NMIT Inspire Day

What an amazing day out we all had at NMIT INSPIRE. 18 students from Enner Glynn had the opportunity to spend a day at NMIT. The students moved around various workshops learning about chemistry, the human brain, rockets, planes of the future, funky artworks, volcanoes and much much more. The students had to find their way around the campus, moving from block to block. From turning a 10c coin from silver to gold to using dry ice to make fizzy drinks the children had a wonderful time. I made lots of new friends and will keep in touch with a couple of them. (Jack) The best workshop for me was Funky Art - we painted a fridge by collageing everyone's ideas. We also learnt to use indian ink. Each side of the fridge had a different theme, the top was lollies and food, one side was nature, one buildings and the front patterns. (Sophie) (Lucy) I learnt that x-rays are bad for you because of the radiation, we even got to go into radiology. (Jack) I learnt how to do paper chromatography - this can be used to solve crimes. (Celia) I thought it would be hard to find the rooms but once we were there with our maps it was easy.(Beni) In the human brain we learnt all about the brain, I learnt that the front of my brain is for good manners and personality. We also got to touch a rats brain which was much smoother than a human brain. (Lucy/Alex) I enjoyed doing the lunchtime quiz. (Charlotte)

Suter Visit

The REACH group attended a 3 week programme at the Suter Art Gallery. During these sessions the children viewed artwork about culture and identity. The children then had to think about their own culture and identity and make links with symbols. After much thinking and planning the children had the chance to adorn a car with symbols that represented themselves. They all looked amazing, showing how unique we all are.

On Friday Paul Omondi came to the library to teach the Reach group how to make plastic bag balls. Plastic bag balls require around about 50 plastic balls and a bit of string to make one strong and firm ball. Once the ball is completed, the string will form a spiderweb shape around the plastic bags. At Paul's school they had one soccer ball which was only used once a year in the soccer season. Paul also taught us a traditional song they would sing while making a plastic bag ball to make time go faster. Ceara also talked to us about the orphanage that she spent time in. Ceara has already fundraised to buy 3 goats for this orphanage and this is where our goat will go. The goats milk is full nutrition and gives the children calcium. She also taught us a hand game that we all had a go at.

Maasai bracelets!

The Reach group have been micro-financing, we are going to make some bracelets and anklets. Micro-financing is when lots of families give a little bit of money and one family uses it to buy something that will keep making money and when you have enough money you pay back each family and with the rest of the money you can buy extra things! We are going to be selling our bead creations at school so if you would like any come down to the school! We will keep updating our blog as we make different Kenyan art and craft.

PURPLE CAKE DAY

We started off Purple Cake Day with the REACH students painting symbols of hope and purple cake day on children's faces. We had parents bring in over 400 cupcakes for the year 6 students to decorate. Wow! They looked scrumptious. Thanks to all the parents for bringing in so many decorations for us to use! Everyone dressed up in purple and gathered at the top court to dance and celebrate how lucky we are. Then it was off to Te Manawa to enjoy our cupcakes! YUM! Alice and Jack then went to Countdown Stoke to sell the remaining cupcakes. Lots of people were very generous and donated money without wanting a cake. All up we raised the grand total of $991 for children in Kenya. Good Job.

Year 4 REACH Group

We have begun our Year 4 Reach Group. We have been learning about the ancient and the modern olympics. As we do this we are also learning to use different graphic organisers and thinking tools. As we talked about the Olympics we began to talk about Continents so we decided to learn a bit more about them and made a Wordle. Next we worked in pairs on differnt PMI's - One was 'Anyone found guilty of taking performance enhancing drugs should be banned from all competitive sport for life' We had to think about all points of view. This was especially interesting as soon after our own Olympic Athlete Valerie Adams got Silver because of this actually happening when the gold medal winner was tested positive for drugs. Today we compared the Ancient Olympics with the Modern Olympics and completed a Venn Diagram to show the similarities and differences. I wonder what we'll learn about next week????????????????????

Suter Art Gallery Extension Programme

Wow! What amazing sessions we have had with Esther at the Suter Gallery. 15 Year 4,5 and 6 students were selected to attend three art sessions. We began by viewing a great exhibition created using photographs and a printer. The artworks are unusual as they often show two or more objects or landscapes that just don't seem to go together. Such as a train tunnel on mars?? After discussing and taking a close look at these, the students began by learning about layering. They worked with partners to use a layering collage technique similar to the artworks. Next session was back in the same exhibition taking a very close look at how the printer had shaded the different areas. The students learnt about using lines in different directions to create shading. The session ended with the students taking a small part of their collage artwork and working with fine tipped black pens to carefully show the detail using the shading technique. Great learning team - you all did so well and from your reaction I think we'll be seeing some of these techniques used back at school and at home. Well Done!