Siapo-Inspired Art In A Connected Classroom

Last week a group of us were exploring Samoan siapo art and spending some time creating our own siapo-inspired patterns. To develop our value of being connected, and showing the connection between us, we are working towards creating a collaborative art piece to display in our new classroom. All going to plan, we will be moving later this week.

We began the morning by watching a video of some Samoan villagers creating siapo, following a special process from start to finish. We make our thinking visible on a large whiteboard by completing a See - Think - Wonder routine. It was interesting discussing how the art can be respected by other cultures too, not just people of Samoan heritage.

Here is the video.

We decided on our process and how we would manage our time and materials. The desired outcome was for each of us to have four 10cm x 10cm coloured squares (everyone's would be different, but the four we each create would be the same). We would then all contribute these to a large collaborative piece that includes everyone's pieces.

Below are some photos of us working on this project. Check out our individual student blogs for personal learning reports of the day. We will share images of the collaborative piece once installed in our new room.

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

Word Art

On Wednesday, we began a journey that would help us each discover our own word for the year.

This started with a mindfulness exercise, so that we could step into our imagination and think creatively. We were asked questions like "what do you hope for yourself?", "what do you want your year to be like?", "what does your heart need?" and "what qualities do you want to develop in yourself?". Next we made a list of the words that came to us during the mindful activity. Some of the words were feelings and emotions and others were verbs or adjectives.

Some of us decided on our word straight away and others wanted to think about it more overnight.

On Thursday morning we started creating some art to express our word. We used paint to create an abstract background. We experimented with different tools such as sponges, paint brushes and ice block sticks.

The next step was to digitally create our word. We selected our own font and printed it out so that it could be stuck onto our art work.

At the end of the day some of us explained our art to the group, mentioning why we decided to choose the word and how or why we created the background the way we did.

The result is a colourful wall filled with motivating words that are unique to Koru 1.