Setting The Scene For Learning

We've had a really positive start to the year in Koru 1. It has been wonderful seeing our friends from last year, meeting some new people and being in a new classroom space.

During the first few days of school, we explored what we value most in a classroom. This came in the form of a group activity that had us rank different aspects and behaviours in a classroom by displaying them in a diamond formation. It was interesting seeing and hearing about how we all have different experiences, which have shaped our beliefs.

We also had other activities including circle times and a forum through our Koru 1 Google Classroom to help bring out many of our ideas for our classroom vision. The participation and contribution form everyone was important. Just some of the things they wanted in our vision were:

Jaxon - "We look for learning opportunity’s is one of the things I would like to see on our classroom vision"

Taya - "To feel happy and safe in class"

Jarome - "I would like for everyone to be kind to each other"

Chelsea - "I would like to have an organised class or it will be too messy to learn"

Kate - "We should admit when we are wrong"

Archie - "We should be flexible"

Coby - "I would like us to be peaceful, because in our class it would be nice to have a cool calm and collected class well we are working. It would make a difference to people’s learning"

A few photos of the journey are shown below, along with our completed vision, which we are excited about and will refer to often throughout the year.

Ōtautahi Pizza At The DigiAwards

We were so excited to be presented two awards for our Ōtautahi Pizza website at the Grow Waitaha DigiAwards. In previous posts, you can read a little about the project. But below is an article that Atarau, Milla and Arona wrote for our school newsletter. We had many successes from across our whole school. 

DigiAwards 2019

On Wednesday the 13th of November, the Grow Waitaha DigiAwards hosted an awards evening at St. Margaret's College for the finalists. Bromley School entered many different entries for many different categories. The categories were website, story telling (retelling original stories), coding, comercial, Te Reo, and an open category for any entries. Loads of schools in the Canterbury region entered with their unique creations. The awards were given by companies around Canterbury.

Everyone was greeted by Haeata’s Kapa Haka group and they did some waiata along with a Haka. There were over 700 people who attended. There were also many people from schools who were nominated. The prizes were things like advanced mechanic building sets, coding equipment and Chromebooks.

We are so excited that the overall runner up was Mrs Gardner’s class, Kakano 1. They won a Chromebook! They entered a video called Te Waka O Tamarēreti. The overall winner was a boy from Avonhead called Thomas. He entered a Battle Bots game he coded and created himself.

Bromley School won a number of different categories, which was awesome because it was our first time entering and we won so many awards. Below is a list of our winning entries.

Storytelling Winners (Bromley):
Year 0-2: Te Waka O Tamarēreti from Mrs Gardner's class, Kakano 1.
Year 3-4: The Nine Ika Of Matariki. From Mrs Hix and Mrs Togiaso’s class, Pitau 1.

Storytelling Runner Ups (Bromley)
Year 0-2: Skytins Vs Zombies. From Mrs Wixon and Miss Paterson’s class Kakano 2.

The Open Category Winners:
Year 0-2: The Brave Shadow. From Mrs Macintosh and Miss Newth’s class Kakano 3.

The Open Category Runner Up:
Year 3-4: A Special Place. From Mr Cron and Mrs Sung’s class in Pitau 2.

Website Winners:
Year 5-6: Ōtautahi Pizza. From Mr K’s literacy group in Koru 1.

There was also a special prize given to Ōtautahi Pizza which was a $750 voucher for PB Tech. This was given to them because one of the judges believed that the way we created it and designed it deserves an extra special award.

Throughout the night there was lots of cheering from Bromley. When they announced who was in 2nd, Bromley would start cheering because they noticed that Bromley won. There was lots of support and all the entries had lots of effort put into them. Bromley left St. Margaret’s happy and were even happier about the results.

Here is a link to the Grow Waitaha website for extra info, including the winning entries.
https://www.growwaitaha.co.nz/digiawards/

Get Cinderella To The Ball - Part 3

You may have seen on Twitter that in Mr K's literacy groups we have been making modifications to Cinderella's carriages that we have built.

We spent time learning about different sources of electricity and the important role that it plays in our lives. Our carriage rolling competition required our vehicles to be propelled by gravity, but we have been harnessing wind power by adding sails to our carriages in order to move them in a different way. We actually learned that wind power is a renewable resource, which we know is better than non-renewable resources.



