Some Photos of Our Reggio Project - The New Cathedral (and also some of our Ring of Fire Project)

Newspaper Link

A number of children would like to focus on Non-Fiction reading for their goal this term, here is a link with some great articles for you to read and discuss with your family



http://www.dogonews.com/

Homelearning Term 3

POHUTUKAWA HOME LEARNING TERM 3 2011
The smarts are the different ways in which children learn. This homework helps to develop the smarts children have strengths in and those they need to develop.
This term you are to choose 1 activity from each of the Smarts, and then complete 3 other activities of your choice. Remember to do your maths, spelling and reading and that they are signed off each week.  After each activity is completed, write down the activity and a short reflection on how well it went.  You will present your outcomes to your class in wks 5 & 8.

People/Self Smart
Use your self smarts and plan an overseas vacation for yourself.  Design and write your own postcards to friends and family back home.  Don’t forget to describe the sights and all the activities you are doing!
  Find a picture of a house in a magazine or book.  Label the features, and create a list of 10 reasons why it would be the perfect house for your family.
Imagine you are old enough to flat with some friends.  Work with your friends to create a list of ‘house rules’ for your flat, and write up a duty roster.

Number/Word Smarts
Choose one letter to the editor from The Press.  Use your word smarts to write a reply (agree or disagree), clearly stating your arguments.
Create 5 sudoku/word find puzzles and ask a classmate to complete.
Design a NEW maths game to help juniors learn their addition and subtraction facts.

Music / Picture Smarts
Choose a photo from the past (Ask your parents) and create a story based on that picture.
Create a ‘hidden objects’ picture - hide various objects in plain sight.  Don’t forget to add a key!
Find an instrumental piece of music from your favourite movie, and find out 10 facts about the song/composer/movie.
Choose a song and re-write the lyrics to it.
Design your own adventure forest on an A3 piece of paper.  Label the features.

Body and Kinesthetic Smarts
Choose two sports and merge to create one new game ie: Socceriscus (Soccer + Discus)  and teach to a group of friends.  Get them to write two sentences on what they thought.
Create a fun game that can be used to help people in wheelchairs exercise.

Nature Smarts
Imagine you are stranded in the wild with nothing but the clothes on your back.  Create a brochure sharing how you would survive.
Build a bird-feeder and record (using pictures/writing) the level of food/attendance of birds every day for one week.

Top Deck Learners News

Dear Parents and Caregivers

As you may be aware the children in 8B7 are undertaking a project looking at rebuilding the Cathedral.
We are making our new Cathedral out of a number of materials including: cardboard, bottles, polystyrene and paper mache.  The children are currently looking for polystyrene for this project, as well as items to enhance our classroom environment such as plants, coloured glass, flowers, cushions, material and vases.  If you are able to provide any of these things the class would greatly appreciate it.  Also if you have skills in stained glass window making, mosaic making, paper mache, sculpture or if you are just keen to join us for a lesson we would love your help! We are having a lot of fun and any assistance would be of huge benefit to the children.

If you are able to help please fill in the slip below and send it along with your child.

Thank you

The Top Deck Learners and Aimee Stewart
_______________________________________________________________________________

Yes I would love to help! Name:____________________________________________________.
I am available in the following ways_________________________________________________.
I am available at these times________________________________________________________.

Reggio Discussions, our work of art

We talked about what a work of art was and how we could turn our cathedral into a work of art

Question: What is a work of art? – the children wonder on this question

Alara:  It’s amazing

Rania: Made by hand

Josh: It’s really artistic

Travis: It’s fancy

Emily T: Something remembered forever

Josh: It is the use of different things, like materials

Zane: It means something, it has a reason for what it is

Natasha: something that has a lot of thought put into it.

Emily T: It is something people can be proud of.

Alex: It takes time to make.

Grace: Something that is shown around the world as a memory.

Emily T: It could be a treasure or something special.

Molly: You need to take the time to make it look real.

Alara: We would put some real things into our cathedral like clay.

Zane: We could make a bottle wall, they do that on grand designs

Alara: On grand designs they use polystyrene to make it strong.

Josh: We need to use the correct colours.

Emily T: We could have a picture of the old cathedral around the walls.

Natasha: We could use pirctures of the old cathedral on the stained glass windows. We could include parts of Christchurch in our design.