Category: Hanga | Create

Our last day of EPro 8 was spent creating the ultimate playground. We had the usual swings, slides, flying fox and merry-go-rounds which were ALL fully functional.

Another year and another opportunity to hone in on our engineering skills. It’s a wonderful experience problem solving through science and engineering. Students had to build a dump truck to scale… 1:5 following explicit instructions. The final task was to build a lever that would lift the bed so it fulfilled the ‘DUMP’ criteria!!

This week we learnt how to use a protractor to measure angles. After taping the tables with masking tape, angles were measured, marked and checked for accuracy. Extra for experts…any triangles that were formed within the taped areas, the interior angles were measured making sure they added up to 180.

This wonderfully illustrated story, written by Julio and Nino, is in response to our work on Pennies for Hitler. In pairs students were asked to ‘fill in the gaps’ of a story told by Georg to the younger boys in his cabin, on their way to Australia. Students used the ‘skeleton’ of the story and developed their own version of events.

Waka Ama Wednesday!! That’s how Saint Patrick’s Yr 7 & 8’s rolled this week at the Manukau Outrigger Canoe Club.  We all learnt paddling skills on-land before heading out on to the water. Fair to say we all had a wonderful and can’t wait to test our skills out again in May!

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Our class, Room 8 is reading Pennies for Hitler by Jackie French. One of the activities we did was that we had to choose a critical moment from the book and sculpt it using clay.

My group chose a scene of a dog being euthanised because the owners had to save their rations for themselves.

My group’s rationale for this scene is that we have to sometimes let go of the people or things we love to take care of ourselves first.

It was a critical moment in the story because Georg wanted a dog but they saw that there were some consequences of owning it. For example, with food rationed it is hard to have food and water for both animals and people.

The delicious smell of baked bread is emanating throughout the classroom making stomachs growl!

Good work Year 8’s… you have made me feel hungry!

Students experienced working with yeast, kneading, waiting patiently for the bread to rise and then baking it to finish off the chemical process, while creating a delicious morsel to eat!

Congratulations to Jamie for her wonderful journey over summer traversing the Summer Learning Journey! Not only did she complete all the tasks to a high standard but she also wrote supportive comments on other tamariki’s Blogs!

Well done Jamie… we hope you enjoy all the wonderful prizes you received for all your effort!

A new year and a new-ish class! We started the term off on a slippery slope with torrential rain and flooding but we managed to start Week 2 with everyone here! This week we have been building Room 8 as a team…even in reading! As a result we are designing our own Pointillism piece of art but have added inspiration from the story ‘The Dot’ and “Ish” by Peter Reynolds. This means that our art can be our own creation BUT …ISH!! The pressure has been taken off!

Today we started the piece… we started by putting ONE line on a piece of paper and then swapping it with our friend. We have to design our art around the line we have been given! At the end we BOTH must sign the art work!

Farewell to our beautiful Yr 8’s! I can’t believe how fast the year has gone! We are going to miss your laughter, craziness but most of all your place in our class as role models. Take all the values you have learnt at St Patrick’s and spread your love, kindness and Grace through every pathway you encounter. Take care, keep in touch and make sure you come and visit! God Bless you all!