Maui and the Sun by Aradia

                        Maui And The Sun

Written By Aradia

Once hundreds and hundreds of years ago. The sun didn’t go slow like it does these days. It went fast. That made the people upset. Maui was furious.

There was no time to go fishing or playing because the sun was going too fast.

Maui did a haka to try to convince the sun to slow down.The sun just ignored him. Maui made a plan.

“I will make a plan to weave with harakeke to make a strong rope. So I can catch the hot sun” Maui thought. He asked himself “Will this be strong enough?” He tested it out, then tied it around a rock. He pulled with all his might!It didn’t break. “Yes!” He said aloud.

Maui hid just by the cave and waited for the right time and… POP! He jumped out and swung the rope like a lasso. He pulled the sun towards him.he had to be careful not to let it burn his flesh.

He slowly and sneakily pulled out his powerful weapon. When the sun wasn’t looking, he beat the sun over and over until it listened to him. “I order you to stop going fast and go slow if you don't I will beat you again” shouted

Maui.

The next day the sun went slow. All of the people were thanking Maui and the sun. The kids were playing all day and the men were hunting and fishing all day.

                       

                              That's  why  the sun  goes slow these days

Matariki with our Tuakana Teina Class

For Matariki we buddied up with the Piki Pod together. We made kites in the middle block then after lunch we helped them fly their kites. Most of us made our own too so we could have fun with our buddies. It was such a pity when it started raining! We had fun while it lasted though. Unfortunately the rain destroyed our paper kites.

We had a lot of fun with our buddies that day and afterwards we listened to a story with them.

Here are some pictures from Friday....

By Bianca & Elise

More on our Dr Evil "Breakout EDU"

WOW Factor (Breakout)

What a stunning start to Term 2! When we arrived at school we wondered about something.There was a big wooden chest with an envelope on it saying "Open at 12.00."

So we did what it said and at 12.00, Alex opened the big envelope. Inside were four clues and a red card that said "Check your email." Soon enough we found out who it was... DR EVIL! Dr Evil had a little video that talked to us about how he is going to release a deadly substance to the world!

Dr Evil challenged us that we had to unlock the 4 padlocks in 45 mins. We all worked together to find the codes to the padlocks, and a hidden key. We had difficult maths questions to solve that helped us to find out the lock combinations.

With 24 minutes left to spare on the breakout timer, we finally opened the last lock and discovered the chest was full of bags of SUGAR!. On the bags of sugar it told us how much sugar was in the little zip lock bags.

We had a table with fizzie, energy drinks, juice and water on it. We had a vote to see how much sugar is in the drinks, we were wrong on most but right on a couple. After lunch we fixed our guesses up.

Good bye Mr Meehan

GOODBYE Mr Meehan from Room 13 but...he will still be at Mahora School...in Room 2 and the other classes. We loved having Mr Meehan in our classroom.  He brought lots of fun and exiting things to the Dream Team and we will definitely miss him.

Mr Meehan helped us get better at Maths and had us working with decimals. He is the best student teacher we've ever had (THANK YOU).

We bet Room 2 and the other classes will love having Mr Meehan in their room.

By Bailey & Blaise

Daily 5 - Self Directed Learning

For the last two weeks, we have been focusing on self-directed learning during Daily 5, and exercising our "independence muscle"!

We have a range of Literacy-related activities that we need to work through and we decide what order we complete these. 

Everyone is getting really good at working independently and they have been completing some wonderful work.  This week Bryan completed a wonderful poem called 'Mice'. Look at his amazing illustrations!

By Bianca and Ezrah

Mystery Skype - Global Connections

What great fun Mystery Skype is! There are so many different jobs. Photographers take photos. Atlas readers read the atlases and come up with questions for the Inquirers to ask. Question Keepers, keep a record of questions we ask and write them on the whiteboard for everyone to see. Inquirers talk to the opposition and answer and ask the questions. They need to remember to speak clearly and be polite. The Clue Keepers cross out countries on the map and come up with our next questions. Logical Reasoners come up with and decide what the final questions should be. They need to check the questions we've already asked and make sure our questions are the best ones we could ask next.  The Google Mappers use Google Earth and other maps to help find the countries.  As for the Runners, they tell the Logical Reasoners the questions given to them from the other groups and then tell the Inquirers what question to ask the opposition.

So far, we have Skyped a school in Vancouver, Canada, a school in Kapiti, New Zealand and another school near Los Angeles, in the United States of America.

It is so much fun and a highlight of our week. It's important to work as a Team, show good Sportsmanship, and represent ourselves, whanau, class and school well.  In other words...we need to show our Mahora Values!

This is what we received today from the teacher of the class we Skyped.

By Bianca and Ezrah

 

                     

Optimist Yachting ( Sailing Pandora Pond)

Last week we went sailing in the amazing Pandora pond. We practised capsizing in the school pool a couple of days earlier. When we finally got there we where very nervous but that didn't stop us from having fun. To fill in our time we went kayaking too. Its definitely a great opportunity, We are all so proud that we accomplished something that big. Here's a quick video of some fun times at Pandora, Hope you enjoy!

By Nina and Esther

2016 Optimist Yachting from Room 13 Dream Team on Vimeo.

Physical and Chemical Changes

Mr Meehan's Science Unit Mr Meehan's Science Unit Pt 1 from Room 13 Dream Team on Vimeo.

Dream Team Assembly

Assembly Item 2016 from Room 13 Dream Team on Vimeo.

Te Reo Wero - Mahora Values

Hey kids, rewind the learning we did earlier in the week with Miss Smith, to help you with your Homework wero (challenge). The video of our session with Miss Smith is below.

 Let's see if we can have everyone knowing the Maori translation and correct pronunciation for our School Values...AND...the beautiful meanings behind these words.

SELF, RESPONSIBILITY, and CONNECTED

We're great learners in the Dream Team! The children have been learning A LOT of new routines over the past three weeks and now they can quickly fall into these, so that they can get on with their learning. They know what it should look like and sound like.

They are also getting faster at organising themselves and their tools, and are also quick to pack up/tidy up so that they can head off to their well-deserved break on time.

Well done Dream Team! I'm impressed with how you are showing the school values of SELF, RESPONSIBILITY and CONNECTED.

Working on their Maths

Learners as Teachers

The children have been learning how to give effective peer feedback and feedforward to each other. They use the Success Criteria (What Counts) to help them and they only focus on what the person has been working on (e.g. the learning intention, WALT or learning goal).

We talked about how this helps our learning and how important it is to be specific about what their peer has done well and what their peer needs to focus on next.

Introducing Mr Meehan

We are very fortunate to have EIT Candidate Teacher, Mr Bronson Meehan, completing his 5-week teaching practicum in the Dream Team.

Mr Meehan is in his 3rd year of teachers training. Prior to this he was the Sports Coordinator at a school in Napier and is a keen cricketer.  Mr Meehan has been visiting our class over the last 3 weeks and as of Monday, he will be in everyday. The children are enjoying having him in our class and they always look forward to his daily brain buster and fun outdoor games.

We all can't wait for Monday!

Digital Citizenship

The children brainstormed what they knew about being safe and responsible online, then sorted their ideas into two groups.  They sure know a lot about being a responsible, digital citizen!  These helped us to form our expectations for when using technology. Discussions around Digital Citizenship will be ongoing and part of our everyday learning.

Tuakana-Teina

We had a great time getting to know our new Teina class, Piki Pod 16 (Mrs McKinley's class). There's only a handful of them at the moment but their class is growing in numbers by the day.

We were really impressed with their soccer skills during our game of 4-ball soccer. They got stuck in and took on the Dream Team.  It was really lovely to see the Dream Team taking care of their wee friends and to make sure they had fun (our games are usually more competitive when we're playing against each other).

For our wonderful Teina class; they now have many familiar faces in the Senior Team that they count on if they need a hand with something.

We are looking forward to our next catchup soon!

Catching the Art Deco Buzz

Big thanks to Sharon Jenkinson (and her Art Deco friends) for treating us to a ride in their cars.
Sharon's daughter Shona was a Year 6 at Mahora last year.

Counting Down!

I'm counting down the days until we start 2016! Can't wait! I'm really looking forward to seeing your smiling faces and starting our new year. It's been lovely seeing some of you already!

Everyone has been really busy at school getting the classes ready...there's been a few changes, so look out for these. Have a great weekend, and see you all on Monday.

Here's something in the meantime to get you thinking...