It took a few days for the wind to come up enough for the carriages to get rolling, but we did have some successes. On one day, we even got out the leaf blower to get them moving!



Check out the link here to one of our tweets showing a short video!

Get Cinderella To The Ball! Part 2

We have just completed our carriage competition, using our constructed vehicles in a challenge to see which one will roll the furthest down a ramp.

The carriages were just being propelled by gravity. We learned about friction and momentum, making sure that we tested and made adjustments throughout our construction process.

Here is a short video with some of the competition highlights:


Our next step is to create videos of our own projects using the media we collected along the way.

Check out our individual blogs for these videos.

But, this project isn't finished yet. Wind power is on it's way...

Get Cinderella To The Ball! Part 1

This term we are putting the spotlight on our How Stuff Works theme, one of the three core themes we are integrating through our learning this year. The key ideas are around observing and investigating how physical and material phenomena can change, and also exploring and acting in issues that relate science learning to our daily living.

This current project that Mr K's literacy groups are working on is connected to The Fairy Godmother's Day Off, the story we have been doing a lot of literacy based work around. Our project has us in pairs designing, building and testing our very own carriage to get Cinderella to the ball. Each carriage must meet a set of specifications, then we will compete in a roll-off down a 2 metre high ramp. The winning team will have created a custom carriage that will roll further than all the others.



We have had to learn about some key scientific ideas relating to gravity, friction and momentum. All groups know that we need to reduce as much friction as possible, as too much will slow the carriage down. Now that we have built a makeshift testing ramp, groups have been testing and modifying their carriages, playing around with weights, different wheels, spoilers and axle placements, to name a few.



There is a lot of buzz around this project, evident through the number of students who found many of their materials at home (mostly in their yellow recycling bins). We are really looking forward to the competition.

Top Team Event

Today we had Top Team visit our school. This is a series of teamwork activities that involve us all working together and cooperating to solve problems and complete various tasks.

Check out our video of Koru 1 at Top Team:



We set a class goal to all participate and contribute to our team's success as well as we could.

Afterwards, we reflected on how well we did. We celebrated individuals who were superstars in our teams and said nice things about them. 

Here are quotes from four of us:

Hunter - "I think that we did really good. I think that we did the goal participating and contributing because we didn't really give up and there was times when we kept falling over in the sack race. We didn't get mad at each other really."

Zoe - "Our team did really good. We did well. Mostly our team work paid off in the burst pipe thing, because everyone was encouraging each other and laughing when they got sprayed in the face."

Arona - "My team worked really well together. We always helped each other when we fell over. Sometimes we would get mad at each other and just use a stern voice. We had some great leaders in our group like Zach during the sack race; he would "yell 3,2, 1 jump."

Zeke - "I thought my group worked really well, they would always do their part. They always contributed. I think the main part was that everyone enjoyed themselves. They really loved it."

Thanks to Ms Baker for organising the event and to all of our wonderful parent helpers running each station. 

Woodend Camp - A Shared Story

A SHARED CAMP STORY

This is a story of our Koru camp at Woodend last week. It has been created by taking excerpts from individual camp stories that students wrote for their personal blogs. We hope this gives a number of perspectives and reactions from a few of our points of view. See our individual blogs for more from specific children.



DAY ONE

Grace: 

Last week on the 24th of October Koru 1 and Koru 2 went to Woodend Camp. We went there to have fun and for new experiences we did lots of activities. First we went on the bus to Pegasus park for lunch. Then after lunch we walked throw Pegasus Pines. When I was walking I felt like I’ve been walking for years. When we were walking I saw a snail and Rylie wanted to keep it! Finally when we got to Woodend park we had a snack and played on the playground for a while. After, we walked all the way to Woodend Camp. When we got arrived Cody told us the camp rules. We then we got into are groups. I was with Jaycee, Rylie, Alizay, Savannah, Angel, Paige, Willow b, Kiara, Mia, Ana and are parent was Vikki.

Hauora Interest Projects - Part 2

This week we have been sharing our recent interest projects. It has been wonderful seeing our peers taking the stage, putting the focus on them and their learning. The main idea behind sharing our interest projects is to celebrate our efforts, identifying highlights, and giving and receiving valuable feedback in order to set new goals for ourselves.



