Making rockets at Tamaki College

Sajiha

Reon

Thomas

Key Competencies in action!

This morning the key competencies were alive and kicking in LS2. Using our multimodal reading site each group accessed the learning at their own pace and in their own way. This allowed for stronger connections to be made, something that was evident in the discussions that were taking place. Great collaboration LS2!

Thinking and making connections

Self managed reciprocal reading

Participating in and contributing to the learning

Understanding language, symbols and text

Relating to others

Congratulations Daniel, Eric and Oh Hsen!

Congratulations boys for earning your PBS CARE award badges.  Daniel (Confidence), Eric (Confidence) and Oh Hsen (Attitude) these are superb qualities to have. Well done for completing all your challenges.

Summer Learning Journey

Rachel from Woolf Fisher introduced the 2016/17 Summer Learning Journey at PBS this morning. With over 60 challenges and 10 countries to 'travel' to, this looks to be a fun and engaging way for our students to maintain the progress they have made this year. There are lots of amazing prizes being offered to the students across the cluster who earn the most points. The challenge runs from 17 December 2016 - 27 January 2017. You can register for the 2016/17 Summer Learning Journey here.

Congratulations Mahdia!

Congratulations Mahdia for working hard to earn your Gold CARE award for Attitude. Well done for completing the challenges. Mr Johnston was very impressed with how you could discuss your learning.

Inquiry: The connection between the Kauaka and the Maori people by Afu

Today we have been making a storyboard on the connection between the Godwit and the Maori people. This task was our last task for inquiry. Our learning intention was to describe the importance between the Godwit to the Maori people. 

Congratulations AJ and John!

Congratulations AJ and John, a certificate for progress in writing! Both of you have listened to feedback and thought of ways you could apply new learning to help move your work to the next level.

Building Leadership by Jorja, Ma'ata and Sa Kae

On Monday the Yr 7's had another leadership lesson. We had a race to see who was the first group to finish and make a tower with cups, for more information on what we did read my DLO that I have made about building our leadership.

Migration from Tahuna Torea by Pote and Te Paki

This week, Te Paki and I collaborated to finish challenge 3. This challenge was all about Migration. We had to make a DLO about migration and why birds migrate.  We learned about the nearest mudswamp ( Mud swamp are where the Bar tailed Godwit migrate to). Tahuna Torea is linked to the Tamaki river and is located on the borders of Glendowie.

Growing our Leadership by Mia

In this weeks leadership lesson we continued to work on our team building.  We got faced a challenge  that involved working as a team. So we got into groups of 4 then got given 5 rubber bands and 10 cups. It sounded odd but it kept me thinking.  We had to make a carrier with the 5 rubber bands because we had to stack the cups into a pyramid. But we had to work as a team and collaborate to complete because I learnt that a successful team  works with each other, learns from each other and helps with each other.  Since we are starting to grow leaders I figured that we had to start working as a team. 

Building Leadership Skills Year 7 by Oh Hsen and Sylis

This is my DLO on Leadership I did with Sylis. Every Mondays the Yr8s have dance while the Yr7's have leadership. We are doing this to build trust with each other and next year we're going camp and we need to get along with each other. Mrs Anderson gives us really fun and exciting. I really enjoy doing leadership activities.

5 minutes of... by Thomas

Down with the fish

I could see the bubbles, floating up towards the shiny surface above, but I couldn’t follow them. As the shore swept by, I felt a sudden push. My board, that used to be stuck, was ripped out by the surf, and the rip shoved me further out. It was pitch black, I couldn’t untie the string around my hand. I slammed into something, wondered what it was, then the pain hit. My head began to turn, I felt as if I was going to puke in the water. I screamed in pain and fear. As I tried to hurl up, I was pushed downwards. I heard some cries, and someone shouted out, “Just hold on, son! Help’s on th...” CRASH! The words were swept away by the roaring of the ocean. I could hear a machine coming in from the distance. A steady beat of whoomph, whoomph, whoomph. I could see a red wagon in the air, down came a rope. I heard a calming voice, “It’s okay, kid, I’ve got you.” I thought I was on death's row, my heart felt as if it had stopped. Then everything faded into blackness and murmurs, except for the steady beat of the chopper's blades, seeming to tell me everything will be alright.

