Welcome to our Blog. Here you will discover work from the Raupō Learning Community who are in Pūnui-o-toka. We are Year 4-6 children. Please leave us a comment.
This is what Punui-o-toka have been up to this week. We used Canva to create a Weekly Wrap. We worked in collaborative groups to create it. We had to think about all the activities and learning we have done this week and decide which ones to include.
This week we used our Learning Powers in our Robotics class. We persisted and asked for help when things got tricky. We also collaborated and problem solved when we got stuck.
This week we continued to build our robots. Some of us started to learn how to programme them to move in straight lines and stop at a certain spot. We are still working on this! Next week we will be learning to turn corners.
To make the robots move we use a programme on the Macbooks. We use the Action Blocks and decide on the Power/ Speed and the Duration/ Distance numbers. It is a lot of trail and error. We just need to have a go and learn from our mistakes.
This week we started a Robotics Unit. We are building our robots and learning to write the programmes to make them move. We are very excited and are looking forward to problem solving and working collaboratively to programme our robots to move through a maze successfully.
During S.T.E.M the past couple of weeks the children have been working collaboratively to design and construct a water slide. In their small groups they had to draw and label 3 or more different water slides. They had to share their ideas clearly and listen carefully to each other. The materials available to use were 10 straws, 3 cardboard tubes, a bowl to catch the water at the end, masking tape or sellotape, foil or Glad Wrap.
The success criteria was the water will be able to travel down the slide and end up in the bowl and not soak through the slide. The slide will have an access ladder or ramp.
Most of the water slides were successful. When reflecting on the activity and their collaboration skills; they commented that it was hard to make sure every one did their share of the work and some children found it hard working with others to complete the task. A couple of the groups found it difficult to transfer what they had drawn on paper to physically making their design.
One of our new Whakarua class members is playing hockey for the very first time. Erika, from Punui-o-toka, took the time to show Joanne how to hold her stick and hit the ball. It was fantastic to see her taking the initiative to be there for a new South Hornby Hero!
For STEM we learnt about what a tower is. We found out that a tower is a tall structure, taller than it is wide and it is a self-supporting structure. This weeks challenge was to design a free standing tower with the greatest height using only play dough and toothpicks. They were only allowed to use 100 toothpicks per group and a teacher’s (Mrs Jack’s) handful of play dough. The Success Criteria was - your tower must be able to stand up off the ground by itself only using the supplies you were given.
During our STEM programme our Learners who are a mix of Year 4/ 5 / 6 children are working on communication and collaboration skills. The task was to design a tower that can support a basketball. Materials they were allowed to use was newspaper and masking tape. The Success Criteria was- your tower must support a basketball for at least 20 seconds. Bonus Points were awarded if they constructed the tallest tower possible.
