Hundertwasser Art Workshops

Creating artworks based on the patterns of nature.

No straight lines, spirals and bold dark colours all feature in Friedrich Hundertwasser's artwork. 

Check out some of our artwork from this week...

Compassion Projects

Showing Compassion for Animals

The Senior Team has had four compassion projects to choose from this term. We had a visit this week from Marjorie and Ralph from the Otago SPCA. As you can see from these photos, Ralph was a huge hit! The class enjoyed hearing about the wonderful work the SPCA does. They asked Marjorie some excellent questions. Thanks to all the families who have donated old towels for this cause.

Thanks too to the families who donated cans for Octacan. The Senior Team donated 117 cans in total. Another thank you to families who have donated stationery for the Pacific Islands. Next week we will be working on our final project, called Gulliver's Travels. Students will be able to bring in a book to swap for another. This is to demonstrate compassion towards the environment and also to contemplate how costly books can be when they are brand new. Why buy when you can swap your preloved books!

Poetry and Percussion

Exploring Language Features Through Nature Poems

The poem 'Rain' by Hone Tuwhare was explored this week. Students identified a number of different language features such as personification and repetition in this wonderful poem. 

Rain - Hone Tuwhare

Rain

I can hear you making
small holes in the silence
rain

If I were deaf
the pores of my skin
would open to you
and shut

And I

should know you 
by the lick of you
if I were blind

the something 
special smell of you
when the sun cakes
the ground

the steady drum-roll 
sound you make
when the wind drops

But if I should not
hear
smell or feel or see you

You would still
define me
disperse me
wash over me
rain

With our college teacher Miss Te Huki students explored using percussion in different ways to enhance their poetry reading.

Rhythm and tempo were explored.

We will continue to practise reading poetry aloud in preparation for week 5 students will read a poem to the class.

Water Exploration in Science

Thinking about erosion...

Last week's Fun Friday we went outdoors to begin experimenting with water. We talked about erosion around the city. We considered how water shapes landforms.  Students began the week by thinking about earth's 4 spheres. We wondered how the hydrosphere affects the geosphere, so we explored weathering and erosion.

We conducted our fieldwork in the school sandpit.

We created different land forms for testing including river beds, a beach, mountains/hills. For the beach landform we simulated wave action.

Some of us created a river bed.

We used our drink bottles to simulate rainfall and tested out what can happen to landforms when too much rain falls.

Some of us added plants and rocks to find out if this slowed down erosion.

We drew scientific diagrams before and after testing and then created our own definitions of erosion.

VISUAL ART TECHNIQUES AND COLOUR THEORY

This week's Fun Friday we explored painting techniques using primary colours. 

We learned about warm and cool colours while we explored different paint effects.

After this we selected warm or cool primary colours and created our own colours.

It was great fun sharing the colours we created.

Next term we will apply these new skills to the backgrounds when we are publishing our poetry.

We chose landscape or portrait for our artwork.

We learned about warm and cool colours.

Here are some of our creations.

Commonwealth Games inspired artworks.

Complimentary colours.

Financial Literacy Drama Skits

LEARNING HOW TO BE 'MONEY SMART' BY ROUNDING AND ESTIMATING 

This week we put our estimating and rounding skills to the test by thinking about how to round to the nearest dollar and 50 cent. With our college teacher Miss Te Huki we examined the senior team stationery list and rounded the figures to make an estimation of cost of items. No one likes being overcharged when they go shopping!   

Each maths group had to perform a drama skit to the class using a scenario and key mathematical vocabulary in their dialogue.

In the scenario the shop keeper gets in a muddle and we step in to help them using our rounding and estimating skills.

Groups worked for 7 minutes to put together a skit to present to the class.

Maths equipment and stationery props were used to bring the drama to life.

Next week we'll continue this learning by exploring everyday supermarket items. Groups will have a chance to make estimations and calculations with shopping items before sharing their knowledge through drama once more. We will be reflecting on our performances to ensure our audience is still entertained, but our focus on using mathematical language will be key. 

Our mathematical language: estimate, because (justifying why), round/rounding, dollars, cents, tidy number, calculate