This is Lathams and my "5 minutes of.." narrative recount writing sample that we wrote based on a picture of a rescue helicopter. We took turns writing a line each until we had finished it. It was all about what we thought had happened in 5 minutes for the picture.

Operation: Eagle Swoop by Pote and Sebastian

Operation: Eagle Swoop

It was cold as usual. Nothing exciting about the weather here. ‘Cold Hell,’ is what the locals call it. Mondays, are the worst as we were getting ready to leave for the beaches of the cold south. It was the first time we have ever got a day like this. Every winter, it’s either helping a stranded citizen escape their car or someone has been sucked into the fearless waters.

“SSSSHHHH!” the helicopter zoomed across the sea. The hair of the ocean was elegant yet rough with boulders laid all around her.

“Unit 935, please report to homebase when you reach the location of a capsized boat.”

Everything had looked strange but familiar as if I had been far out at sea. Our biggest enemy, the never ending blue hair still spreads.

“ Home base , we have made it to the location.”

The captain of the helicopter mumbled as the helicopter propellers made a louder sound and made him sound like a rat.

“ You guys had better be ready. From our intel it is known that there is a group of people who have  been stucked at sea for two days. Their boat capsized and they  been stranded out in the middle of nowhere for what feels to them like an eternity!“ Screamed the Captain.

Time just kept ticking by ...

Congratulations Silivia and Daniel!

  

Congratulations Silivia and Daniel! A certificate for showing our CARE values of confidence, attitude, respect and excellence and innovation. You both do this in your approach to work and your ability to work collaboratively. Well done!

Who flew first? by Pote and John

This week for Reading, Ms. Kirkpatrick set us with another text to read (That is related to Flight). The text was all about Richard Pearse but also if he flew before the Wright Brothers. Supposedly, Pearse flew before the Wright Brothers ( By a couple of months). I worked with John to see what our opinion about who was the 1st to reach the sky by control.

Bar-Tailed Godwit 'Storyboard That' by Daniel

Made with Storyboard That

This is a DLO that I created on Bar-Tailed Godwits. Our task was a to make a comic strip on Bar-Tailed Godwits using storyboard that. First we created a comic strip. Then we got some of the most interesting facts about the Godwit and we put it on the comic strip. This was my first time doing something like this so it took a while to get the hang of it. It was actually pretty fun to use with all of the backgrounds and characters you could use.

Godwit Popplet by Thomas

This is an image of Latham's, Reon's, and my Godwit Popplet on its appearance, diet, habitat, and predators. This is the second part of our Flight topic for inquiry. We are learning about the Godwit because it is a native New Zealand bird, and also is one of a group of birds that fly long distances to migrate. We also learnt that Godwits stop for rest in China/Korea when they start migrating, but on the return journey they don't rest at all, flying straight from Alaska straight to New Zealand. There are 5 other activities after this one where we will find out more about the Godwit, since we've only found out the basics so far.

Measurement Challenge by Thomas

Yesterday we started on our silent measurement activity. For this activity, we had to make groups then prototype paper plane designs individually, either getting the designs that we use from our memory or online (YouTube, Paper plane websites, etc), then test how far they can fly by throwing them from different areas such as the senior playground, the LS2 balcony, or the field, then get the good ideas from each prototype and eventually make a super plane as a group that will fly further than the other groups super planes. We have already made and tested our prototypes, and today we are moving on to the combining part of our designs, and also making our groups super plane. The hardest part for this activity is that all of our instructions were given silently, with us looking at a presentation.

'Outlook for Someday' movie shortlisted

Congratulations Latham, Daniel, Jasmine, Sylis and Reon for getting your movie on the shortlist for the 'Outlook for Someday' challenge. We are all very proud of you.

Here is the link to watch it: https://vimeo.com/189095082

The Shake Out from The Outlook for Someday on Vimeo.

