Creativity and Innovation - Making Music

Wow....what a week! A terms worth of learning from each class was finally on display at our whole school Creativity and Innovation Expo.

We were blown away with what each class had come up with and we were so proud and excited to finally be able to share our learning with our community.

Here is a quick look back at the the process of creating our musical instruments...

Coding and Makey Makey fun!

Creating our instruments.

Hooking up the Makey Makey...

Making Music...

Alongside this, we were researching our instrument, taking notes, drawing diagrams and writing information reports. We were also composing our own music and lyrics and experimenting with instruments in the music room with our buddy class.

This has been the most incredible learning! Room 8 students have been self motivated learners who have worked wonderfully with their partners.  They have displayed fantastic creativity and the ability to work collaboratively to problem solve when things got tricky.

We celebrated our learning with a short 'concert' last week. You can check out the video below...

Beginning our bokashi bin!

Last term Mrs Mcaree asked  Room 8 for some help. She had started a homemade bokashi bin and had filled it up with food scraps but wasn't quite sure if she had done it right. She wanted us to give it a go and see what success we had so she gifted our class with our very own bokshi bin.

If you aren't sure what a bokashi bin is and how it works, this video clip explains it nicely:

After lots of research and discussion, this week we finally got the bokashi bin up and running!

 Augustina is going to monitor the bin. She will need to squash the food down occasionally, empty out the liquid and sprinkle on more bran. It is already filling up quite nicely with scraps from our lunches. We look forward to updating you (and Mrs Mcaree!) on our progress.

The bokashi bin is going to decrease the amount of rubbish going to landfill and the great thing is the compost will be great for our garden! It also makes a nice addition to the recycling system we have up and running in Room 8. Pop in and visit us so we can show you what we have been doing!

Growing Kumara!

 This term as part of our learning about recycling and caring for the environment, Room 8 decided to ty and grow kumara plants from an actual kumara.

We secured the kumara in place with tooth picks then left it in water. It was so exciting to see the roots begin to grow then watch the leaves sprout from the top.

This week we did a bit of research to find out how to plant them in the garden. Because the roots were so fully formed, we were able to gently pull off the new plants and plant them directly into the soil.

We are excited to see what happens next and we are crossing our fingers that the new plants keep growing.

Watch this space!

Persuasive Writing - Litter in our community

On the way to the pools last week, we were sad and disappointed to see rubbish everywhere.
After all of our learning this year about the effects of littering, we sadly know where this litter could end up!

 As part of our learning about persuasive writing, we have written to our fellow citizens of Otara. We are asking people to consider the effects littering is having on our community and world. 
Check them out and tell us what you think!

Tarita

Carlito

Nevaeh

Kaz

In Room 8 we are trying to send less of our rubbish to landfill. We are looking at ways we can recycle more of our rubbish at school. 

Last week Mrs McAree asked if we could put together the compost bin she bought for school. 

Carlito, Jerald, Tarita, Augustina and Savannah worked brilliantly as a team to quickly assemble it. It is now placed in our garden area and we think it would be a perfect place to put our fruit scraps. Nice work Room 8!

 

Meat Trays

Miss Bedford and Room 8 have been leaning about recycling so Miss Bedford has got lots of different rubbish bins at her house. They are - recycling, soft plastic, compost and landfill. But Miss Bedford noticed that her landfill bin was filled with lots of unrecyclable meat trays. The unrecyclable meat trays are the black ones like the one in the picture also the black meat trays can't be recycled because the trays have little holes that the blood in the meat gets trapped into and you can't get it out. It is also bad for the environment because they have to go to landfill and a landfill is a big hole in the ground with rubbish.We wrote letters to Foodstuffs and Progressive Enterprises. Foodstuffs is the boss of Pak 'n' Save and New World. We are happy that they have started trialling recyclable meat trays. Progressive Enterprises is the boss of Countdown.Today we got a reply from Foodstuffs! You can see it below. We hope Progressive Enterprises write back soon.

By Waina

****************UPDATE****************
Guess what Hayden spotted in the holidays? The new meat trays! These meat trays would be very useful in our classroom as paint and glue trays, so feel free to send them our way. Reduce, reuse, recycle!!

Tidy Kiwis

Last Friday the senior school took on the challenge of cleaning up our community by picking up rubbish in the streets near our school.

We left after lunch armed with rubbish bags, buckets for glass, and a wheel barrow for picking up large items.

We were on a mission! No rubbish left behind! We did our best to sort which items should be recycled and brought it all back to school to be weighed and sorted.

We felt sad and angry at the amount of rubbish we picked up, especially after our recent learning about the effects litter, particularly small pieces of plastic, are having on our environment.
We also felt proud that we had made a difference in our community.

Way to go senior school! Let's hope we inspire others to make a difference too.