Our inquiry of developing areas around our school.

In term 3 we have been looking at 'Growing our place.' We looked at all of the areas around the school and identified places we could potentially 'grow' and develop. 

Room 1

As a class we have chosen to work on developing the log area. We surveyed the whole school and learnt how to make graphs on google sheets. We found out that 39 out of 63 people surveyed, play in the log area 'sometimes.' We also now know that lots of people like to explore in the log area. We looked at lots of different ways to develop this space and came up with four teams we chose to be apart of. We are following the engineering process as a part of our technology curriculum. 

Our teams were:

TIKA fairy doors

Bird feeders

Play - tinkering tools

Nature-growing more natives 

We had so much fun and learnt a lot along the way. 

Room 2

Room 2 worked through the inquiry cycle - we walked around the school and looked at different areas and how these could be updated. The students noticed that there was an absence of colourful things, especially in the court area and many said that there were not enough options for people who did not want to play football. The students brainstormed different ideas to update the MNS grounds in groups and came up with lots of inventive ideas. They then did some critical thinking about which ideas were feasible in terms of time and cost. The students wrote postcards to Joyce to share their cool ideas with illustrations. Then we researched different types of painted games and found some excellent ideas on the Resene website. We broke into groups and analysed 6 of the games - identifying different elements e.g. cost of paint, level of difficulty, size/placement, age level before deciding on the Cat, Rat, Dog game by vote. They persuasive letters to Joyce to ask her to consider the idea and give it the go ahead. The students then helped to mark out the size using measurement skills and worked together to paint the game. Our next step is to make an instruction video to send around to MNS classes so that they know how to play our new colourful game!  

Room 3

Term 3 was really busy in Room 3. We looked at the design process and talked about what we wanted to achieve throughout the term. After lots of discussion we decided we were committed to changing the old bike track into an edible garden. Debs, on her travels around different schools, had seen amazing examples of these gardens. So the task began. We sketched our ideas, we wrote questionnaires about what students at the school wanted, we made models, we researched different edible plants and we then came together and shared all our planning and models. It was going to be a big commitment, but we were all up for it! The bike track transformation has now begun! The digger has been to level the area, we are collecting pallets for planter boxes, we are planning two sausage sizzles to help pay for different things and we have a lovely mum coming in to run a workshop about growing edible plants from seeds. All the class are really excited about the changes we are making through our learning. As well as our garden project we fitted in athletics training, science boxes, kapa haka (including our amazing kapa haka group that are practising for the upcoming showcase), narrative writing, lots of learning around fractions and decimals, and discussions centred around our 4 TIKA values. 

Room 4

After surveying students in Rimu, Kōwhai and Pōhutukawa, Room 4 discovered that we needed more colour in our playground. We also thought that everyone needed reminding about our TIKA values while playing outside. We had fun designing and making big TIKA murals and can't wait for them to be installed in the playground!

Room 4 also loved incorporating Drama and the technology cycle to design and make wet playtime games. We learnt about how to go in and out of role as game designers and we enjoyed testing and reflecting on all the games.