Newton's Law explained by Charlize

a

     For inquiry we were talking about how rockets work. We also learnt about Newton's 3 laws. One of the things we talked about was how the gas inside the engine comes out of the exhaust and thrust the rocket out into space. In this DLO we also stated 3 facts about rockets and introduced a joke, it goes like this:
Me: Finish this sentence, may the force...
You: Be with you?
Me: Nope, may the force be mass times acceleration

Reading with Mrs A by Ma'ata

Today I read Mrs Anderson a book called 'A Job for Clown'. After each page I had to pick a question card off the table and Mrs A asked me a question about the page I had just read. I kept tricking her and choosing the 'who' question. When I finished the story I asked Mrs Anderson questions about the book to check that she had listened carefully.

Reading Challenge by Nesi

For the past few days for reading we had to work collaboratively as a group to complete the task. First, our teacher told us nothing, instead of saying anything she wrote what she needed to say on her laptop, from there we worked as a group to figure out what to do. We first had to read a big book as a group and write what happened in the story in exact 25 words. Our next task was to fill in the blanks for these 2 other stories, the first one we got was slightly easy but the second one was slightly harder because it used harder words and it had an longer story. As we worked as a group we got the task finished and filled in all the gaps by trying it. We had to follow the instructions and understand the meaning of the story. We were learning to skim and scan so we could find the word that best fitted in the gap. I really enjoyed this task as we had to follow the instruction because it was an different way of doing the activity. Our learning intention was to follow instruction and making sure we had to read for meaning and understanding.

Smart Searching by Jasmine

Today a group of student went to the library to learn about smart searching with Mrs Ogilvie. Mrs Ogilvie works with the Nation Library came to our library to teach us a better way of searching. She told us about a website called Epic which had Britannica and Kids info bits. And we learnt that Britannica we could go up level to help us learn at our own levels. After we had to promise that we would tech the rest of the people how to use Britannica and kid info bits.

Congratulations AJ and Oh Hsen

Congratulations to AJ and Oh Hsen, a certificate for thinking of others. Well done boys a superb quality to have and a great start to the term!

Year 7 Collaborative Popplet

This term our inquiry focus was on the Bartailed Godwit but in Maori it is known as the Kuaka. The Yr7's have created a popplet together that tells informations about the appearance, habitat, Migration diet and what effects Godwit/Kuaka in different ways. We also added in some images and videos to give a clear picture of the special bird.  Did you know that they have a 8-9 day non stop flight, this adds up to one whole week and one day which is a short period of time considering they are flying long distance.   We look toward to learn more about the unique birds.

Posted by Oh Hsen, Mia and Eric

Growing Leadership in Year 7

Day 1 Term 4 saw us embracing the opportunity to begin to nurture and grow the leadership skills and qualities of our wonderful Year 7 students. Today we explored what qualities we felt a leader needed to show/have, then thought about the leaders who inspire us. Each student created a word cloud using Tagul to share the connections they made to leadership.

Teaching Mrs A

This is a picture of me teaching Mrs Anderson how to count to 10 in Tongan. I used the DLO I made to help her learn. I think she was good at saying the numbers in Tongan.

Sketchnoting by Daniel

This week LS2 has been learning how to use sketch notes. They are basically notes that help you understand the learning in your own words/pictures. Sketch notes don't matter if they are messy and don't look interesting, they just have to make sense to you. Sketch notes are meant to be more pictures and less words. They help you make connections and tell a learning story in your words. I liked doing sketch notes because you can be really creative and draw what ever you like (As long as it is in the topic, of course). We looked at some examples and then we made our own. First, we started with a topic we knew, which was questions. Next we did athletics and yesterday we did Rio De Janeiro and the Olympics. 

Here is the questions sketch note:

Here is my athletics sketch note:

Here is my Olympics sketch note:

Finally, here is my Rio De Janeiro sketch note

Cross Country Training by Nesi

For the past few days LS1 and LS2 have been doing some cross country training to help us prepare for our real cross country coming up next week. Every Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday all of us would all get ready and do some stretches before running. Some tips Mr Ogovly  told us was, run at a good pace and then sprint it to the finish line, breath in with your nose and breath our with your mouth open making a "o " shape. The first week we did this we started off with 1 lap and went higher as we got use to running. I think this will help us prepare for the real cross country training. 

