We are a collaborative learning space, with over 50 learners at Wainui Beach School in Gisborne. Our teachers are Kōkā Rozie, Kōkā Ngaire & Kōkā Pip.
We are so lucky to go to school right across the road from the beach...
On 27 February our Shade House Crew had the opportunity to work with members of the public to propagate seeds from Titirangi/Kaiti Hill with Kauri Forno.
They met at the Summit Carpark and learnt about how the new trees had been planted and that the time was right to propagate/collect seeds from these trees to grow new ones in the nursery at EIT. These will grow in shadehouses and then when they are bigger and ready - they will be planted back on Kaiti Hill.
TV crew capturing the hard work!
At EIT planting the seeds
Our Shade House crew do an awesome job at propagating seeds and growing plants at school - this was a great initiative to take that further into our local community.
Their hard mahi was also captured by Te Ao Maori News! Click here to see our team and others in action on the day.
We look forward to the Shade House crew sharing their expertise with us and others in the future!
What an awesome start to the year we have had in Moana Learning Hub.
A round of People Bingo first up allowed us to mix and mingle with classmates helping us to learn something new about each other. Who knew so many in our class could touch their noses with their tongues! We continued to learn more about each other (and different animals) in a classification game, which resulted in us finding our new Buzz Groups. Our Buzz Groups are groups that we will continue to Learn, Create and Share with throughout the year.
This week we got stuck into swimming and begun Quickwrites which will become a weekly priority. In this week's writing, we had to decide which was better: Chocolate or Cheese? Which would you choose? You can make a comment below with your choice. Don't forget to add your reason/s why.
With Thursday out of the classroom, we also got started on some learning about the Treaty of Waitangi. Next week we will be able to bring home some booklets so you can see our learning too.
The week wouldn't have been complete if we didn't spend more time in our Buzz groups getting our license to use our Chromebooks (Kawa of Care), playing Tension and having a go at some team-building exercises.
We can't wait for all of the fun 2020 has in store for us!
Last term our school wide inquiry was 'Hauora - Physical Health & Well being'. It was really interesting learning about our 4 taha and how they keep us healthy. Our 4 taha are:
* Taha tinana - physical well-being
* Taha whānau - social well-being
* Taha hinengaro - mental & emotional well-being
* Taha wairua - spiritual well-being
We participated in lots of activities and the most memorable two were planning and running a school wide tabloids day and work in our buzz groups on our 'Big Body'!
Our last week was a focus week where we looked at how our bodies work and what we need to do to keep them healthy.... we made BIG BODY! Gender fluid and about 10 feet tall! Again, we worked in our Buzz Groups and had a fun interactive day on the last day of term where we each had experiments for each part of our body. What a great way to learn about ourselves!
This term we had some independent learners who researched, explored and experimented and then got themselves ready for Science Fair!
This was work all done in their own time and we had 9 MLH entries. The projects ranged from Holograms to Eggs and pretty much everything in between.
All of the entrants gave MLH a run down on their project and answered questions. It was VERY interesting for us all!
We were lucky to have a science guru Dr Amber Dunn come in and judge for us and then a few of the projects went forward to the recent Tairawhiti Regional Science Fair.
Congratulations in our School Science Fair to:
Olivia - The Floating Egg (2nd)
Jett & Matai - Paper Planes (3rd) and in the Regional Science Fair
Olivia - The Floating Egg (Silver)
Caitlyn & Kya - Waste Watchers (Silver - Technology)
Jett & Matai - Paper Planes (Bronze)
This week we have been learning about Matariki as a wonderful way to end our busy term 2.
Everyone had a choice of activities to complete - including make and do, reading, writing, art, maths etc
One of the challenges was to create a rap sharing new learning about Matariki. This group of boys spent a very long time discussing, writing, editing and recrafting.
They are super proud of their finished product - and so are we! What do YOU think?
As our term draws to a close, we have had the opportunity today to share our learning with our parents and extended whanau. Our Retro Tech open day was fantastic!
All of the classes had their learning up on display in the hall. We got the chance to share our learning and creating with each other and our families.
There were lots of discussions, thinking, giggles and amazement at all of the different ways technology have helped us and also changed as time has passed. It has really made us think about the past, the present and the future.
Here is a video summary of our term of learning in MLH.
What on earth is ECMOT, you ask?!
Well, it is the East Coast Museum of Technology! A total treasure trove of all sorts of gadgets and transport from the past and we got to visit there for a WHOLE day!
