At Wharenui, we learn in so many different ways - we make things, discover things and share things with our friends.

Matariki

We celebrated Matariki with whānau and our other two provisions in Christchurch – Hillmorton and Hagley. It was such a great night of getting together and doing some planting, making, storytelling and (most of all!) eating kai together!

We iced some ‘whetu’ biscuits for our buddies who weren’t in the provision during this time and for us. It was a great way to share with our friends - the best part was eating them together.

We made Matariki lanterns, painted old tin cans, put holes in them, and stuck on stars. We also made a handle with wire and a pipe cleaner. At the end, we put a little T-Light Candle in it for it to shine through the holes.

Robots

We had so much fun using our woodwork skills when we made robots and geoboards. For the robots, we had to nail pieces of wood together with nails and then add eyes and ears. We used thin wire as well. Each of our robots was different, and we loved looking at each other's work. To make a geoboard, first we drew a picture onto a piece of wood, then we hammered nails into the wood around the pattern, but not all the way! The heads of the nails have to stick up so we could attach rubber bands on them to make mathematical shapes and patterns. We loved learning through woodwork!

Science Fun

We used one of our five senses and did some taste testing. Some things were yucky! But some were nice too.

We made slime! It felt weird because it became hard when we touched it with our hands, but when we stirred it, it went liquid again because of a reaction between the cornflour and water. We made kaleidoscopes and talked about how the light goes through the coloured paper and makes the colours different. It took a lot of patience to fold the cone and put the different colours onto the end - some of us had a tough time making things stick so that it worked when we turned and moved it, but we persevered!

Pencil Grip/Phonics

We learnt how to hold our pencil correctly so that our writing is clear and the letters are the correct shape and size. Pinch and Tuck were the techniques that helped us – we ‘pinch’ the pencil and then ‘tuck’ our second finger under our first finger. It’s a little tricky, but when we practice every day doing our handwriting we get a lot better. We've also been learning how to spell many new words by understanding the first letter and last chunks of words.

Sewing Skills

Every Monday our Year 7 and 8 students go off to Technology at Linwood Technology Centre and learn various useful skills. In Term 3, we made pillows in sewing. It was fun designing them and then sewing them together to take home.

When the Year 7 and 8s are at Technology, the other students stay in the provision and try new sewing skills.

We've made several things like glove hand puppets, sock puppets, and friendship bracelets. We also increased our sewing skills by learning different stitches and how to sew on a button.