Kowhai Hub Jump Off

We have been learning to skip. On Friday, all of Kowhai hub got together for a JUMP OFF !

We saw lots of determination and perseverance in learning to skip lots of different ways.

Harakeke

We have been learning about harakeke

We have been learning to weave and Cortney (Naomi's Mum) taught us how to make putiputi. We have been challenged but it has brought out the best in us. We supported each other, showed appreciation and were very determined. 

Weaving on PhotoPeach

1. Look on some of our individual blogs to find out how to weave.

A big thank you to Cortney and Miss Sampson for giving up their time to help us with our weaving. 

Reports

We have been learning to write reports.

We have read lots of different reports and looked at what is different between reports and stories. 

We created our own mixed up animals and wrote reports about them.

BEARFLY

A bearfly swarms through the sky just like a butterfly. They are wondercrump creatures. the bearfly has big red googly eyes. Also a bearfly has brown coloured ears. Inside the ears is pink fur. A bearfly has a jet black wet nose. The bearfly has wondercrump wings. the colour on the wings are sky blue, canary yellow and lime green. The colour of the skin is cocoa brownish gold. It has a pink furry belly with rough pink pieces of skin on the paws. A bearflys first favourite food is fruit. the second favourite is vegetables. It nibbles quickly on the food and swallows it down. A bearfly lives in a pitch black den that is spooky slimy and smelly. It lives with its babies. the enemy is a great white shark. Something about a bearfly is that it can fly fast. Another thing that is special to a bearfly is it can stay alive for millions of years. Have you seen a bearfly? 

Created and written by Emily

GORLION

A gorlion is an odd animal. it is part gorilla and part lion. 

Appearance and Movement

My animals body is gold and furry. My animal can run and jump to other trees.  A gorlion has a furry branch like tail and flappy flying fly swat at the bottom of the tail. He has cocoa eyes and white eyes too. 

Habitat

They live with their families in the forest. There home is far away from New Zealand it is overseas. 

Diet

The grolion munches up the stripy lemurs. He camouflages and goes and hides in the golden grass. When the lemurs get close the gorlion jumps out and catches the lemur with his sharp claws. 

Predators

The gorlions enemy is the giant cheetahs. The gorlion tries to hide from the giant cheetah. He climbs a big tree. There is lots of animals at their home so the cheetahs run away. 

Created and written by Damarco  

CATCRAB

A catcrab is a much more dangerous animal than any other crabs in the world. It has two sandy sharp nippers and eight bendy crab legs, poking out eyes and shiny wet claws and two sharp incisors for biting its prey. A cat crabs body is covered in thick ginger fur. It also has a stubby fluffy ginger tail.

Movement

It scuttles sideways and sneaks like a crab. A catcrab climbs a tree and it pounces .

Diet and Habitat

It gobbles fish, seeds, baby fish, bugs, food scraps and jelly meat. It lives in the sandy beach, rocks pools and underwater in the ocean. Catcrabs as pets like to sleep on the side of the bed. Catcrabs snap at noses and play with bugs.

Enemies

Sealions, killer whales and dogs like to hunt catcrabs. 

Unique Characteristics

Catcrabs purr like a cat.

There were thousands of catcrabs then humans killed hundreds to cook them in a restaurant to get thousands of dollars of cash then catcrabs were getting endangered. So there were only 10 catcrabs left in the world.

Created and Written By Sam

GUINPUS

A guinpus is half penguin and half octopus. they have a pointy beak and eight long tentacles with sticky suckers that stick to anything. It also has lumpy eyes and flippers for arms on the side. 

How does a Guinpus move? 

A guinpus moves by wiggling side to side and sways. A guinpus can also move by floating in the water and using his flipper to glide. 

Diet

A guinpus eats snapper and shark and sea snails. 

Habitat 

A guinpus lives in cold water that is really sparkly like a shiny castle. 

Enemies

A guipus' enemies is a grey shark and sperm whale and fishermen. Fishermen are an enemy because they catch the guinpus on purpose to eat. 

Unique Characteristics

A guinpus is special because they spread their ink all over enemies actually it kills their enemies. There is only one left in the world. It is endangered now and when that one dies it will be extinct.

Created and Wriiten by Pinenga

FISHCAT

A fish cat is extremely so so cute and very unique. A fishcat is half cat and half fish.

Appearance

The fishcat has shiny scales on most of her skinny body. She has long spiky whiskers and she has red and green striped fins. A catfish also has furry legs with soft small paws on the end, a wide mouth and small round lemon golden eyes. Her tail is pink and dotty.

Movement

The fishcat always like to cattypaddle through the sea. A fishcat opens and closes its mouth when it is eating fish and other seafood. 

Habitat

It lives in the deep sea with the swaying seaweed. 

Predators

A fishcat's predators is a whaleshark, sea sharks and octopus of course. An octopus can eat fishcats. The fishcats can swim faster before the octopus gobbles it all up because the tentacles are too short. 

Endangered

This amazing species is endangered. There  are four more left. If you catch one drop your fishing line we don't want to eat any. We can protect the fishcat by making a marine reserve where their predators can not get them.

Created and Written by Marcus

LIBUN

A libun has a big fluffy mane around her neck and a peachy coloured body and sharp claws to catch its feast. It also has a cute fluffy round cream coloured tail.

How does a libun move?

A libun sprints on two legs and bolts on four legs and hops on one leg. 

Diet

A libun catches fish with its sharp claws and a libun hunts people to eat. A libun gobbles its prey up. 

Habitat

A libun lives in a deep dark cave and a pitch black den with all sorts of insects and family.

Enemies

A libuns predators is a sea lion and dogs and cats. They creep up on a libun. To protect  themselves they hop into a hole. The predator scrapes the skin off it.

A libun is the fastest animal in the world and has a man around its neck even when it is a lioness. 

Created and Written by Gwen 

DOGISH

A dogish is half fish and half dog.

Appearance

It has enormous gross lips and fat scales. It has two fins on the side and three

fins at the back.The fins are special because each one is colourful.

Habitat

A dogish lives in a mammoth sea all the way at the bottom of the sea. It lives with a school of other dogish.

Diet

A dogish eats starfish and nemo fish, and sometimes when its really hungry it eats seaweed.

Predators

A Dogish predator is an ugly electric eel who tries to sting him. The dogish protects itself by using its strong tail to swim away and hit the eel on its face.

Endangered

A dogish is endangered because people have been going in the sea and wrecking their home. If you do want a dogish to survive STOP wrecking their home.

Created and Wriiten By Nevaeh

EAGSHARK

An Eagshark is an unique  animal. It is half Eagle and half Shark.

Appearance

An Eagshark has a large 3 meter tail that steers the Eagshark ,a yellow beak that is very sharp ,brown face feathers that keep its face warm. An Eagshark  has 15cm fins that helps it glide through the water and 1m pomamanya (dorsal fin).

Habitat

An Eagshark lives in a sea cave underwater. A Eagsharks sea cave is full of coral and sea kelp. It lives on its own.

Predator

A great white shark tears the Eagshark apart. The Eagshark protects itself by stopping like its frozen and then ...

4 boxes come out both sides and top and bottom. There is a speedy engine part on the back and a gun part on the front .

Diet

A Eagshark is an omnivore. It eats whale sharks and basking sharks because they are sluggish and easy to catch. They also eat coral and sea kelp.

Created and written by James

Our next challenge is to find information about a real animal and write a report.
Keep an eye on the blog for some of these reports over the next few weeks. 

Superhero Learning

The Superheroes of Room 1617 have worked so hard all term being wonderful managing self learners. Mrs Ramsay and Mrs H are so so proud of all you have achieved throughout the term. We celebrated our learning with ice cream spiders. YUM YUM!

Celebrating Our Learning on PhotoPeach

Have the most amazing holiday filled with happiness, fun and exciting memories. We look forward to next term and all the learning adventures we will have.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS EVERYONE

Thank you to Georgina for being the wonderful photographer.

Matariki

At Parkvale, we are celebrating Matariki. 

We were very lucky to have the Kahurangi NZ Maori Dance Theatre visit and perform for us. They were very funny and talented. The taught us about legends and told us some different ways we could celebrate Matariki.

We learnt that Kia Ora can mean hello, goodbye, be well and thank you. 

The Kahurangu Dance Company performed a legend that is special to the people of Hawke's Bay, Pania of the Reef.

Matariki from Kieren Moriarty on Vimeo.

The Rataka reading group read a book aboout Matariki.

Ashley and Sienna read the book to us all. They did a great job reading for the audience with clear voices and expression. 

During the performance we were taught a game called Paki. Paki means clap. Watch the video to find out how much fun it is. Who else could you teach to play?

Paki paki from sansam on Vimeo.

Kia Ora Kahurangi Dance Company, we love this game!

