolate, you think that people farming the cacao are getting paid fairly, but when you buy regular chocolate you don’t know whether they are or not so buying fair trade might make you feel happier (Dylan)

At the end of the year if Trade Aid makes a profit, they give some of the profit back to the village where the chocolate came from to pay for health care and education.  (Sophie)

Year 5/6 netball

Today, the Year 5/6 netball players went to the ASB arena to compete in a netball competition. Everyone had fun and played extremely well and fairly. The Year 5's came second in their section. The Year 6's came 4th in their section. Our Year 8 refs were fantastic. And a big thanks to the parent helpers for driving and managing the teams. Thanks to Pauline for referring the Year 6 team.

It was an awesome day.

Year 6's taking a break

our awesome Year 8 refs

Year 5's post match

Matariki Inquiry sharing

On Friday we shared the work we did for inquiry with Ngaio.  They were so impressed!

Ball free days

We had some really interesting discussion about ball-free days in Karaka (days of the week where balls are not allowed in the playground.)  At the moment balls are banned in the playground at lunchtime and morning tea on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  This came about because of concern about the style of play that often dominates the turf is not necessarily how all children want to use our playground.  The playground at Clyde Quay is very small so it's important that we work out how we can ensure it is safe, fun and fair for everyone.  Through this trial process we hope that we'll be able to find some ways around these issues.

Here's what our Karaka kids had to say:

There were lots of suggestions for slight modifications to ball free days including:

• Slightly more or fewer ball free days
• Turf to be split into different zones (eg. ball zone and non ball zone)
• Top turf is non ball / chill out, Bottom block turf is for ball games

Some children believe that balls are the main source of fun at the school so we should always be allowed to play with them

Some children thought that the main issue was balls that are kicked.  So possible solutions are:  

• Get tough on head high kicks - only kicking below the waist - otherwise you are banned from the turf for a period of time.
• Days where you can use the balls but no kicking (ie. no soccer and no kicking in other sports)
• Another suggestion was that the turf could be a ball free area for two days a week, but balls are allowed in other parts of the playground.

A lot of children expressed discontent about how things were before ball free days, or support of ball free days:

• With no balls we’ve been able to use the astro turf more - for example playing running games or doing gymnastics or looking at the clouds
• Sometimes when children play and there’s balls around they get hit by balls.  This happens even when they're playing on the neptune and the tree house.
• Some children who don’t normally play soccer on the turf would like to have a chance to play without getting hit by bigger / more confident children’s balls or be involved in the roughness / competitiveness of their play.

Other suggestions not to do with ball free days were:

• More organised games - eg. from 12.40 there’s a game that goes for ten minutes
• More equipment into the playground so that there are more options for play
• More turf (eg. next to tree house) which can be used as a chill out zone

Pyjama and electronics day

In Karaka we have a marble jar.  Marbles are put in when people make good choices:

When the jar reachers the first and second line, the class gets a reward.  When we reached number 1, we had a mini disco in the last half hour of school.  When we reached number 2, we had a class game of battle ships.  Reaching number 3 is a much bigger deal.  We reached number three last week, and this week reaped the reward: a day of playing on electronics in our pyjamas.  We looked AMAZING!