International Shared Feast!!!

Wow - what a way to finish our Term 4 Culture Club inquiry!
On Friday 7 December MLH held an international shared lunch which also meant we presented information about our chosen countries, bought the national dish of that country along AND dressed up in national costumes!

We had nearly 80 people in the hall - many whanau and friends came to participate... calling it the best feast ever!

We had to find out these things about our chosen countries
- the meaning of the flag and national anthem
-a famous person
- a landmark
- the national dish
- the national dress
and any other interesting information we found out.

We had some double ups of countries, however, we presented on 27 different countries!!

Awesome Animal Mosaic Art!

Wow - check out this amazing art from our Year 5s!

Firstly:
- we created graffiti art on A3 size paper using crayon and pastel
- then we did a wash of dye over the top

Then:
- we ripped the paper up!!!!!!
- we put it all in a pile in the middle to SHARE

Then:
- we created our animals fur/feathers by placing similar colours together and arranging them until we were happy with what we saw
- we used pva glue to make sure it stuck well

After that:
- we researched our chosen animals eye
- we discovered that eyes are not just one colour!
- we had lots of fun recreating the eyes using pastel
- we learnt that the white spot that makes the eye POP is actually a reflection

We are so proud of our work!!!

The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs!

The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs written by Jon Scieszka

The Fantail and Pukeko reading groups learned and rehearsed a Reader's Theatre of this story over the last couple of weeks.
We learned lots about:
- speaking clearly
- using expression
- speaking loudly
- working as a team
- helping each other to be successful

We were pretty happy with how our Reader's Theatre turned out - we are going to share it with all our classes so that everyone can hear how great this story is!

Who knew there was another side to the story?!!!

Maths Strand Puzzles!

Recently Koka Ngaire has challenged us with puzzles in EL4 Maths Strand... we have had measurement, algebra, geometry and statistics puzzles.

The very first puzzle was 'The Farmer's Sheep' from NZ Maths. 

After Koka Ngaire shared this with us and we had read the problem we wanted to:
- give the sheep back
- hide the sheep
- eat the sheep!!!
In other words - we thought the problem was HARD!



Some of us persevered and started working with random number combinations, others got some equipment out to move around.  Suddenly, someone had THE answer.

THE answer got shared - however, someone else had THE answer - but it was different!  There was a LOT of discussion.... someone else figured out another answer!

We shared our strategies and our different answers... we got LOTS of answers.  So, we brainstormed what was helpful and tricky and why.

There were so many different answers that were ALL correct!
What we discovered:
- all the corners added to 11 no matter what combination we used
- sometimes there is more than one answer

Some of our combinations.... the crossed out ones did not fit the criteria

What we learnt... and yet MORE combinations!

 HOW MANY DIFFERENT WAYS CAN YOU FIND?!

Surfing Kids!

Here are some of our awesome student surfers!

Our Year 6s surf every Friday morning in Term 1 and Term 4 and just recently there was a Surf Slam.... some pics of our MLH learners showing their stuff on the waves from the Gisborne Herald.

Inspired by James K Baxter

Our Level 3 writers were inspired by James K Baxter's poem 'This Town' recently.   We learnt about James K Baxter and how he was inspired by his surroundings and people around him.

We were looking at writing recounts in a different kind of way. 

For this exercise, we borrowed the structure of the poem to create our own memory poem of somewhere that is extra special to us.    It was fun trying to create a memory of our special place without saying exactly where it was.  We enjoying sharing our poems with the rest of our group.  Have a read here yourself.

Support our Craft Fair!!

Wow - we have been busy beavers today in Moana Learning Hub!
Our school Craft Fair is coming up next Saturday 17 November and today we had a Make & Do Day to get our craft items ready.

We have made: airdry clay christmas ornaments and jewellery dishes, christmas card packs, baking in a jar, little poi and jewellery (necklaces and bracelets).  We had 2 awesome mums (thanks Dayna and Kari) come in to help us.

