Category: Ako | Learn

After School Reading Programme – Thank you!

Hello Room 8 Whānau!

We wanted to share the wonderful experience we’ve had with our afterschool reading programme, led by our across COL teacher, Fatima Dollie. This programme has been an incredible opportunity for our tamariki to develop a love for reading, and it’s been made extra special because of the amazing support from our parents and caregivers who have joined us every week.

Seeing our parents sitting with their children, exploring new stories, and sharing the joy of reading together has been truly heartwarming. This commitment has shown just how much of a difference we can make when we work together as a community, supporting each other’s learning and growth.

A big thank you goes out to Duffy Books in Homes for providing us with fantastic books to read, and to Kings College and Bells Transport for helping us make this programme possible. Their support has made it easier for our students to have access to these valuable resources and has allowed us to share the magic of books with everyone involved.

We look forward to continuing this journey of reading, learning, and sharing stories together. Thank you to everyone who has been a part of this programme. Let’s keep reading, Room 8!

Ngā mihi, Room 8 Team

Year 6 Graduation Assembly 2023

Guess what? Our Year 6 Graduation at Otahuhu Primary School was so enjoyable today! 🎓🌟 It was a celebration of us reaching the end of primary with all our parents and school community.

We had a ceremony where we got to be on stage, holding our graduation certificates.  Three of our class members (you can watch in video) gave speeches.  The speeches acknowledged our school, teacher, parents and community.

But wait there’s more!  After the ceremony, we all had the yummiest lunch ever! 🍕🍎 There was so much food, and it felt like a big family lunch with all our friends and teachers. We laughed and talked about all the fun stuff we did during the year.

I think that’s just how Otahuhu does things – we celebrate together, and it’s always so much fun. Now we’re ready for the next adventure in the intermediate years! 🚀📚

Thank you Otahuhu Primary School! 🏫💖. Thank you Mrs Dollie.  We hope you have a wonderful Christmas break.

Room 8 of 2023

Diwali, celebrating our language and culture

The opportunity to share our language and culture at Otahuhu is always available to us.   This is something we love about our school.  We celebrate our diversity AND the many things we have in common.

This particular week we had the opportunity to celebrate Diwali along with our Indian language.  See here how members of our class dressed up and also enjoyed the celebrations of this very special week.

From one of our research sites: Diwali is India’s biggest and most important holiday of the year. The festival gets its name from the row (avali) of clay lamps (deepa) that Indians light outside their homes to symbolize the inner light that protects from spiritual darkness. This festival is as important to Hindus as the Christmas holiday is to Christians.

2023 – what a year!

I am very happy to have reached week 8 of term 4.   This means I have only 2 more weeks of being year 6.  There is a lot that I am grateful for.

I only joined Otahuhu this year, actually this term.   I have new friends and learned new things in this school.  Please look at my reflection here to learn about what I have enjoyed and what I look forward to in 2024.

 

 

Aotea Surfing Club

Let’s go surfing now!  Last month Room 8 went on an excursion to the Aotea Surfing Club.  We had a great time learning the basics of surfing, paddling and water safety.

Some of us were a little nervous in the open space of the ocean however, we had so many wonderful teachers there to support us.  It didn’t take long for us to see that we were in a very safe place and that we would get all the help we needed.

Thank you to the Aotea Surfing Club for a great day of learning.   These days are so important as all the things  we learned we couldn’t have learnt in the classroom.   A great big thank you too to our staff who came along to look after us!

 

My face, it’s shape and colour

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Studying our faces and the shapes we find there was the first part of our session today.   We learned about how we can create shapes, close them for colour and more.   The eyedropper tool was really helpful as it led us to selecting a colour that was close to the colour of our actual skin!   At one stage we had to change from lines to shapes as it got a little tricky for some of us.  We hope you will enjoy looking over our graphics here including a set of flowers that was the extension of this activity in google draw.

Super Solar System

This week we have been learning to write introductions for our information report.  We chose the exciting topic of the Solar System to write an introduction for.   Please read through our presentation and leave us a positive comment.  There’s lots more to come!  To infinity and beyond!

This presentation has been created by the students named on the first slide.

Time to draw!

Writing and drawing time this week! After completing work on our personal profiles for our blogs, our Year 6 students were introduced to the wonderful world of Google Draw! They began by drawing a house, where they were able to explore the various tools available in the program, such as shapes and colours.

Room 8 were able to create a variety of different houses, each with their own unique style and personality. Next week, the students will continue their exploration of Google Draw by focusing on cultural motifs and patterns. They will learn how to incorporate different designs into their artwork and create their own unique interpretations of traditional motifs with additional tools in google draw.

We can’t wait to see what they come up with!
Please leave us a positive helpful comment.

Taking charge and taking care of my stuff!

Today Room 8 have started the year with the Manaiakalani Programme.   We spent time learning about the ‘Kawa of Care’.  That’s right – how we take care of our things!

We shared items that Mrs Tele’a brought into our class. Each time she presented a piece, she asked us about how we might take good care of the item.  We pointed out locations in our classroom that would be good storage and working places for the various objects.  


We discussed how cost wise some of the items may not be expensive, however very valuable. Valuable in that someone worked hard to make it, it may be something to remember a loved one by, it may be an item passed onto generations – important to our whanau and cultural heritage.

Room 8 were very quick to give great ideas on how you could take good care of a number of items. These items included objects they held dear too.   We likened this good practice to how we look after our chromebooks, how we carry/place and store our chromebooks at home AND school.   Room 8 have worked very hard and have 13 students so far owning their chromebooks.   There are more to come – watch this space!
Tino pai to mahi Room 8 and Ms Dollie.    We will keep reminding each other about the Kawa of Care in the weeks to come.