We have put our new paper skills to the test by creating masks inspired by our focus country Sāmoa! Plus a tasty way to introduce instructional writing...

We have had an exciting last few weeks in the junior hub. Across the hub we have been working on using our paper and cardboard construction skills to create a mask inspired by our focus country from the Commonwealth (Sāmoa). 

In Room 2 we did some research about historical masks that have come from across the Pacific. We were amazed by the way these masks were created from very little resources! We identified some stand out features of the masks and used this new information as the base for our own creating. 

We started by painting the base of our masks (paper plates) different shades of brown to resemble wood and bark. 

The next step, was to carefully outline our masks facial features. 

Next, we created a mountain of "hair" using our paper cutting skills that we have been practising throughout the term. 

Finally we were ready to start creating our masks. The tamariki did an amazing job at using a variety of paper skills to create their masks, we are displaying them proudly in Room 2!

Instructional/ Procedural Writing

For writing over the past week we have been looking at how to write/ explain instructions on how to do something. 

Mrs M thought it would be a great idea to write instructions for how to make (sugar free!) jelly. This of course meant that we had to make some! We decided to make traffic light jelly so we had lots of practice at making it. 

This was a great way to discuss with the tamariki the ingredients and utensils that were needed and the meaning of different language such as 'dissolve'. 

We wrote the instructions together during a shared writing session. The tamariki were amazing at making sure we got each instruction in the right order! We practised our sounding out words and key skills for super sentences such as capital letters, full stops, finger spaces and ensuring it made sense. 

Over the week we continued to make the different layers of the jelly and some tamariki continued to write their own set of jelly making instructions. 

It was a long wait to get to Friday! After our big Commonwealth Games we ended the day taste testing our Room 2 jelly and it was DELICIOUS!!