Double Waka

Responding to Reading - Making Model Waka

Room 8 enjoyed reading about how to make double waka and were keen to make their own. Our parent help Mr Hohaia supplied the flax (harakeke) stalks from his farm and helped us put all the parts together. We designed the sails and collected enough wire and tape to complete the project.

We showed some of the waka to our Junior School Assembly but because the weather was so bad we decided not to have a waka race in the swimming pool. Let us know what you think about the final creations!

Nepia and his Dad prepare the sail for the waka

Waka line up

Melika's creation

Some clever thinking about giving our waka a name

A kiwi vibe to Cayden's waka

Painting pentagonal tessellations

Painting pentagonal tessellations

As the first step in our print making learning we painted tessellations (of pentagons) in shades of green and yellow.

Our cardboard printing blocks were all about mini beasts so we thought that a background in these colours would look a bit like the bush or plants.

To create the shades, we used egg cartons to mix and blend 2 of the colours. To each colour we added water to give the paint a watercolour effect.

Once the printing blocks were finished we rolled out sticky black ink and printed the mini beasts onto their backgrounds. In a few days we will add some photos of our finished art. We think the effects are stunning!  What do you think?

We also shared our art at the junior assembly!

Tauwharangi worked hard to mix interesting shades

Leeara painted a colourful pattern

Milan and Pippa created excellent patterns

Learning to use Explain Everything

Today we started learning how to use an app on our iPads called Explain Everything. EE is an interactive whiteboard platform where people learn, create and share. 
We learned how to start a new project, then take a photo and insert it on the whiteboard. We learned how to make the picture bigger and smaller and move it anywhere on the whiteboard using the Hand Tool. We then learned about using some other tools such as the Draw Tool, Highlighter, and the Bucket Fill. We made a poster with our photo and a drawing of something we like.
Here is a photo of Cayden with his brilliant creation.