Computational Thinking

 In the first week back we had a visit from Mr Kinane. Our focus for learning was computational thinking, this is when you need to think logically and sequentially. We were sending commands to a micro bit. This is a small programmable electronic device with LED lights. The micro bit was able to be controlled remotely.

After developing some simple programmes using block code on www.makecode.microbit.com we were ready for something more adventurous. Our challenge was to make the programme for controlling a gate opening and closing. The micro bit controlled a crikit and servo, a small motor. 

The code was quite challenging because the gate needed to open and then close. We worked in pairs to achieve our goal. Here is one example of our work.

Crawl Fish Stream

On Tuesday we went on a class visit to Crawl Fish Stream. Our class was investigating the health of the water in this location. We tested many aspects of the waterway to establish its health. We looked at the temperature of the water, flow rates, invertebrate populations present and periphytons in the waterway. We measured the water flow in the stream, stream bed composition, and water depth. All of the aspects were considered before we could pass a judgement on the stream health. The class undertook this activities because we got a School Kit from Dairy NZ. We chose Crawl Fish Stream because it was within walking distance of the school so we can repeat our visit at different times of the year to monitor the health of the waterway. Our favourite activity was racing the orange downstream and timing it between two points to work out the flow rate of the water. There was an awful lot of maths involved in our investigation.

Tessellation Art

Finally our tessellation art is finished and hanging on our wall. The art was part of our Geometry learning. We learnt about reflection, translation, and rotation of shapes. It took a long time to colour it in. We presented our work at assembly. We hope you enjoy it.

On line classroom

We hope you are all keeping safe and well. Our online classroom is humming along. This week we have been doing our reading groups and having whole class hangouts, so we can catch up. To end the term we are going to have a fun Kahoot together.

Some of us are completing our tessellation art work. This is an image of one of the completed works. Olivia changed her shape into a dog. The class was most impressed with her effort. We can't wait to try rotational symmetry but will use a smaller template and piece of paper because this size took a lot of colouring.

We challenge our Tuhi Atu Tuhi Mai classes to come up with their own tessellation art.

Tessellation Art

We are making art based on the work of M C Escher. We used this You Tube video tutorial to get us started. We can't wait to see the results. It has been fun learning about how we can integrate maths and art. We hope you will use this video to create your own art work.

Matific Competition and Screencastify

The whole class was engaged as we recorded our Matific activities on Screencastify, then added to our blogs. Our school is competing with schools from New Zealand and Australia to become Matific champions.

TERM ONE

Ruma Piwakawaka has been very busy this term. Check out some of the fun things that we have been doing!

Welcome