Tech Group Videos: Now Showing!

In the afternoons some of our students have been learning how to do a range of different things to eventually put together a movie.

They learnt how to:

Operate a camera and take clear photos
Find music on YouTube
Write and perform their own original song
Write a script to go along with their movie and
Combine everything together in iMovie (either on an iPad or computer)

Aren't they amazing learners and collaborators!!

Constable Pete came to LH1!!

Manaiakalani Film Festival 2013

Today all of Stonefields School and the other schools in our cluster went to the Sylvia Park movies and watched our Manaiakalani Film Festival movies on the Extreme Screen!

It was so much fun and we really enjoyed watching the different movies.

This was our movie on the big screen.  Can you see Mina and Charlie introduce it?  They look so little from up in the back row!



"I felt happy because it was fun and we got to use cameras and we got to go under a picnic blanket" - George

"I felt happy because it was fun because we were making the pictures" - Tanuki

"I was excited because everyone in the movie theatre got to see our video" - Riley

"I felt sad because it was a sad song but I was also proud because I made it!" - Carys

Well done to Mrs Jackson who worked with this group of learners during break through time.  We're all so proud of what you achieved.

Hats for term 4!

This term we all need to be wearing school hats as it is the summer term just like term 1. We find it useful if there is something attached to our hats so that we can identify our own one really easily.

These group of children are fine demonstrators!

Thank you to our volunteers :-) We like how you have put a ribbon or a button or badges on your school hats. Round of applause for all of you in hub 1!

From next week if you don't bring your hat to school, unfortunately you will have to sit in the shade during break times so please remember to bring them!

Poetry time!

During poetry time we were set the challenge of collaborating to find the rhyming words in the poem, About Feet.  Can you hear them in our recording?

listen to ‘Rhyming words’ on Audioboo

Some of us also really thought about our expression to make the recording more interesting for you!

listen to ‘Green poetry’ on Audioboo

Comparing weights in Maths

"It was fun and hard because we measured stuff and I didn't know which one was heavier than the other" - Kate

"It was fun and easy because we had the scales to help us" - George

It would have been tricky if we didn't have any scales" - Ayami

"If you're not sure if one is heavier than the other one in your hands, you can put it on the scales to find out which one is harder and which one is lighter" - Annabelle

"It was challenging when they are really the same weight - then I used the scales" - Rachel

Was it easy to collaborate to start with?  No

Did it get easier?  Yes!

What made it easier?  What did you do to make it work better?  

• We used the scales
• Talking
• Lots of thinking!
• Reflecting - what was bigger and what would be heavier
• We put ourselves into small groups to work together
• We had two leaders
• We had to be determined - "because it was hard if we didn't use the scales and then when people moved things" - Thomas

We learnt that just because something is big it isn't always heavier "because other things look small but they are heavier because they are made from different things" - Dinesan

Our Marae Video...

Thank you to all of our awesome parent helpers - we had a great time on the bus and at the marae... we couldn't have done it without you!

Cultural Day in LH1

We've had such a great time today in Learning Hub One - it's been Cultural Day!

Here we are in the morning.  We were really proud of ourselves as every single learner was able to talk on the microphone to say where they come from!

We paraded through the school showing off our cultural dress and recorded what we thought of our clothes...

Would you believe that Kyan (who was dressed as a New Zealand farmer) even arranged for some lambs to come and visit us?!  Here we are with Lily and Simba.  We asked lots of really good questions at the end of their visit.  Thank you Kyan and your Mum for organising this amazing surprise!

We sketched picture of each other in our cultural dress and had to pay close attention to the details.

Then in the afternoon, some of our big buddies from Learning Hub Three came to perform some of their Kapa Haka waiatas and hakas.  We were very lucky to get a private performance!

We had a fun day today celebrating all of our different cultures!!

Learners and parents, please share your comments and thoughts either in this box below or by leaving a comment...

Cultural Day in LH1... at AnswerGarden.ch.

The Dolphin Rescue

Today in Discovery Time, Maya illustrated a series of pictures based on a story that she, Charlie S., George, Mikayla and Dan shared.  Here they are to explain what they came up with...

Friday Morning Poetry

Each Friday we look at new poems in the hub.  Here's one of our groups practicing one of the poems, in which they focused on punctuation and expression (especially around the question marks).

Making connections independently!

Today whilst we were reading a number of learners made connections without being prompted to do so - don't they rock!

...and here we have George, Julia and Kodi spotting small words in a big word!

Break Through today!

Many groups have been putting a lot of time and effort into their Break Through projects this term and many are starting to come to an end.  Here's a bit of a Break Through round-up for you.

Building Group:

They have boats in Lego City and some bridges and houses and buildings.  To make the bridges we had to push the tables a little bit open and we put the bridges in the middle of them.  The bridges are used for the people that go to the boats and the cars.

By Joe

Drama Group:

First showing...

After the first go, we shared some feedback.  We reflected and said that it might be more interesting if the different actors said and did things.  Do you agree?

So the group practiced and reflected some more to give this performance:

We reflected again and gave this feedback.  We liked the way that the actors said and did things when it was their turn and we liked how they spoke clearly.  We think their next steps could be to remember when it's their turn and they might like to practice more to help them remember.  Well done everyone!

Fun with Scrabble letters!

George, his brother, sister and mum have been very busy at home.  Here's George's mum to tell us more...

I had a look at the recent home learning challenges and George was very keen, but funnily enough I was not so keen to unleash the ink and food colouring in our house with younger siblings. Nevertheless I did love the website and from this we came up with the following as an alternative which George, Oscar & Addison can join in at different levels. 

We have printed the Scrabble Tiles and laminated these and put them on the whiteboard. This will let George make words on the board, and as well as making words there is maths involved in adding up the total for the words. Oscar & Addison can have fun as well learning the alphabet.

What an awesome idea!  If you'd like to print and make your own scrabble tiles to use at home, you can get your free copy here:

Printable Scrabble Tiles

Our Amazing Tower!

Look at our amazing tower that we made together in Break Through time.

By Carys, Sadith, George, Flynn and Thomas

Flynn - “It’s huge we are making a tower. It’s like a Sky Tower.”

Sadith - “We could make a window making cameras.”

George - “We are making a video camera to see if there is danger over night.”

Sadith- “This could be the big ball.”

Thomas - “It could be a camera.”

Sadith peers through the windows at Thomas and was laughing.

What learner qualities did George use?

This afternoon George used these three Stonefields Learner Qualities:

• Thinking:  I had to really think how to make it because it was so tricky to make it.
• Determined:  I was doing some tranforming things and I felt like I was determined.  I know I was determined because it was hard and I didn't give up.
• Making connections:  Because Thomas before made the same thing as me and he could make it and it was cool and then I was having great fun doing that thing with Thomas.

By George

What learner qualities did you use today?