The Pandemonian Pride Pageant

A group of students from Haepapa and Kahurangi worked on a 3 hour challenge today entitled "The Pandemonian Pride Pageant.  Pandemonia was a fictional planet and the team had to create a 'Poem of Planetary Pride and present it at their 'Pageant'.

Here are some pictures of the morning, and the poem they created.

A planet that we live in
Very Glorious indeed
With oceans made of custard
And houses made of cheese

We use banana phones
Almost everyday
And when we need some food
We use reddish earlobes to pay.

If you look past the town
And upon a hill
You will find a mystical creature
You really, really, will.

A crumbly chocolate cookie
With lots of pocket fluff
And in our topsy turvy town
We like to look buff.

Now you know what happens
In our wonderful weird town
We love to make it shine and sheen
So take a look around.

 

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Tiny Houses in Tautoko

The young gentleman in Tautoko have been working over a number of weeks looking at 'Tiny Houses'.  We have discussed space saving furniture and looked at floor plans, creating our own.  The boys are working towards creating a 3D model of a tiny house which includes their individual floor plan, in birds eye view....watch this space!

3 Hour Challenge - Student Feedback

It is always interesting to hear back from the students...here are their ideas on this mornings achievement.

3 Hour Challenge

Our goal was to work collaboratively to come up with a challenge solution.  We all have to contribute and achieve one great outcome.

Feedback

Positive

• LAW - got to create our own costumes and props
• TA- everyone got a chance to do something
• GS- everybody got to give their ideas out
• PS- I got a badge!
• CB - we worked collaboratively
• CT-We got to make up our own play
• MB-the role-playing was fun

Minus

• GS - some people weren’t focussing on what they were supposed to be doing
• CT - people kept talking over people
• CT -  some people didn’t get much of a turn
• GS - cos some people talked so much others couldn’t share
• LAW - they were talking on different subjects

Interesting

• LAW - it was really fun
• GS - you could see peoples skills and weaknesses
• VZ - You started out 3 hours ago saying ‘huh?’ and finished up with a clever, fun, play!
• TA - we combined our ideas
• GS - we had two ideas that had to work together to work.
• PS - I thought the whole thing was interesting, the topic, the way people expressed themselves in the play and I really liked the song “It is the end of the world”

3 Hour Challenge

An enthusiastic group of Year 4 and 6 students undertook a 3 hour challenge today to create a new form of sustainable energy, restoring the oxygen and water cycles and preventing us from abandoning Planet Earth in 2123.

The group had to focus on working together to achieve a common goal, and create a solution and present it - in 3 hours.

Their entertaining presentation involved laser drills which could extract water from the Earth's core, a duplication machine for replicating trees (which the planet was too weak to grow), crucial phone calls from 'the Government', essential lightweight titanium discussion and a Mayor who got to make the ultimate decision.  I was also treated to the comedy stylings of Thomas Andrew during the scene change!

The team were all given feedback and feedforward about their task commitment and effort - it was great to watch them all work together over a sustained period and produce work to be proud of.

It really was quite special to do this exercise...the lines blurred between work and play as the students embraced their roles and ad-libbed - the contextual phone calls held by different characters showed real commitment and it was great fun to watch them pull their ideas together.

Planning and sharing ideas 

Costumes being created

Props construction

Rehearsals

Tournament Of Minds National Final!

What a day!  The Year 7 & 8 TOM team arrived at Victoria University at 7.30am on Saturday September 23.  Some of us had 4am starts, others were lucky enough to stay in Wellington the night before.  Regardless, everyone was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed,  ready to go.  40+ teams from all over the country were escorted to various rooms around the campus for their 3-hour Lockdown Challenge.  They emerged, still smiling in time for a quick lunch break and a couple of rounds of Hide and Seek in the Student Hub.  Mrs Zhou then went to judge the Intermediate Language Literature category while the team went, with their exceptionally supportive parents, to their own Intermediate Social Sciences presentation room. 

The parent responses to that presentation afterwards made me so proud of the team.  Their costumes were terrific - not always easy when you are given only simple items like plastic bags and chenille sticks to work with.  Their concept was original and creative and their performance as a whole reflected their outstanding teamwork.

It was a huge privilege to take away such a fun, clever group of young people to such a prestigeous competition.  A huge congratulations to Amy, Noah, Indi, Zoe, Harry, Jojo and Emma for a job very well done!