Interest projects can be testing for students. We really need to show that we are developing important skills and attitudes in the areas of organisation and time management, as well as general research abilities. How we use the time that we are allocated in class for these projects, called IP workshops, is one of the areas of evaluation at the end of each interest project cycle. The end products are not the only important thing, the process is also significant.

Here are some student reactions and comments:

Jesse said "Sharing was good. When I saw others doing it, I was not as nervous. I really felt excited and wanted to go up. I feel pretty good about my next interest projects. I learned that I can get up in front of people and not have a big shock. Overall I feel proud of myself".

Quinn said that when sharing he "... Had a good feeling because I knew that others didn't know much about my topic, so I was providing them with personal information. I think next time I would practice my speech a bit more, but overall I think it was pretty good for my IP that I've done at school".

See our individual blogs for our IP evaluations and links to the media many of us created. The evaluation template we each completed is shown below. You can see the particular areas of focus for these projects.

Hauora Interest Projects

Photo by Bruno Nascimento on Unsplash

We are currently in the middle of individual interest projects (IPs) that relate to Hauora (health and wellbeing). This has been a significant focus for us this year and these projects are a chance for us each to dig deeper into a topic of interest within the wider theme. 

The aim of the project is to learn all about something that we know, or have heard, can affect the health and wellbeing of people, then share back our findings with our peers and teachers. One of the main goals here is to create a powerful forum for the students of Koru 1 to educate their peers about how they can improve their own hauora, while developing many of the independent inquiry skills that successful interest projects require. 

Our IPs have 3 rules that we must follow. 



Late last term we completed our plans and displayed them on our classroom walls. During our open evening, we were able to share these with our friends and whānau, getting their feedback and explaining how we would be approaching each of our projects.



This week we are reaching the 'putting it all together' phase, where we are beginning to write up our research findings. Some of us have been using Google Forms for the first time to create our own surveys. Especially as many of our topics of interested within our health and wellbeing theme affect us kids, we think we can get some valuable information from our peers about certain issues.



Next week we will be working on our presentations, which will come in many different forms, and we will be sharing these projects in Week 3. After presenting, we will be spending time reflecting on our projects, identifying our highlights and challenges, and finishing off our IP documentation.

Interest projects are not new for many Bromley students. Madison, who is in Year 6 and has completed 3 IPs before, has some insightful thoughts about them:
"I like interest projects because we get to find out about things we don't know. I get excited finding out new things. The researching is fun. I can get a bit nervous sharing, but once I start, I'm fine. You are really proud of yourself afterwards".

Keep an eye on our Twitter and blog for updates.

Good Luck To The Bromley Brains!

We are really excited to have our Year 5 team, the Bromley Brains, taking part in the Canterbury ePro8 semi finals this coming Thursday. This is an engineering competition, in which the team qualified by coming 4th out of 12 teams in the regional heats a couple of weeks ago. We also had another team, the Year 6 Bromley Coders, who performed admirably but unfortunately missed out on qualifying for the next round.

The Bromley Brains worked so well together and no doubt will have a fun, but intensely challenging time again this week.

We look forward to seeing how you go!

Data Analysis And The Football World Cup

We have some avid football fans in Koru 1, evident in the large number of students we have getting stuck in to some very energetic, passionate football games at break times. It only seemed fitting to connect some of the learning in our classroom with the excitement in Koru 1 and around the world currently with the Football World Cup taking place in Russia.

Last week some students working with Mr K began a number of maths related challenges based around football. We have done a lot of learning this year around statistics, specifically conducting statistical investigations that have included posing questions, collecting and analysing data, and presenting information in clear and easy to interpret ways.

To push this a little further, students involved in the World Cup challenges have been learning more about data analysis, involving understanding what the mean, median, mode and range of a data set is, and how these can be calculated. We initially learned how to do this by using the example of a group of us and our ages. We were then using squad information from international football teams - including age, caps and number of goals from each player.



It has been great to see students like Wyatt so pumped up and engaged in this, to the point where he has been doing his own statistical research into other teams besides those given.

Check out some of our individual blogs for more personalised learning reports.

How Important Is It For Us To Understand Our Habits?

Olivier Fahrni


How much do you know about the effects of your daily habits?

Do you have a lot of good habits that lead to positive outcomes for yourself and others, both in the short and in the long term? On the other hand, do you have bad habits that might be doing the opposite?

