Countdown to Camp Kaitawa!

There are now five more days until we go to Camp Kaitawa. We are all getting pretty excited! Remember to be at school with all your gear by 8.30am on Tuesday.

Here are the camp groups with their logos. I think they did clever jobs. Which one do you like best?

On Thursday, the groups have a cooking day, where they prepare, cook and eat all their own meals. They also need to provide small samples for the judges of the Master Chef competition. Here are their ingredients for the day. Already each group has come up with a proposed menu. I wonder which group will win Master Chef.

Amazing 3D Models!

Hannah's rectangular prism

Tyrone & Dylan's cubes

Olivia's square pyramid

Bree's octagonal prism

Nakita's tetrahedron

Hemani's cuboid

Henry's stellated dodecahedron

Cameron's 3D models (including a dodecahedron)

Joshua's stellated dodecahedra

Inderpreet's pentagonal prism

Here is Joshua's amazing video about welding his stellated dodecahedron on the weekend with his Dad! It is made of stainless steel.



The Birth of a Stellated Dodecahedron from Room16 Parkvale on Vimeo.

Kiwi Icons

Today many students and teachers of Parkvale School dressed up as kiwi icons. Can you name all the wonderful kiwi icons that these students from Room 16 are dressed up as?

Tens in Hundreds

tens in hundreds from Kieren Moriarty on Vimeo.

Today, I downloaded Jing. It is a screencast or screen capture tool that the students of Room 16 already have on their netbooks. At this stage, the students mainly use it for capturing images but you can use it for creating video. I captured myself going through one of the NZ Maths Equipment Animations. It was fun. Then I found out I had to convert my video file so I could put it on the blog. Through a little digital problem solving I managed to do that, so now I will be able to help any students do the same!

This animation shows us about that essential place value knowledge: tens in hundreds.

Two Weeks Until Camp!

There are now two school weeks until we go to Camp Kaitawa!

The video below has important advice for heading into the outdoors. By following The Outdoor Safety Code, we can enjoy all our outdoor adventures safely. It's from the Adventure Smart website, which is especially for enjoying the New Zealand outdoors. I watched it on Room 17's blog. They go to camp the week before us. 

Skyping Room 121 in the USA

Skyping Room 121 from Kieren Moriarty on Vimeo.


Last week we were lucky enough to Skype our friends, our pen pals Room 121 in the USA. We came to school early and after getting past technical difficulties, we managed a little conversation. It was fun!

Hockey Tips

Hockey from Room16 Parkvale on Vimeo.

Today for P.E. we learnt and practised some hockey skills. It was our first lesson. Miss Hill, who is an excellent hockey coach, walked past so we asked her to give us some tips.

Here are Miss Hill's three tips to kickstart your hockey learning:

1. Hold the stick at two o'clock so you can look ahead while you control the ball.
2. Make a 9 shape with your stick and your bottom arm (right) and top arm (left).
3. Bend your knees.

Zeb, created the trailer which shows some of the hockey fun!

Check out the Hockey New Zealand website.

First Aid with Room 17

First Aid Instructions from Kieren Moriarty on Vimeo.

Room 17 have been practising first aid and learning to write effective instructions. They invited us over and we had to follow their instructions on what to do if someone has a broken arm. Glad wrap rules!

Rock Climbing at Karamu High

Today we got a chance to learn from Karamu High School P.E. students. After getting to know each other, we worked as teams going up and down their rock climbing wall. The year 12 students were awesome teachers and Room 16 were awesome students. We all learnt together. Luckily, we have two more lessons to go!

A big thank you Greg Ross and his wonderful students!

Joshua reaches the top in 23 seconds!

Here are the first student blog posts on the session. I like the variety of ways they have presented their writing and reflections!

• Joshua
• Bree
• Hemani
• Samuel
• Elijah
• Lily
• Hannah
• Zeb
• Olivia
• Tracey
• Marcus
• Nakita

Action Verbs Part 3: Angry Verbs!

We worked with our Room 5 buddies to complete our Angry Verbs. Mrs H and I were so impressed with how all the students worked together. Our Angry Verbs look great! Check out the student blogs on the side (Branches) to see more. 

Visit Room 5's post to see theirs. "We are going to use the verbs on our birds in our writing. Using verbs in our writing helps to make a movie in the readers head."

Action Verbs Part 2

Here is a video I created about our work towards creating angry verbs with our buddy class, Room 5. The music in the video is by Jurassic 5. Notice that each verb has four versions. Which version you use depends on the tense (present, past and future) as well as how you have formed your sentence.


action verbs 13 from Kieren Moriarty on Vimeo.

On Monday, we will be working with our buddy class to finish presenting our angry verbs. They're looking pretty funky so far! Here are some photos from Mrs Hill showing us working together.