Learning at the Transfer Station and the Landfill

Our trip to the Transfer Station and the Landfill was really interesting and the adults and children learnt lots from our tour guide, Mrs Versey. 

We began our day at at Transfer Station. This is where we, or the rubbish truck, takes our rubbish and recycling. From here our rubbish and recycling is sorted. It is called the Transfer Station because our rubbish and recycling is transferred from here to its new home. 

Learning what is recyclable and
what isn't? In Hawkes Bay we can recycle
numbers 1-7.

We checked the recycling symbols on containers
and recycled some plastic containers

We watched rubbish being pushed
to a chute for the rubbish truck to
collect. 

Did you know...?

After that we were excited to wear high visibility vests to keep us safe on our way to the landfill. 

 

We saw what we thought was a big hill but it was actually a big hill of rubbish...our rubbish from the people of Hawke's Bay. 

It is hard to imagine this hill is filled with rubbish!

A huge pile of rubbish

We loved watching the compactor. Did you know it could squash
a bus into the size of a toy bus?

The landfill...it is filling up fast. 

Rubbish truck dumping the rubbish

Kamora-Lee reading the sign to find out more information

The leachate pond catches all the water that comes off the landfill.
The water in this pond is then changed from yucky water to cleaner water
so it can be used to water the grass and trees around the landfill.

We learnt that we need to change what we do with our waste 
so that all the hills in Hawke's Bay don't turn into hills of rubbish. 
Mrs Versey left us with a challenge;

Make our BIG rubbish piles SMALLER!



Keep watching our blog to see how we are making changes to what we do with our rubbish!

Discovery Learning

Discovery Learning on PhotoPeach

Perimeter

We are learning to calculate the perimeter of shapes. The perimeter is the distance around a shape.

This was our problem.

We worked in groups to create Gnome School.

Gwen and Keiarliya using equipment
to make a shape with a perimeter of 32cm

Mason and Georgina talking about the
best way to add the perimeter. 

Pinenga and Caitlin checking their addition

Jasmine adding

Some of the Gnome School's created

We were thinking about the easiest way to add the numbers together.
We looked for numbers that connected together like a jigsaw
-the numbers that make 10 eg. 6+4
-the numbers that make 20  eg. 13+7
-doubles we knew eg. 4+4 so we knew 40+40

Coopa, Maddie, Mason and Georgina worked together to create their Gnome School

Ashwin, Rain, Christina and Sadie's Gnome School

Caitlin, Pinenga, Joseph's Gnome School.  

The mathematicians problem-solved to create shapes with a given perimeter. We were so proud of how the superheroes of Room 1617 showed so much perseverance and team work to create their schools.  

Catching

Pinenga watching the ball high in the sky

We have been building our catching skills.

Gwen reaching up high for the ball

Sam watching the ball carefully

To help us catch we need to 

*Keep our eyes on the ball

*Move our feet to the ball

*Reach our hands out for the ball

*Catch the ball in our hands ONLY

*Bend our elbows to bring the ball in

Jack catching using only his hands

Janice is reaching out to meet the ball

Riley keeping his eyes on the ball

Sam bending his elbows to bring the ball in

Jack moving his feet to the ball

Mac using just his hands to catch

Fractions fraction fractions

We have been learning to find a set of a fraction. 

We had to make different shaped frog ponds and break the ponds into different fractions. We then needed to work out how many frogs or frogs eggs would be in each part of the pond.

Ashwin showing a different way to break his pond up in to quarters

Emily had 8 frogs found half of 8 then half of 4
1/4 of 8=2

Sadie has made a pentagon shaped pond and has 16 frogs eggs.
1/2 of 16=8

Dom sharing his thinking with Ruben. Lots of discussion about how to
make an octogon and then how they would cut it in to quarters.
Super determination and thinking boys!

Gwen thinking how she can find 1/4 of 24. She is trying 5 frogs eggs in each quarter of the pond.
She worked out she needed to add 1 more to each 1/4 of the pond.
1/4 of 24=6

We have also been learning how to write fractions that are bigger than one whole.

Georgina and Naomi's thinking

Keiarliya's thinking

Joseph and Jordan's thinking

Charlotte and Jack's thinking

Tyler and Maddie's thinking

We have been learning how to make a fraction of a set or group

We had to think about what we know about a whole and fractions to create a fraction caterpillar to share the different ways to show 1/2, 1/4, 1/3, 1/5, 1/6, 1/8, 1/10.

Created by Marcus

Created by Gwen

Created by Sadie

Created by Caitlin

Created by Ashwin