Performance by students from our sister school: Guilin

Mandarin lesson 2

Today we had our second Mandarin lesson with Tracey Laoshi. We learned how to have a simple conversation saying our name and where we come from. 

We are loving the challenge of pronouncing the Mandarin sounds which are very different to English or Te reo sounds. 

At the end of the lesson we found out our Chinese names. 

Don't judge a book by its cover!

This afternoon we did an eye-opening activity about stereotypes. We had photos of different (unknown) people placed around the room. We all had to decide on each individual's age, occupation, marital status, hobbies, interests and more. Of course these judgments were based entirely on what the person in the photo looked like. What we found was surprising and way off what we had guessed. Hearing the real profiles of these individuals showed how wrong we were about so many things! We found there's no way you can decide what kind of person someone is based only on how they look and it isn't fair to make appearance-based judgments.

Mandarin lesson

Ni hao!

Today we had our very first Mandarin lesson with Tracey Tong, who has come all the way from Shanghai, China, to teach Mandarin in NZ schools. We are very lucky to be having lessons with her this term and next.

Today we learned the Mandarin for words and phrases such as teacher (Lao shi), how are you (ni hao ma), goodnight (Wangshang hao) and more.

We sang some songs and found out about China's population, land, ethnicities and culture.

Xie xie!

Picasso Art

Over the last couple of weeks we've been working on some art that was inspired by Pablo Picasso. First we picked which facial features we were going to use, then we chose the shape we going to use for the face. We chose from the range of different Picasso styled features. We then coloured it all in with bright and vibrant colours. Our final pieces ended up looking like this:

Over the last couple of weeks we've been working on some art that was inspired by Pablo Picasso. First we picked which facial features we were going to use, then we chose the shape we going to use for the face. We chose from the range of different Picasso styled features. We then coloured it all in with bright and vibrant colours. Our final pieces ended up looking like this: 
Posted by Giselle and Hannah

A day in Room 20...

We haven't posted in a while so we thought we'd put on some photos and videos of some of the things we get up to on a typical day.

Reading - at the moment we are doing Literature Circles. Everyone is in a group who are reading a novel together. Our novels are 'Holes', 'Bridge to Terabithia', 'Charlie and the War Against the Grannies' and 'The Last Wild'. Each week they have an agreed amount to read, and a different task to complete to do with what they have read. Then at the end of the week they have a group meeting where they discuss what they've read and share what they created for their task. We're over halfway through our novels.

Maths - At the moment we are learning about statistics. Today one of our maths groups was learning how to display data in a stem and leaf graph and a histogram.

Art - Matariki

To celebrate the Maori new year coming up later this month, we are doing a very hands-on creativity challenge. Students have chosen between the 'Wearable Art' or 'Make It' options and are using Matariki as their inspiration. Students have chosen to learn how to weave flax stars, design their own hangi innovation, and we have lots of carefully thought out outfits under construction. Watch this space!

Anzac Presentations

Hey Everyone! It's Catherine, and today we were lucky enough to have some awesome Anzac presentations. Thanks to Oscar, Henry, Caitlin, and Taylor for sharing! Look at some cool photos: