GSNS Room 7 2017

Students had a great time and participated in a variety of game skills at last week's Skills and Drills session at Edgar Stadium. It was 'all go' and I was so impressed with the energy and enthusiasm from the senior and senior model teams.  The tutors from the polytechnic were awesome.   It was nice to hear their comments about how polite the children from George Street were and how well they followed instructions.  

Having fun on a Friday is an important part of the programme.  After a long week of working hard, we like to make the learning creative, innovative and super fun. Here are some examples of the technology challenges we are doing: Wearable arts House design for our class mascot Mr Cheeky.

In Room 7's visual art inquiry, the term's value of 'kindness' has been the key focus area.  After weeks of work, we have completed our collaborative art installation.  You will remember from a previous blog post that we began this work by thinking about traditional M ā ori  patterns in nature. You will see some of this here in our art installation. We have also used traditional M ā ori  colours.  With our college teacher Mr Tait we explored patterns in our local community. We then investigated how patterns are represented in other cultures around the world. This included pattern ideas from our own cultures. We put this together into this beautiful collaborative artwork. Kindness was demonstrated in the way we worked together, supporting each other with ideas and feedback. We even had to copy each other's design ideas as part of this process. 

The Earth and Beyond - Investigating Matariki  Room 7 enjoyed our trip to the Dunedin Art Gallery this week.  They were on the edge of their seats during the gallery tour.  Educator John introduced them to the artworks in new ways with an overarching theme of Exploration.  New Zealand history, geography and myths relating to Matariki were explored.  In our visual art workshop, students created their own space craft using pencil, sharpie and pastels.  Then they took their artwork to outer space.

We have enjoyed talking in class about the patterns we see around us.  Mr Tait showed us some interesting patterns from photographs he took around North East Valley.   Some students have been enjoying collaborative work and have connected their ideas together.  We are even thinking about patterns mathematically and describing our artwork as having lines of symmetry, parallel and perpendicular lines. We are also exploring patterns found in other cultures and incorporating these into our designs.  We have enjoyed thinking about how to use traditional  Māori  p atterns in our art.  We are also learning about what these patterns are called and what they represent in nature.   Students are learning a lot from each other about using contrast and lines. Its a great way to start off the afternoon's work.  We've been listening to classical music too.   Patterns are everywhere.  

SHARING OUR COMIC BOOKS WITH OUR KINDLE 1 BUDDIES  This week we met with our Kindle 1 buddies to share the 'zines' we have been creating.  As part of a competition run by Gecko Press and the Dunedin Writers and Readers Festival, Room 7 have been creating our own 8-page zines using words and pictures.  Our comics will be displayed in Dunedin City Library.  Check them out over the holidays!  We are really enjoying getting to know our new entrant buddies.   We've been thinking of ways to be writing mentors in preparation for our work next term.   One idea we had was to buddy up left handed students together to help support their printing of letters.   Another great idea we had was to create 'early finisher' resources such as cards for our buddy to practise their printing. We have been sharing ideas about how to communicate with our buddies.   Our buddies really enjoyed listening to us read our comic books to them.  They asked us some i