The Great Brighton Skip

This month we have been Jumping into June as we build to our big jump day. We went into the community and took advantage of some of the cool places New Brighton has. Team Tahi got to jump at the playground which gave us lots of different things we could jump on. Our jumping has improved and we are feeling fitter. The next big adventure is on Thursday afternoon where the school will spend the afternoon jumping for our Jump Rope day.

 

Learning about life in the time of Jesus

This term we are learning about who Jesus was.

We have learned about the clothing that people wore in the time Jesus was in Israel. 

We also learned about the geography of Israel compared to New Zealand.

This week we learned about Herod's Temple in Jerusalem.

We talked about how the temple was similar and different to our church St Mary's.

Some people then created their own temple in Minecraft and others made a cardboard and paper version. We are still working on these, but here are some progress photos:

Year 5s Chat with Google!

Last Friday while the Year 6s were at Dancing Like the Stars the Year 5s had a virtual visit with staff from Google.

Steve, Lauren and Paola introduced themselves to us and talked about how they came to work for Google. What they studied at school and university and what their jobs involve now. We watched a video of what the offices are like at Google in Australia and what a day might look like for staff who work there. 

It was really interesting to hear about how you could include your interests like art and music with technology to create new things that people all over the world can use. 

The week before our visit we learned about Artificial Intelligence (AI) and how we can "teach" our devices to "look" at pictures and then "know" what they are. We taught our chromebooks to tell the difference between a flower and a hamburger!

The last part of the Google Meet was our turn to ask questions. We were very interested in whether children can work at Google, who owns Google, if you can create things like food with technology, 

The best advice that we got was to give everything a go and to explore things as much as we can. Be curious and try new things. 

There might be a few more of us now that have been inspired by the possibilities of working with technology to create new and exciting jobs and opportunities in our futures!

Edited to add: We had a parcel arrive from Google! They sent us stickers, magazines and cool green sunglasses. How lucky were we??!!

Music through the Years

 The 60's 

This term we have been learning about music and how it has changed through the years. Here is Tristan's work on cds.

Here Tristan is working on 

the positives negatives and some facts about cds. cds were really popular in the early 2000s.

He has some at home and sometimes listens to them on a CD player. He is a fan of rock, and his brother makes him listen to Linkin Park.

What way do you listen to music?

Term 2 Happenings

Kia ora Whānau, 

Check out our class newsletter for Term 2!

This is where we can see what is coming up in the new term.  

Click this link to read all about it. 

Ground control to Mr Gray

 This week we started to look at space with some rocket research...

The experiment by Mr Gray was a bit of a fail which allowed us to think of ways we could improve!

We were given a template and could use it or not to create a rocket that would fly using straw power.

The three groups that pushed the limits were:

Monty, Jacob and Liam took third place. They were pipped at the post by Aleigha and Laylah who took out second place.

The team of Jamie and Jack had the furtherest flyer.

Reid went home and showed how it should be done!

"New Bay" and "The Waters Edge"

This term our inquiry topic is 'Our Communities'. We have been learning about what makes up a community and how they run.

The class split into two groups and each group worked together to create their own ‘dream’ community. It included at least one thing they love and everything a community needs to run efficiently.

Below you will see the maps of these communities they created. These were called ‘New Bay’ and ‘The Waters Edge.’ Each student created a character with a job, to live in their community. Through drama, we acted out different scenarios and stayed in role for multiple lessons. The students thoroughly enjoyed this!

We also learnt about freeze frames – enjoy seeing these through pretend newspaper articles below.

To finish this unit of work the students are using Minecraft as another platform to consolidate their learning of the important features a community requires to run efficiently. It is great to see the enthusiasm within this unit, with each student contributing their ideas and working well within their groups.