What is this?
How is this important to Central Otago's history?
Why is it important that we learn about our history?

Warbirds Over Wanaka

On Wednesday an Iroquois landed at Mount Aspiring College. We all watched it circle our school then land in their grounds.

Our Popcorn Enterprise

Here are some photos of our Popcorn fundraising on Wednesday. It was a very successful day with lots of money raised for the 'Coins For Bricks' project. We raised $240 but also learnt a lot about the process and production of popcorn. Thanks to all our parent help. We sold about 500 bags of popcorn at 50c per bag. Thanks also to Callum and Andrea from Cinema Paradisowho lent us the popcorn machine and donated the popcorn kernels (a whole bucket of kernels) and we used them all! Thnaks also to Wanaka Four Square who donated the extra when we ran out. With all our costs removed we made $240! Amazing considering the children are 7 and 8 years old! Fun but very busy day.

Technology - Making Popcorn Containers

Can You guess what our Term Two Inquiry might be about?

Make your own slideshow at Animoto.

Designing Our Popcorn Containers

Busy at work!! Designing our popcorn containers today. Firstly, we decided on who our popcorn containers are for then decided on what information would be on the container. Next we draw and labelled our package/container. We needed to include details of colours and materials to be used.On Thursday we will evaluate our designs.

Guide Dog Fundraising

Just to let you know we raised $481! Thanks everyone.

Guy Claxton

I had the pleasure of listening to Guy yesterday. He likened curriculum to a braod fitness programme, the classroom to the gym and the brain a muscle. We need to challenge and stretch children through the activities we provide. Children need to 'flounder intelligently' and that learning should be hard/difficult as this is how we stretch the brain. The thinking, social and emotional skills we teach children need to become habits and the challenges and risks are all important to developing our brain to meet life in the twenty-first century. A lot of what he said was not new to me and is the way I teach and how my children learn as well as how we do things at Wanaka Primary. But he challenged me and made me think more deeply about what I do and why. Brain developing stuff! He introduces us to four new ‘Rs’ that he would like to see replace the three traditional ones: •Resilience: 'being ready, willing and able to lock on to learning'. Being able to stick with difficulty and cope with feelings such as fear and frustration. •Resourcefulness: 'being ready, willing and able to learn in different ways'. Having a variety of learning strategies and knowing when to use them. •Reflection: 'being ready, willing and able to become more strategic about learning'. Getting to know our own strengths and weaknesses. •Relationships: 'being ready, willing and able to learn alone and with others'. He emphasis is on equipping students to lead more fulfilling lives, but the promise is that these methods will also lead to results in the classroom.

Mindset

Psychologist Carol Dweck has given us one of the most positive educational concepts yet to be developed – mindset. Like many good ideas it is deceptively simple – but the implications for schools are profound. Quite simply, mindset is the belief that ability is not fixed – that people can acquire new skills through targeted effort and practice. Simple.
I love her quote



"The more I practice the luckier I get."

We accept this belief in sport all the time – we are all familiar with the story of basketball hero Michael Jordan who was dropped from his high school varsity team and wasn’t recruited by his first choice basketball college.  So he practised ... and practised...and practised...until he became Michael Jordan – rated on the NBA website as the greatest basketball player of all time.
Just like sporting abilities and physical skills, mental aptitude can be improved.  Your brain is like a muscle and it gets stronger with use. Every time you learn something new your brain forms new connections over time.  You can increase your intellectual skill with practise.  It is so empowering for our children to know and understand this concept.
Watch this You Tube video

Popcorn Sales - 'Coins For Bricks'

We are selling popcorn at school on Wednesday to raise money for Kate Lloyd's and her family's project in Vanuatu. ‘Coins for Bricks’ is a project they have undertaken in Vanuatu, under the Right to Read Charitable Trust.
The 'Coins for Bricks' project is assisting Ni Vanuatu to purchase bricks. For every brick that the family raises money to buy, the Coins for Bricks Project will buy three additional bricks. This is working on the concept of ‘teaching a man how to fish’. They are trying to educate families but found that they can make more of a a difference at the family level, where parents could be ‘freed up’ in their struggle to provide a sustainable future for their children would allow them the luxury of putting their focus into educating their children for the future The popcorn will sell for 50cents per bag. This is our 'Taking Action' part of our inquiry. 

Technology - Packaging and Containers

This week we are looking at packaging and containers for technology.  We will be bringing two packets/containers to school  on Monday.  There are some key things we will be ;looking at...

Is all the packaging necessary?

Can the material be reused?

Do you like the packet/container? Why?

The next part will be looking at the writing and pictures on the container.  We will copy the main pictures and writing off our boxes. 

Then we will respond to the following questions...