We are really proud of our efforts and look forward to selling our wares next weekend.  Perhaps you could come along to our craft fair too!

Cafe Day!!

Wow - our Cafe Day was today and it was brilliant!!!
We had to postpone it from during Term 3 when our topic was 'Actions Speak Louder than Words'... but in the end it ended up fitting in perfectly with this term's topic of 'Culture Club'.

Everyone in Moana Learning Hub was involved.... our whanau baked delicious food, we decided what entertainment we should have (especially to showcase all our talents) and invited guests - namely our elders.

We had the first 3 weeks of term to practice and get ready... we had ukelele playing, singing, dance, gymnastics, jump jam and finished with a haka.  We had a full hall of guests and everyone had a very, very enjoyable time!

We did such a good job that we were even able to sit down together at the end and indulge in some of the baked goodness that was left over!

Many thanks to everyone who helped us: before, during and after!!

Here is a video with just a snippet of the awesome entertainment enjoyed through the morning....

We also made it into the Gisborne Herald!

Graffiti: Art or Vandalism?

Our Huia reading group was given an interesting question from Koka Ngaire... is Graffiti Art or Vandalism?

We read a couple of L4 texts and looked at a video about the history of graffiti and we had to form our opinion from these and our prior knowledge.

We all came to the conclusion that it depends.  It depends where it is and what the message is...  WHAT DO YOU THINK?  We would love to hear your feedback in the comments.

Koka Ngaire took some photos of real life graffiti and street art in Melbourne - we had lots of discussion about those!

Have a read through a couple of examples of our presentations.... from Kaya, Carys, Daniel B and Obe

Earth Paints...

In the Fantails reading group, we read an article called 'Earth Paints' as part of our Culture Club topic this term and learned about aboriginal painting and how they made their paint from the earth...

We followed the instructions that the kids in the article set out... we went off to find several different dirt colours from around our school.  We found yellow, green, dark brown, light brown and a bluey colour.

We were looking at bossy verbs and following instructions.  We had to grind, rub, crush, sieve, mix, stir... we turned our dirt into a paint like paste.  It was exciting to get our fingers into the 'paste' and create our own paintings like the ones in the article.

Battleships!

In Early Level 4 Maths Strand - we have been learning about co-ordinates and position.  We used ourselves as co-ordinate points to understand positive and negative points in a grid... then we got to play Battleships on a 4 way grid to challenge ourselves.

We ruled up a grid for ourselves and one to find our buddies ships.  We hid our grids from each other and attempted to use our new co-ordinate learning.

We all said that we had to remember to use the horizontal line first... "go along the hallway, then up or down the stairs".  This helped most of us to get a hit on at least one battleship!!

Awesome learning with Koka Pip

We have had an awesome student teacher with us in Moana 3 for the past 7 weeks... and we have learnt lots with her.  Below are just some of the learning activities we have had fun doing with her.

We wish her well in her future teaching career and we know she will do well!
Ka pai Koka Pip - thank you for everything you did for us while you were here!!

ACTIONS FOCUS BUZZ GROUPS!

We have had a great term of learning with our "Actions Speak Louder than Words" topic.

In MLH, we had 10 projects in 10 weeks!  Everything from hospital boxes, to the school vege garden and back to rectifying the school outdoor chess board!

Everyone had to work as a team - listening and clearly communicating ideas.  Each group had a planner to fill in and work from - marking in key dates.  It has been really exciting this last week to see all of the projects coming to fruition.

Have a read through our slides to see what each group has been up to for Term 3!

Spectacular Speech Finals!

Congratulations to our Nui speech finalists!   The finals were held this morning and they were all to a very high standard.  Koka Claire (who is a trained Speech and Drama teacher) was the judge and commented on the content and delivery of each speech.

The winners were Isabel (Year 5) and Chloe (Year 6).  A big shout out to all of our Moana Learning Hub students who participated!