In Koru 1 we have been exploring how creating positive habits can put us in control of shaping the lives we want to live. This has required a lot of self-reflection and the ability to actively notice the habits we have, while exploring all of the outcomes of these.

We have looked into areas like:
- How habits can help us reduce stress
- How habits can help us to be healthy
- How habits can help us to be productive

Dance is Geometry

On Wednesday, Koru 1 had a project based learning day. Children learning with Mrs Harris explored geometry through dance and children learning with Mr K explored the effects of music.

First Mrs Harris played us an amazing video that showed us how we can use our bodies to create shapes and patterns. We discovered that we would be creating our own dance sequence that day.

To begin we needed to revisit what we know about geometric patterns. We completed two art based activities so that we could demonstrate our understanding of reflection and rotation.

Exploring The Effects Of Music

Yesterday we had an interesting day where all of the children in Koru 1 were involved in an integrated project day. Those with Mrs Harris were exploring geometry through dance, while Mr K's group were exploring the effects of music.

At the beginning of the day with Mr K, he explained the following values and key competency focus areas for us to think about, as we would be reflecting on these later on.

Caring At The Beach

Last Friday was our trip to the South New Brighton Surf Club for Beach Education. It was a great day full of lots of new learning and experiences for many of us.

We decided in Koru 1 that our school value of caring would be an important focus for this trip. On Thursday, the day before we went, we identified with Mrs Harris the key things that we will need to do to show evidence of us displaying our value of caring, which were...

How will we show we care at Beach Education?

• Listen to the lifeguards, teachers and parent helpers.
• Use our manners.
• Respect the environment, equipment, public and each other.
• Have a positive attitude.

We wonder if you can notice any of these things happening in this video with some highlights from the day. You might also be able to get a peek at what the lifeguards were teaching us about beach safety...



This week we will be working in our literacy groups to reflect and write about specifically what we did to care at Beach Education, as well as identify some of the many other things we learned about being safe at the beach.

Thank you so much to all of the wonderful parents and support staff who came along, as well as our lifeguards - Jake, Jackson, Elsa and Georgia, who did a fantastic job.

Our Vision For 2018

We have recently been putting the final touches on our vision for the year. This is our essential agreement, which is the result of a lot of exploration and discussion over the past two weeks.

We began by sharing some of our experiences at school, and identifying what we know works and what doesn't for us to learn well at school. Things like noise level, classroom layout, and the role of the teacher were discussed, and it was fantastic to see most of us having strong opinions and ideas to confidently share.

Flipping Out This Morning

We had a great trip to Flip Out this morning.

Flip Out is a trampolining centre that opened last year on Maces Road. It is a wonderful place for learning to take responsible risks while getting fit at the same time!

Daniel says the foam fit is the best part because he loves jumping and flipping into it. Also he really enjoyed that everyone was having a lot of fun.

Mackenzie says her best part was jumping off the big boxes because you bounce really high when you land on the trampolines. This was also Jaycee's favourite part.

Spencer found the whole trip enjoyable because he had fun with his friends.

Shavanah learned some new tricks, like a front walk-over, on the gynmastics mat. Micaiah made a connection and said his best part was "learning new stuff" as well.

Thanks to Lynnley and Shellon for coming along too.

Elements of Drama

We have been learning about the elements of drama on Friday afternoons. It has been a fun and exciting way to finish the week.

We are exploring space, focus and mood. We have been thinking of creative ways to use our bodies and the space around us. We are working on staying in character and concentrating on our role. We are finding different ways to use our facial expressions and body language to convey the mood. 

Drama is a wonderful art to build our confidence, try something new and explore our creativity. It has been important for us to cooperate in our groups, think quickly and show courage.

The General Election - Having Our Say

Last Friday was the day for us to vote in the General Election. As we were taking part in the Electoral Commision's Kids Voting Programme, we cast a vote that let us see what it would be like to take part in the election. We used special ballot papers that looked nearly identical to the ones used for the General Election in our electorate, Christchurch East.

Our Goals Are Moving!

At the beginning of this term we each identified one skill goal and one attitude goals that we thought would help us in our learning. These big goals have helped us to create some smaller goals for our individual planners and to give us ideas for our weekly reflections.

We placed them along a continuum and have been moving them along when we have been showing progress.

Check out some of the photos over time. Can you see a change in the grouping of the goals?

Week 1