REACH GREAT WALK CHALLENGE

During Term 1 the REACH group have been completing a DOC national challenge. The challenge was for us to choose one of NZ"s great walks to research. We had to walk the distance of at least half the walk using our local tracks and then submit a presentation showing our learning. This was a perfect inquiry for us as it tied in so well with the Senior school and their inquiry of "Our Backyard!". Also we were going to camp at Bethany Park and going to already be walking 12km of the Abel Tasman! This was a great way to start us off and with our walks to and from Kaiteriteri we had clocked up 19km by the end of camp. We then met up on Sunday mornings to complete the rest of our 33km. We walked up the Centre of NZ, The Maitai River and up the Grampians - to the very top!!! It was great to get out walking and there was talk of us continuing it, we had so much fun! As all this was happening we got busy researching the Abel Tasman and finding out all it has to offer! But how would we present our findings? We had talked about the idea of a picture book and then viewed an ABC book written by the curators of Te Papa, we really liked the idea and thought it would work well with our challenge - and so it began... Many days of working through the alphabet in rhyme! ensuring we were showing our learning and making links between the Abel Tasman and our local walks!! Yes it was a challenge! On top of that we learnt how to create QR codes to make links to websites showing video clips to give more information to our readers. It was lots of fun! We needed photos for our book and had yet another challenge to overcome - we had some photos we had taken (thanks Beni) but we also needed extra photos and knew we could not just use any old photo from the internet for a book - this would be using someone else's property! We found out that we would need to use 'Public Domain' photos. These are photos that people have taken and are happy for other people to use. Phew, all in about 5 weeks we completed our picture book - it will be in the school library and we are super proud of it. Do have a read - but you will need plenty of time, there is lots to learn especially if you want to explore all the QR codes have to offer.

REACH 2015 - This year we are up and running again with our REACH blog - we have lots of wonderful learning to share! Term 1 - This term we have a DOC Challenge group. Made up of mainly Year 6 students we are busy completing a national challenge. We must research one of New Zealand's great walks, walk at least half the distance using our local tracks and then submit a presentation! Very busy indeed. The Year 6's walked from Marahau to Ancourage on camp which was a total of 12km, along with walking to and from Kaiteriteri we clocked up a total of 19km just on camp. We are now meeting on Sundays to complete the rest of our walk - because we have chosen the Abel Tasman track we need to walk a total of 30km altogether. Keep checking in on this post for further updates about how we are going and what we are learning along the way!