Looking Forward - Life on Mars?

For the rest of the term we will be reading, thinking and sharing opinions about future ideas like this...

 

Take a minute to think about Mars One.

What does this tell us about the technology we have?
Remember all the learning we did about Ancient Greece and Rome. How have we come this far?
What does this tell us about us as humans?

Would you want to go to Mars? Why or why not?

You may wish to share this video and discuss it with others.

Look Forward

Created with Padlet

Look Back

Created with Padlet

iMovie Advertising Project - with Mandy

Today we were lucky to have Mandy from e-Time working with us. We spent most of the day creating advertisements using iMovie on the iPads. It was great to see so many of us taking risks, collaborating ideas, showing confidence and developing new skills.

Our brief was to 'sell' either a paper clip or an insert that comes with an iPad box. Both are relatively boring items at face value, but after watching some real commercials and making the link to the fact that simple products often have interesting ways of marketing through stories, comedy, the use of music and colour, we thought of some cool ways of advertising our own products.

Today sets us up well for future inquiry, as we can all now confidently use iMovie as a presentation tool. Some of us have opened up new opportunities for ourselves, which is very exciting. 

Check out some of our advertisements over the next week as they are uploaded to our USpace galleries. 

Thanks again to Mandy for her time, expertise and enthusiasm. 

Snow Day

No school today. Let us know what you are up to by writing a blog! You could even add photos if you like.
Today is also a great chance to complete your Ultranet tasks. Well done to those of you who have contributed to our outdoor designs wiki and written your challenges blog. You are awesome.

Mr K

Looking Back to Look Forward - Christchurch Heritage Buildings

 Our charcoal artworks are now on display in the school office. Please take a look if you get the chance. We have had some great feedback and are proud of our work.

Teamwork - Creating a great learning environment

The video we made about Teamwork for our syndicate

assembly today. Well done to Ellee and Alex for writing

the scenes and to all of the actors. We hope that the rest 

of our syndicate saw that teamwork is an important part of 

a great learning environment. 

Looking Back to Look Forward - Our Own Projects

Over the last two weeks, we have been inquiring about our own driving question of "How has __________ changed over time". We each chose something that we were interested in finding out more about and created a plan for our project. First, we thought about where we would find our information, what questions we would ask and how we would like to present our learning. Then we worked independently to learn about our topic and put together a presentation that we could use to teach others about our new area of expertise.

Here is Shan's first attempt at using Explain Everything. She has found some interesting
information about Christchurch (now and then):

Caleb is now becoming an expert at using Explain Everything. He loves comics, so he
decided to do a little more research to add to his existing knowledge about Superman 
to explain a little about him and his history. A great effort that he did independently. 


Shania has found some great information about Netball:

Inquiry Checkpoint

Think back to all we have learned about Christchurch, from early Maori settlers until today. What is something you have learned that has stuck with you? Something you didn't know before that opened your mind to our city's past. Share your thoughts.

Created with Padlet

Visitor - Kevin Honeycutt

We were very lucky this Friday to have a speaker who has come all the way from Kentucky in the US. Kevin took a group of senior children from our Friday rotation guitar and science groups for a special session in our library. 

He shared some cool ideas for learning music using iPads and other technology, which we were intrigued by and can't wait to experiment with ourselves. 

It is amazing how fast technology is moving and the seemingly limitless potential we have for learning and creative expression. 

Looking Back to Look Forward - Christchurch Heritage Buildings

We have been working hard to produce charcoal drawings of the many heritage buildings we have in our city. 

Some of the buildings we have been drawing have now been demolished due to earthquake damage. We have been discussing why many people want to keep these buildings and what they represent in our wider community. 

We used grids to help us draw the buildings we each chose. This was very challenging for some, but so far we have had results that we are proud of. The parents that came to our 3-way conferences were very impressed and could recognise many of the buildings. We look forward to sharing the finished works in a gallery in our school office.