We had to share our advertisements for our Retro Gadgets with Barry (who had loaned us most of the gadgets from the museum) and he let us know if we were correct or not in our guess of what our object was.
A solar panel heater?
A hair straightener?
These were 2 objects that we were not so sure of.... and we were amazed to find out that this object on the left was actually a gadget to put the seams back in your pants and the object on the right was a stick on de-mister for the back window of a car!!!
Our advertisements were fun to make - here are a couple:
We got to look all around the museum - go on things, touch, feel, ask questions, make connections and share our recent learning with our parent helpers... it was fantastic!!! In our buzz groups, we had to find at least 3 other items that related to our original Retro Tech gadget from our beginning of term unveiling. That was a lot of fun finding them and we learnt lots from our parent helps and Barry. Some of the boys were totally intrigued by the old computers and computer games that were in working condition.... they decided that computers had DEFINITELY come along way!!!
We were all really interested in the HOME section - lots of irons, toasters, vacuum cleaners, washing machines, ovens etc . It was fascinating to imagine how people used to use these items. The was much amazement too at the 'hair salon'... some of the gadgets looked really dangerous!
It was such a fun trip - we have learned lots this term and it was great to make connections to everything that we have seen from the past and to think about what it might evolve into, in the future.
Last Friday afternoon we skated, scootered and biked down to Koka Terri's whanau Pou about 2kms away from school. Koka Terri and Koka Ngaire biked too - Koka Terri rode her cool bike and Koka Ngaire got to borrow Koka Sue's awesome e-bike!
We learnt about the new pou from Koka Terri sharing what she knew and we had a look at the awesome design created and placed in to the concrete to wish everyone a safe journey on the new cycleway.
We loved getting out and about in our local environment - 50 of us in a line must have looked pretty impressive!!
Last Thursday MLH headed to the Tairawhiti Museum and the Electric Village for more learning to support our Retro Tech inquiry topic.
Half of us had a hands on time at the museum with old gadgets, while the other half of us headed to the Electric Village to find out more about electricity and where to in the future.
RETRO TECH @ THE MUSEUM We discussed what gadgets we knew about and looked at some from the museum archives - mostly around communicating: camera's, typewriters, quill pens, record players, gramophones etc. A couple of boys got stuck with a tape recorder. Have a giggle at the video of them trying to work out what it was and how it worked!
We then got to write our names with a quill pen and ink.... lots of practice needed! We were amazed that this is how so many people used to write. You certainly got messy fingers!
We had a look through Wyllie Cottage (the oldest European style house in the Gisborne area, built in 1872) where there were lots of kitchen gadgets were on display and some old fashioned games for us to play.
ELECTRIC VILLAGE This was really fun! We learnt about renewable and sustainable electricity resources and how & why e-transport is getting so big. We got to have a go on e-scooters (so cool!) and play with coding robots and a game that took a lot of concentration to not make a BUZZ sound!
We learnt about electric cars, bikes, scooters and even motorbikes! It made us think alot about our future because this stuff will be all around us soon... imagine when it will become Retro!!
Well, it has been a whole term since we last went down to Hamanatua Stream to weed and mulch around the native plants down there..... and the weeds are winning! Argh.
Today, we had to move a whole lot of mulch, but we had to weed around our natives first. We kind of got set up into a weeding team and a mulching team because that's just what needed to be done. We are learning a lot from Kauri Forno who worked hard with R1 last year. They have set the scene for us to follow this year.
We were pretty glad though to see that even though the fennel had got tall again, it was nowhere near the height it was when we first started! Back then, we couldn't really even see if there were natives anywhere amongst the fennel.
Some of the natives we are looking after are: flax, kawakawa, ngaio, whau and pohutukawa. We want them to grow big and strong. The weeding helps the plants to do this and the mulch keeps water in and the roots warm over winter.
MLH are committing to going down to our awa every second Friday this term to make sure we keep on top of all that fennel!! We hope that some community members will come along and help us out too. We will have to create some posters to encourage our community whanau and so that they are learning as well! It feels really good to share our knowledge and new learning of this important part of our school environment.
On 27 February our Shade House Crew had the opportunity to work with members of the public to propagate seeds from Titirangi/Kaiti Hill with Kauri Forno.
They met at the Summit Carpark and learnt about how the new trees had been planted and that the time was right to propagate/collect seeds from these trees to grow new ones in the nursery at EIT. These will grow in shadehouses and then when they are bigger and ready - they will be planted back on Kaiti Hill.
