Thepipbuzz

We have had a busy term with our Science focus of 'Eureka - we're about finding out!". We have all completed lots of science experiments, discussed our results, asked questions, had wonderings, found out interesting facts and displayed our work. Here is a selection of our science projects that have already made it to school - ready for viewing....

By Bjorn A wee selection of the planes created from descriptions in our shared Chapter Chat book 'The Explorer' by Katherine Rundell. By Giacomo & Toa We have come to the end of the story - we loved it and rated it a solid 8.5 out of 10.  By Daniel P It has been a very interesting, exciting and informative book where we have learnt lots of new facts about the Amazon Jungle and the creatures that live within it.

Today we had the pleasure of our whanau members coming along to school, to see our learning in Moana Learning Hub and to find out more about: Learn, Create, Share; following our blogs and how to give quality blog comments. THANK YOU TO ALL THE WONDERFUL WHANAU MEMBERS WHO COULD JOIN US TODAY! We had 3 great presenting teams of: Obe, Summer F, Sophie, Perle, Daniel P, Charlie K, Charlie W, Daniel B, Mason, Taj, Hana, Miriam and Jack. Have a look at the presentation below:

The Huia reading group were tasked with retelling the Story of Matariki.  After reading information, they viewed a few video clips and got some ideas... then they chose how they presented their retell.   We shared as a group and we were all impressed with the quality!

Daniel gives a great explanation of Learn, Create, Share!!

We have some very talented dancers in our midst... Sophie, Miriam and Sarah from Moana Learning Hub were joined by Amelia and Olivia to show off their skills at assembly this morning. WOW - thanks girls, you have very impressive moves!!

Carys & Sophie are Wainui Beach School Enviro Leaders.  The area that they are responsible for is the Compost. They have done some great work so far this year (including designing and making a new compost area out of old pallets!) and share with you this information about what should and shouldn't go into the compost! Thanks Carys & Sophie for all the hard work you put in to sharing your compost knowledge with us! Sophie & Carys created this poster so that everyone at WBS knows what should be going in the compost "Our next step is to create a compost kitchen that has three compost areas - one for food scraps, one for grass clippings and one for leaves & wood trimmings.  We are hoping to get this done by the end of this term"  say Sophie & Carys

Today Koka Ngaire shared our next puzzle challenge... in our same groups from Tuesday we had to figure out what each of our puzzle pieces should look like.   We are learning to:  * convert between metric units, using whole numbers and commonly used decimals. * find fractions, decimals, and percentages of amounts expressed as whole numbers, simple fractions, and decimals.                       * use  transformations (reflection, rotation, translation, or enlargement). First team to crack the challenge!!

Moana 2 learnt about the Matariki stars - Matua Fergus showed us some awesome examples of stars that others had made.  We had to design our own stars... we could create small or big stars.   We worked with someone else if we wanted to make big stars.  We cut out some that were kite shape and put them together.  We made Maori designs on each part of the star. When we were finished our stars, we went to share our work with our buddy class Room 6.  Room 6 kids thought that our work was really cool and they wanted to do some too! Matua Fergus put the stars up on the ceiling of our room to show the position of each of the stars in the Matariki cluster.  We think they look pretty cool! Written by Stevie K.

We have learnt about Matariki this week... have a look at our Maths challenges for Matariki.  We are pretty proud of the results!

Measuring & discussing Koka Ngaire's Early Level 4 mathematicians had a challenge today... to work in teams of four, to create triangles of different measurements and make them fit neatly together in a square! We had to check the measurements from the model - discovering that 100mm is NOT the same as 100cm!! We had lots of discussion amongst our groups; talking about the triangles, the measurements and how they would all fit together. At the end we shared with each other what we found tricky and how we problem solved... Success!  The finished products Koka Ngaire has a harder challenge for us on Thursday - we wonder what that will be?!

By Lani By Kaya Last week in Moana 3, we learnt about positive and negative space within art pieces.  It was fun to learn that it is how our brain sees different spaces.  Also, that we can use this positive and negative space to create different effects. By Taj By Ruby We were each given a square of black paper and an A3 sized coloured piece.  We cut patterns out of the black paper and used the 'fit it, then flip it' method to create our art works. By Kohine By Carys                                            It was a bit of a puzzle to start with, but once we really understood the fit and flip method and how this created the positive and negative space - we were away.   We were all so proud of our art pieces!

Moana 3 enjoys buddy reading on Friday's with Room 10.  Either they come and visit with us or we go and see them in Room 10. There are always interesting stories to share and we mix buddies.  Sometimes our Room 10 friends read to us or we read to them or we read together! You are never too old to enjoy a good picture book!

Last week, Moana3 had the TinkerLab challenge of creating powered boats - through either propellors, jet propulsion (water through a straw) or balloon power. There were a great variety of boats created and we were excited to see how they went.  We tested them out in the junior water play tub first and were desperate to see how they went in the big school pool!! Today there was a strong head wind - we think we should have made sailboats!! Listen to our discussion on what boat style we thought worked the best...

The hidden ruins by Sophie & Carys Information report about Caracara's - Natalie We are really enjoying the current Year 5/6 Chapter Chat book - 'The Explorer' by Katherine Rundell.   There are many interesting things about the Amazon Rainforest that we are learning about: different animals, plants and places. Electric blue butterflies - Bjorn Information report about sloths - by Jacob The stranger by Toa The story revolves around 4 young children lost in the Amazon and it is an exciting, funny and catchy story. A secret map - by Daniel P Information about Honey - by Charlie W Here are some of our differing Chapter Chat activities that we have created over the past few weeks.  We have used google drawings, google slides and pen & paper to create! The hidden ruins - by Bjorn