Wednesday 13 August 2014

Commonwealth Constructions

Today it was Room 16's turn to research and create a Commonwealth Games stadium.  Our first task was to research images of a chosen sport and mark them up with labels.

(See full slideshow below.)

Next the children worked in teams to construct a stadium venue. It had to contain features they found in their photographs.  As well as the stadium there had to be some kind of connection to other structures - a road, railway, bridge or tunnel.

See all groups in slideshow below.


Each child chose their sport and group members. The "world" was created in advance and a "host"   (i.e. a responsible child familiar with minecraft)  appointed by the teacher. Their job was to manage the team members' construction projects within the "world".

See slideshow of all the stadium constructions below.


There were just a few rules. No sporting events were to be duplicated within a world; no Minecraft weapons were to be drawn (unless an indigenous animal indigenous to the world strayed onto the building site and endangered competitors, officials or media commentators).

Other rules were  too tantalising to leave alone: no spawning unfriendly creatures, no blowing up what other teams were creating, no spawning villagers. (You have to know minecraft to know how disruptive extra villagers can be, let alone the odd stray Endoman.

This project involved (among key skills) measurement, design, incorporating the research data into the final construction.

The class was given a set of Success Criteria. And they were away.






Tuesday 12 August 2014

RAKSHA BANDHAN

                                   On Sunday, 10th August , it was a special Indian celebration,
                                                       called Raksha Bandhan.
                                  Raksha Bandhan is a special day for Indian brothers and sisters.
                        We are very lucky to have 6 beautiful Indian children in our class this year.
                                         Nandhini, Eesha, Diya, Aryan, Prajay and Armaan.
                                They are all from Fiji, except for Armaan who is from India.
                              HAPPY RAKSHA BANDHAN TO ALL OUR INDIAN FAMILIES.
                               On this special day, the sister ties a string band on her brother's right wrist.
                                                            This band is called a rakhi.
                                    Then the brother promises to take care of his sister and gives her a gift
                                          of Indian sweets, a gift of money or a gift of clothing.
                                                     Here is Armaan with his rakhi on his right wrist.
                                                    It is very beautiful with some beads in the centre.
                                                            Aryan is showing us his rakhi.
                                              He doesn't have a sister so his girl cousin has sent him a rakhi
                                      and she has also sent him a Raksha Bandhan card because she lives                                                                         overseas.
                                  Nandhini tied a rakhi on her wee baby brother.  He didn't want to wear it.
                                                           Eesha tied one on her cousin.
                               We decided to make our own rakhis. We called them friendship
                                bracelets. We used 3 different colours of wool and plaited them.
                              Annabel was an expert at plaiting and she loved helping Alice.
                                                            Thank you Annabel.
                                                    Eesha and Nicole were experts also!


                              So much fun and here are Eesha's and Nicole's rakhis or friendship
                                           bracelets.