End of School Year Reflections

Our final Hands-On-Homework for 2014 was to fill out an end of year reflections. It was such a pleasure to read these and I'm amazed at how thoughtful the comments were. I have picked out all the key words and made some wordles. The first one is all the answers from the following questions:

• My favourite activity this year and why
• I had the most fun when
• What I liked most about my class and teacher
• What I'll miss the most and why
• Things I learned the most this year

The bigger the word, the more students that choose that as an answer. Thank you to all the students that completed their reflections!

Another question was for students to give a piece of advice to students for next year. 

Showing Movement

How can you show movement in a photo? We realised that if someone is actually moving in a photo it will be blurry! Last weeks #handsonhomework challenge was to take a photo showing movement. Can you guess what movement they are showing?

Created with Haiku Deck, presentation software that inspires

Finding out about NZ coins and notes

It's NZ Money week this week and we've been finding out lots about our coins and notes. We worked in groups to research who was on each bank note and why they were there! We also learnt about what the images are on our coins and learnt a bit more about them.  Here are some facts we learnt.

Jordan - On the front of the 20c coin there is a carving of a Maori chief

Zachary - Sir Apriana Ngata played a significant role in the revival of maori people and culture. He's on the front of the $50 note

Hugh - I was wondering what was on the back of the $20 note and when I found it was the NZ falcon, I learnt it's one of NZ's biggest bird.

Yuna - Ernest, Lord Rutherford of Nelson is on the front of the $100 note and he was known as the father of atoms.

Layla - At first I thought it was a tiki on the front of the 10c coin but then I learnt it was a carved head called koruru

Jake B - A $1 coin has a kiwi and a silver fern. I didn't know there was a silver fern too

Eric - I've found out all the animals on the notes and coins

Joshua - A $2 coin has a big bird on it

Levi - Sir Edmund Hillary in 1953 became the first man to climb Mt Everest and to drive overland to the South Pole. He is on the $5 note

Olivia - A long, long time ago only men could vote and not ladies but Kate Shepard said it was not fair and she helped NZ become the first country to let everyone join the vote. She's on the front of the $10 note

Zoe - I learnt that Queen Elizabeth was on the back of every coin

Josie - I learnt that the Yellow-Eyed is the one of the rarest penguins in the world

Renee - On the 50c coin there is a big boat, Captain Cook was on it

Grace - The portrait of the Queen on the $20 note was taken at Government House

Jake S - I learnt the name of the bird on the $50 note. It's a Kokako

Dinosaur Home Learning

For our last week of Term 3, Room 17 had a special home learning challenge to complete. They were given a sheet with different types of activities to do, all about dinosaurs. Some students chose to make dinosaur cages, others made dinosaur food and designed new types of dinosaurs. It was great to see all the different creations!

Hands-On Homework - Salt Crystals

Last week some Room 17 students took up the challenge of trying to grow salt crystals for home learning. Here are some photos of the process and final product. Yuna made a presentation explaining how to get the salt crystals to grow. Click here to view her presentation.

El Presidentes Week 10

Myspace Neon Flash Comments

Hands on Homework - Egg Parachutes

Last weeks Hands on Homework was to make and test a parachute for an egg.  It was great fun watching the video evidence and seeing pictures. Some eggs survived and some did not! Here's a few snippets of the egg parachute challenge.

Colouring Competition

Room 17 love Go Noodle! We try and noodle it every day. At the moment Go Noodle are running some champ challenges. The first was to use these colouring pictures. Last Friday we chose our favourite champ and coloured them in. Miss Bullen was our judge and she chose her favourites. Congratulations to Neive, Jordan, Zack, Olivia and Jake B for your fabulous colouring.

Comic Genius!

What great fun we had on Friday reading the comics some Room 17 students did.  Some students drew their own and some used websites like Make Belief Comix. All in all we had a good giggle reading the different stories each comic told. 

Pick of the Bunch Writing

It's been a while since we've shared our pick of the bunch writing. On Wednesday we went for a morning walk around the school to investigate what winter was bringing to the grounds. We found bare branches, frost covered flowers and very cold concrete!! Olivia's writing was voted the best this week.

On a cold, sunny morning Room 17 went for a walk. The poles were frozen like ice. Breath was coming out of my mouth.  The chirping birds were flying around.  The monkey bars were slippery. The grass was smooth.  The grass looked like it had diamonds on it.

By Olivia

Hands-On Homework - Obstacle Courses

Our HOH from Week 4 was to build an indoor obstacle course. You needed to include over and under, in and out and see if your whole family could complete it. It was great seeing all the different times everyone got and your times getting better over the week.  

Little Chefs

For homework this week we practiced our cooking skills. Check out Nikita's pizza.  It looks delicious! Olivia made herself some toast. Great cooking skills girls.  Jake takes his cooking one step further. He makes food for the men at his dad's work and they buy it from him. He uses this money to buy things he wants.  

Spelling Time Week 5

El Presidentes Week 4

Myspace Generators & Toys

Scribble Drawings

For our Hands-On Homework last week, Room 17 used a template to draw pictures of fish. It was great seeing the different ways they interpreted the template. They could also try and do a scribble drawing. I thought Hugh's scribble drawing and Olivia's fish were pretty creative!

Who got all their spelling right in Week 2?

Teach Me Tuesday Week 2

Olivia and Zachary did a fabulous job teaching us on Tuesday. Thanks to Olivia we learnt how to ice bunny cupcakes (and even got our own recipe to take home) and Zach taught us how to bowl and bat in cricket.

El Presidentes Week 7

Hot Myspace Generators

My favourite part of Friday

I love looking at homework books on a Friday and seeing what everyone's done for their hands-on homework, it's my favourite part of Friday!! Check out all the different ways the Room 17 learners found out about the birds that live in their backyard.

Spelling Week 6