Sketchnoting by Thomas

This week LS2 have been learning about Sketch notes. What we have learnt about them is that they use more pictures than words to symbolise things and are a more creative way of making notes. They also help you stay focused to what you are listening to because why write a lot of words and be real bored and not listen when you can draw lots of pictures and not fall asleep because they're so fun to make. We started off with a topic we knew about, which was Questions and how they help us, then moved on to a topic we are learning about as our Kiwi sport with Andi, which is Run Jump Throw and then moved on to a topic we needed to research, which is Rio and the Olympics. We learnt that you can use a variety of objects to make a Sketch note, such as Stick Figures, Bullet points that can be stars circles, even bullets! To make titles we learnt to make the letters into block letters, or circle the title, and make it the biggest thing on the page. We know that our sketch not doesn't have to make sense to anyone apart from us, because, if you can't use you're own notes, then what are you going to do? We will probably use this form of notes from now on but it's fine by me because I know I'd rather draw a few pictures than write 10 pages of words for notes!

Tamaki College Role Models

Thank you to Rita and Kim, both student librarians from Tamaki College who came to talk to us at assembly today about why reading is important. We are so lucky to have role models from our own community to look up to. Thank you both.

Congratulations Zahn and Manu!

Congratulations Zahn and Manu! A certificate for working hard at cross country training. As Sports leaders you both make great role models for our younger students. 

Today we looked at an article about a New Zealander ( Nikki Hamblin) who tripped and a person from the other team ( Abbey D'agostino ) who helped her up in the middle of the race. Abbey D'agostino showed an excellent example  of sportsmanship and fair play. Abbey is a true hero by helping up someone in the olympics even though they were competing against each other.  In this DLO I included the When, where, who, what, why and how. I also included the point of view for the different perspectives. What Abbey did was truly showing fair play and sportsmanship. Would you stop to help her even though you were in a race? From this article I  learnt that Nikki tripped because someone else tripped her which made her stop running and Abbey saw that she was injured so she helped her up and told her that they needed to finish the race together.

By Nesi

This is a DLO we did of a current event. For this one it was about the Olympic race. Nikki Hamblin and Abbey D'Agostino showed good sportsmanship in the race because they helped each other when one of them fell, instead of just continuing the race to win a medal. Even though they came last, both of them got put into the finals, sadly Abbey can't race in the finals because she had a torn ACL and strained MCL. They showed to be good role models and good sports from what they did in the 5000 M(meter or 5 kilometer) race.

By Harry

Interschool Netball by Cecillia

On Wednesday we had our interschool netball tournament. Everyone had a lot of fun playing with each other, even though some were still learning how to play netball. Year 7&8 had two teams, Panmure Bridge 1 and Panmure Bridge 2. Our Year 5&6 had the same. In our team we played against Point England 1. Unluckily we lost but we tried our best and worked as a team. Our second game was against Glen Taylor. We were leading in the first half but then the second half we lost by 1 point, at least we strived to achieve. Our third game was against Point England 2. We were getting better and better in each game, but unfortunately we lost by 1 point. In our final game we went against PBS 2 and we won our game. Everyone had fun and enjoyed playing with each other and working as a team. Thank you to our coaches/umpires from Otahuhu College. We really appreciated the effort that you guys have put in into us. Also thank you to Mr Ogilvie and Mrs Naicker also Mrs Emma for supporting us and coming to watch our game we all had fun. 

Our New Signage

Our new sign on the side of our new learning spaces. 

Collaborative Art Challenge

Today was the inter-school netball competition so with not many of us left at school we decided to embrace our own collaborative challenge. The idea was that sportsmanship can be shown anywhere, in this case, at the art table. We noticed that some of us had strengths that could help others so we tapped into those strengths to ensure no one was left behind. Their challenge to work together so that at the end of the day everyone had completed their artwork. This group of learners excelled at this challenge and LS2 now has a great display! Well done everyone.