We're Back!

Welcome back everyone and welcome to 2016 in Room 1 at Tokomaru School - yes, we are Room 1 now!

It was great to see everyone this morning and hear about what everyone got up to during the break - with all this great weather it is no surprise so many people spent time at the beach and while we're not right by the beach, we did spend our afternoon cooling off in our school pool!  Make sure you bring your togs and towel every day to continue enjoying it...

Birdhouse Building for Ag Day

As part of our inquiry, we are making birdhouses to sell at Ag Day.  We started making some last week with our awesome parent helpers, Dave and Ronnie, then this week we have Wiremu's Poppa and Conner's Grandpa and Nana helping us.  We are so lucky to have so much help!

Wiremu and Matthew help each other 

Ben adds some detail to his plan

Wiremu looks to nail the wood together

Reilly has her plans ready for action!

Nicole has her wood prepared.

Molly starts to saw.

Wiremu's Poppa helps with the 'tricky' bits.

Conner's Grandpa and Nana measures up.

Roland drills his wood together - he said he hadn't done this before, but he was great at it!

Wiremu makes sure Poppa is doing it right :)

What is hard about making a birdhouse?

How much do you think we should sell them for?

Thursday Afternoon at the Movies...

This afternoon we watched the recording of our production of Peter Pan.  With popcorn and Fruit Bursts on hand, we enjoyed watching ourselves - super stars at Tokomaru School!

Watching ourselves on the big screen.

That finale song gets us on our feet every time!

Adopt a Turbo!

Welcome back to Valentino Mapapalangi from the Turbos, going through some training drills with Room 2 this morning.

What did you learn from today's training?

Inquiry - Questioning

As part of our Inquiry we are learning to ask questions. I gave the students an example statement and they had to think of questions they had in relation to the statement.

Here are the questions we had:

Statement: Every child in New Zealand should learn to swim.

What are some questions you would ask?

Build a Bridge...

A challenge was set: build a bridge in a team that can support the weight of a 2L bottle of glue using only the provided materials.  "Easy!" shouted Room 2.  

Materials given to each group:

- 30 hotdog sticks

- 2 chopsticks

- 4 pipe cleaners

- roll of tape

- 2 pairs of scissors

- 2 polystyrene cups

- 1 pencil and piece of paper

And go!

Nevaeh, Scarlett and Molly plan their bridge...

Wiremu and Conner get straight into it...

Bob and Ben figure out their strategy.

We did it!  Check out our bridges:

Madisyn, Nicole, Isabel and Reia.

Hayden, Conner, Ronon and Wiremu.

Matthew, Roland, Ayjae and Layton.

Molly, Scarlett and Nevaeh.

Can you set us another building challenge?

What would you do differently if you had the same materials?

Zumba at Tokomaru!

Keeping active doing Zumba today - we loved the songs and the energy!  Thanks to Jess for the awesome leadership - we're looking forward to next week's session already.

Jump!

And slide!

GetWise: The Island of Wants and Needs

This morning we were separated into 4 families:

Teigan, Lukaz, Kobe, Josh W, Josh - Family 1 has a new baby.

Jordan, Luccas, Tyler S, Eli - Family 2 has a cat.

Ella, Ben, Sean, Ryan, Cameron - Family 3 has a member with a bad cold.



Brooklyn, Cody, Shayde, Corey, Tyler - Family 4 has two children.

Each family was told that they were going to a deserted island with just one suitcase.  Sounds easy?  Not when your family can only take 6 items from this shopping list:

- A tent
- Matches
- A comic book
- Food
- Cat food
- A ball
- Sun screen
- A bottle
- Fairy floss
- Cough medicine
- A Scrabble board
- A stereo

Each group had a big discussion about what they were taking to the deserted island and justified why they were taking it.  Families got points if they had thought about their needs versus their wants, taking into account different scenarios like a thunderstorm or extra cold nights.

Family 4 were the only family to choose only what we considered needs from the items, selecting to take the tent, matches, food, sun screen, the bottle, and cough medicine.

What would you take from the list?

Which items do you consider to be wants?