Henna Hands Art

Hemani

We have been learning about different Indian cultural practices for our topic. Recently we created henna hands art. Watch the video below to see the students art, annotated with their labels for meaning. Explore the student blogs to the right to see posts on their henna art.

Henna Hands Art from Kieren Moriarty on Vimeo.

The Dead Harry Trailers

Room 16 finished reading Dead Harry by Ken Catran last week. We really enjoyed the story. It made us laugh and also gave us a little scare now and then. As the mystery unfolded, we liked predicting what might happen next.

Most of the class wanted to create trailers so we borrowed a few iPads and gave it go. Watch them below (if you dare!). Which trailer do you think is the best and why? How do they advertise the book and make you want to read it?

Remember to vote for your favourite trailer in the poll. (Poll closed - thank you. Trailer B won a very close vote.)

 

Trailer A: Joshua, Shivom, Jessica, Inderpreet and Ellis.

Trailer B: Hannah, Lily, Teva and Zeb. Guest starring Liam as Mr Dombroski and Ellis as the unknown criminal.

Trailer C:  Tyrone, Nikitah J, Emma and Crighton. Guest starring Zach as Mr Rudd.

Trailer D: Tracey, Cameron, Dylan and Olivia.

Trailer E: Samuel, Zach, Bree and Hemani. Guest starring Joshua as the unknown criminal, Lily as Primula, Ben as Mr Rudd and Teva as the spooky Elias Milton.

Trailer F: Marcus's trailer using GoAnimate. Technical assistance by Teva.

Update: Student letters to Ken Catran (click on the links):

• Joshua
• Hannah
• Tracey
• Samuel
• Nikitah J
• Inderpreet
• Zeb
• Tyrone
• Henry
• Olivia
• Hemani
• Lily
• Nakita H
• Ben
• Crighton
• Jessica
• Ellis
• Emma
• Cameron

Three Dice Multiplication Game

Room 16 love playing this multiplication game. It is very simple and involves addition, multiplication, number sense and written recording of equations in a simple table. Here is how to play:

Equipment:

• 3 dice
• Pencil and paper
• A buddy

Rules:

1. Draw a t-chart table with your name on one side and your buddy's on the other.
2. Take turns at throwing the three dice. When you throw the dice you use addition and then multiplication to get your score for that round. For example if I rolled 2, 6 and 4, I would go (2+4) x 6. That makes 6 x 6 = 36.
3. You keep a running total of your score. For example if I got 24 the next round, I would add 24 to 36 which gives me 60.
4. The first person to 200 is the winner. 
5. You could adapt this game in many ways, for example changing the target score.

Today, I played Nikitah J. I was in the lead early. Unfortunately, she finished the game stronger than me and deserved the ultimate victory. Hopefully, I will beat her next time. 

Update: Check out Nikitah's blog post (using Explain Everything)!

Nikitah's famous victory.

Football for All

Today we had our second session learning football skills with the Napier City Rovers. Aaron and Harley are excellent coaches. Today we developed the skill of passing and last week we worked on dribbling.

Sam and Inderpreet ready for the next instruction.

Here is a video from last week's session:

Football Skills 2013 from Kieren Moriarty on Vimeo.

Music: Virus from the Sea by Digi G'Alessio (soundcloud.com/digigalessio) Used under Creative Commons.

Simple, Compound and Complex Sentences

Today we used this cute dragon photo to inspire our writing. At first, I pretended I had a new pet.

Personal Dragon Pet

In writing, we are learning more about sentences. Sentences are a group of words that express an idea. They have a subject and a verb.

A simple sentence has one idea.

The little dragon wriggled on my fingers.

A compound sentence has two ideas joined by a conjunction.

The dragon is learning to breathe fire and it has lit a candle.

A complex sentence has two or more parts. One part has the main idea and makes sense by itself. The other parts contain information which builds on the main idea. The extra part does not make sense by itself.

The dragon's nostrils billowed smoke as if it was real.

Watch our Explain Everything which we recorded as we created our sentences.

Dragon Sentences from Kieren Moriarty on Vimeo.

Music: When by Stephen Siebert (Creative Commons)