Exploring movement verbs

There were some great discussions around the above movement verbs yesterday. Working together, the students organised the words into groups under headings of their choosing. It was great to see the discussion of unknown words, the comparison of words, and the categorising of movement words. Some of the category headings included:

• silent movements
• falling movements
• stealth words
• slow words
• quick/fast words
• physical movement words
• airborne words
• strong movements
• sudden movements
• joyful movements
• following words

Preschool leadership

The students had some great opportunities last week to develop their leadership skills.

All the students spent some time working with the preschool children, buddy reading and playing. You did so well guys! I was really impressed with the way you related with the children. You asked appropriate questions, spoke in a way that helped them feel comfortable, and you kept the children the focus the whole time we were at the preschool. Awesome!

Well done to Martha, Zachary, Balii, and Greer for the leadership they showed at the Friday 'forest school'. They created bivouacs with the children and even did some cooking on a gas stove. I had great reports about the way you let the children do the thinking and hard work while you guided them and asked them great questions. Well done.

ZERO WASTE

We have had an awesome week with MR X from Zero Waste learning about resource sustainability. We have learnt just how much of an impact we have in NZ on the environment and why we need to think carefully how we live.

Some of the key things we have learnt are:

• Humans are the only thing on the planet that create waste.  
• All 'stuff' has a natural origin which is renewable or nonrenewable. e.g. oil is used to create plastic, wood is used to create paper, white silica sand is used for class, black iron sand is used for creating iron/steel, and bauxite is used to make aluminium 
• The process we use is linear (a line), not cyclic (circle). Everything in nature goes in a cycle, except what humans do. Our process is Extraction, Production, Distribution, Consumption, and Disposal. Every part of the process uses natural resources and the end product is waste.
• Everyone has an eco-footprint (our impact on the worlds resources). The size of our footprint depends on the amount of 'stuff' we have and use. We compared 10 countries (including NZ) and their eco-footprint per person. Here is how it looks:

Biggest footprint (no particular order): Australia, England, USA, Canada, NZ .
Medium footprint: South Africa, Argentina.
Smallest footprint: Mali, India, China

• There are some terrible statistics coming out about NZ and the environment. New Zealand's species extinction rate is among the highest in the world. A United Nations report identifies New Zealand as one of the world’s largest generators of electronic waste (ewaste) and the only OECD country without any national regulations. New Zealand produces 3.68kg of waste per person per day, the worst in the developed world and the 10th worst of countries worldwide surveyed. NZ Herald article
• Developed (wealthy) countries make up 20% of the world's population, create 75% of the waste, consume 86% of the goods and services, and use 58% of the energy produced. 
• NZ vs Mali. The students compared their lifestyles with those in Mali and it was fascinating to see just how many things we have and the possible impact on the environment.

It was fascinating to look into this. We will do some exploring into what it means for the future. How can we creatively think about the future: shopping differently, transport, energy production and use, buildings, waste, etc. 

Here is a video the powerfully shows humanities attitude towards the Earth's resources.

Aroha Kupu

Words open up your world and in Ruma Kokako we want to become logophiles (lovers of words) or in Maori, aroha kupu.

We are spending time exploring words and how powerful they can be for unlocking meaning when reading and creating deep meaning when writing.


We are doing a number of activities to build our vocabulary understanding. These have included:

• Not all synonyms are equal - we have been ordering synonyms by their intensity.
• We have found positive and negative connotations with different synonyms. 
• In English we use the same word for different things. We explored different contexts for the same word. 
• All words can be put into groups such as adjectives, adverbs, nouns and verbs. We have been grouping words and using the correct terms to identify them.
• We can change words by just adding something to the front or end of them. We identified different prefixes and suffixes that change a word's meaning.
• Sometimes we a choose a simple word when a much better one is available. We used an emotion word wheel to identify various options for different situations involving fear

Here are a few examples of the students' work:

The evolution of our school

We are starting to look into the things that have shaped the lives we are living. We will look into things locally, nationally, and internationally that have influenced the world we live in, both personally and collectively. We started looking at the school's history today and had a fun time looking at old photos of our school and identifying locations and changes to the school.

We then discussed the things that have would have lead to these changes such as a growth in student numbers, deterioration of buildings, changes in health and safety, a growth in the wealth of the area, etc. All these decisions and actions have changed the way our school looks and the things the students can do.

10 String Symphony

Ruma Kokako was privileged yesterday to experience some top quality musicians up close and personal. 10 string symphony, from Nashville in America, spent some time with the students playing the fiddle and banjo. Rachel and Christian performed some songs and then answered the many questions the students had. They explained the instruments and their use for different styles of music. The fiddle is another name for the violin. The term violin is usually used for classical playing, where as the fiddle is used for folk music. They also talked about their lives as musicians. The students were really inspired and can't wait to have a go on Bevan's fiddle next week.

10 String Symphony performed again last night at the Te Pahu hall with our ex-students' band Summer Souls. It was great to see the progress that Summer Souls has made and they received lots of good comments from 10 String Symphony.

Here is a short snippet of one of their songs.

Writing Planning

One focus we have with our writing is planning. To have a Level 4 piece of writing we need to have Level 4 quality planning. We want to not just brainstorm ideas but think about structure, language, and grouping our ideas.

We have looked at what planning is and why it is so important. We used this slide to help us.

We have looked at how almost all writing will have an introduction, body and conclusion. We want to plan all three parts.   

We will start looking at planning introductions and how, like a compass, they orientate you and let the reader know where the writing is going.