What colours are used most? Why?

Does the packet/container stand out?

The next thing we will do is open out our packets/containers and look at the nets .  We will then draw the nets. The following questions will need to beanswered.

What important information was on the packets/containers?

Does the packet have tabs?  How is it held together?

THEN THE FUN PART ...We will design our own container to hold popcorn.  We will look at a couple of popcorn packets/packages too.

Mathletics Reminder

The last day to register for Mathletics in Monday 2 April.  Don't forget to bring your form and money.  $22 is the price you need to pay for the next 10 months  Room 16 got 11 certificates last week!  Go guys!. 

Red Puppy Appeal Day

Today we had a coin trail for the Red Puppy Appeal.  We Lorraine in to speak to the school.  Lorraine has a guide puppy called  Geffry.  Geffry's brother is also in Wanaka and his name is Geo.  There was lots of money on the guide dog outline and we think we collected between $400 and $500 dollars.  We will let you know next week.  Geffry is being socialised at the moment and will go into training when he is one year old. 

Mathletics

Thanks to all those parents who turned up to learn about Mathletics tonight. We are lucky to have had Kiri at school to teach teachers and parents about the benefits of Mathletics. Click on the link to find out more. A note is going home on Thursday about it, so look out for it. At the bottom of the note your class teacher will record a log in name and password so they can access it for free for two weeks. The cost per child will be $22 for the rest of the year. This will allow your child to access the programme online 24/7. Pod 4 used this last year and there were huge benefits for the children in the pod in basic fact speed and recall, motivation and skill level. The children loved it because it is so interactive, challenging, rewarding and there are lots of incentives such as certificates, avatars etc. Wanaka Primary would like as many children as possible with a log in so they can use it at home and at school. It works out $2.20 per month ( half the price of a coffee!). You will not be disappointed. A second notice will go out next week so that you can purchase this lisence. Make sure you get this in by Tuesday 1 April as this will be the cut off date. Take advantage of this lower price as it is usually $99!

Keyboard Skills

A big focus for our school this year is our keyboard skills. It is important to learn typing skills so that we can type quickly and accurately using all our fingers. Annie has sent us a challenge and wants us to practise hard so that we get better each week. Typing is an imporatnt in our fast finiher time and in our reading activities. Kerry is going to randomly choose six students from each class to complete a pre test. They will be assessed again at the end of the year. Go Room 16. How fast can you get? Practise hard.

Also try out keyboarding games for kids by clicking on the 'Learning Games for Kids' logo.

Have fun!

Duathlon

Today was our duathlon.  It was lots of fun and Ella won the Year 4 girls race and Scarlett the Year 3 girls race.  Well done to everyone.  It was great to see everyone competing and trying their best.  Also well done to those children in the competitive part. I was so proud of you.  Here are some photos from our day. 
Annie

How to Make Popcorn

Ingredients/Equipment:

Salt

Butter

Icing Sugar

Popcorn kernels

Pan

Popcorn maker

Method:

1.  Pour the kernels into the popcorn maker.

2.  Heat the popcorn maker.
3.  Wait until the popcorn has finished popping.
4.  Pour it into a bowl.

5.  Let it cool.

6.  Choose out of butter, salt and icing sugar.
7.  Eat it.
Neve (Year 3)

How to Make Popcorn

Ingredients/Equipment:
Popcorn maker
Bowl

Popcorn kernels
Optional - icing sugar, salt or  butter

Method:
1.  Put the kernels in the popcorn maker.
2.  Turn the popcorn maker on.
3.  Wait until you hear no more popping.
4.  Put the popcorn in a bowl.
5.  Add sugar or, butter and salt (optional).
6.  Eat the popcorn.

Caitlin (Year 4)

Students in the Community

Caitlin and Izzy working with Ben

Ben is a year 13 student from Mount Aspiring College.  He comes in each week as part of the 'Students in the Community programme.  Ben was a student in Annie's class many years ago.  We enjoy him coming and helping us.  Thank you Ben!

Making Popcorn

We made popcorn on Friday because we are going to writing instructions on Monday for making popcorn in a popcorn maker.  Here is the sucess criteria we came up with on Friday after looking at some models of procedural writing.

Success Criteria Procedural Writing - Making Popcorn

Write a goal/title e.g. How to Make Popcorn
List all the materials, ingredients, tools and equipment
Write the steps with doing words (verbs) at the beginning e.g. Add, Put, Turn, Pour, Wait
Number each step
Put the steps in the order they happen
Include all the steps needed
Use topic words (Popcorn words)
Add a picture to help the readers understand better
Try hard words in the margin
Make sure all capitals & full stops are confirmed
Check my work (proof-read)