Christmas Crafts in the Skyscrapers Community

Today The Skyscrapers community started a Christmas Craft rotation. In Room 13 people made stained galss windows out of cellophane. In Room 16 children made snow flakes and in Room 15 people created gift tags. Here are some photos of the fun times!

Swimming at the Millennium Institute

It's that time again. Swimming lessons at the Millennium began last week, and every Tuesday and Friday we travel to the pools to practise our swimming. It's a fun way to get fit and improve our swimming skills. 


Thanks to all of the mums who are coming along to support us. Here are some photos of us in our swimming groups.

UHPS Senior Athletics day

On Friday we had another very wet, windy, resilience building, but fun Athletics day at Wainoni Park. Even though it was a cold and wet day, we all tried our hardest and gave it our best. Thanks Mr Shore and Miss Seymour for organising another great event.

Beach Education!

We had a great day at Mairangi Bay today. We learnt all about how to be safe at the beach and had lots of fun at the same time. Thanks to the Mairangi Bay Surf lifeguards for the great experience at the beach! 

Is too much TV bad for you?

This week we started writing persuasive arguments. First we had to consider two sides of an argument moot. Then we could choose which side of the argument we wanted to write about, and try to convince our reader of our position. Our moot this week was: Too much T.V is bad for you.

Read these two arguments and make up your own mind:

Too much T.V. is bad for you! 
(By Marina Lough)

I'm writing to tell you that too much television is damaging and can be harmful for you. I will prove to you why too much T.V. is bad.

The first reason why T.V. is harmful is that T.V. effects your behaviour. It is scientifically proven, (according to the archives of paediatrics and adolescent medicine) that each additional hour of T.V. that toddlers watch per week translates into poorer classroom behaviour, lower maths scores, less physical activity and more snacking by the time they get to 10 years old!

I believe that by watching too much television and sitting on the couch all day you will get lazy. Research states that kids should be doing things that are enriching like playing with board games, playing with dice, playing with things that will improve their motor skills or reading. All of this is replaced by sitting on the couch! 
T.V. watching also appears to have a negative effect on physical health, with each additional weekly hour resulting in 9% increase in soft drink consumption, a 10% increase in snacks eaten, and 5% increase in body mass index says the lead author of a recent study.

The third reason why people shouldn't watch too much T.V. is because the content of many television programmes is not educational. Nowadays we can see movies, series' and shows that present scenes of violence, swearing and other inappropriate content. This has establishes
 wrong concepts among the audience and influences them into having negative behaviour. The impact that T.V. has on children is even worse because they grow up to think that problems can only be solved with violence and money.

In conclusion, people shouldn't watch too much television because the context of many T.V. programmes in not educational, it wastes people's time that could be spent in more physical activities, and  if affects people's development. 
However, this doesn't mean that we should ban T.V., but if we are going to watch it, we should do it with moderation. Television is a resource that we should learn to use through the right selection of programmes and by taking an active attitude towards it. 
I hope the reasons I have shared have proved that too much T.V. is bad for you.

Too much T.V. is not bad for you.  (By Grace Hunter)


Television. A word with so many different opinions hidden behind it. Some say it is good, keeping children busy. Some dislike it, saying it's unhealthy. But I say that television is perfectly fine. If you disagree, I will prove to you that there is nothing to worry about letting your children sit on the couch watching T.V.

Television boosts children's learning. Learning can be improved with programmes that teach counting and problems solving. It helps children recognise shapes and numbers getting them ready for school, while entertaining them. It is very educational.
Moving from why it is good for children, television is also very helpful to adults too. The weather and the news updates are not just interesting or helpful, but can also be warnings about horrible events that may have, or will come to pass. T.V. is not only educational for kids, but the documentaries are fascinating!

Secondly, Television eases stress. A luxurious getaway from your problems! It could be you watching T.V. which is very relaxing, or leaving the kids to watch to T.V. and having some time locked away in you room.

Television is a great source of entertainment with channels for everyone! There are shows for cooking, humour, horror, mystery, documentaries and even spiritual things and I am sure there will be something for whoever reaches for the remote!

After reading this argument, I hope you have changed your mind about the television being bad for you. Television is entertaining, educational and a firm rope that ties families and friends together.

Paula Green the poet comes to UHPS!

On Friday we were lucky to have Paula Green at UHPS. 

She read a number of her poems to us and also helped us create poems too. A highlight of her visit was when she read a range of poems from a new poetry book called "A treasury of NZ poems for children". This book was edited by Paula, and includes poems written by many famous NZ authors, children and even Peter Millett too!

Teach me Tuesday

On Tuesday we had our last Teach me Tuesday for the year. Ruben, aka Shark expert taught us all about sharks. He also asked us questions and gave out shark sticker prizes to the winners.

Did you know that there is a shark called a cookie cutter shark? 

Did you know that the male great white shark is much smaller than the female great white? 

Thank Ruben, we learnt a lot about your favourite marine animal. 

Movement Immersion

This term our Inquiry concept is Movement. In the Skyscrapers community we will be learning about circus movement. 

On Wednesday we had a really fun Science Immersion where we made discoveries and wonderings about forces and motion through participating in a number of forces science experiments. 

Here we are trying to defy gravity and exploring kinetic energy.

Salt dough maori pendants

For our Maori lessons, Mrs. Mansfield has been teaching us about traditional maori pendants. We learnt about the significance of the valuable traditional jewellery, which was usually made from bone or greenstone. We also learnt about some of the more common symbols used in the art form including, the Koru, Tiki and Matua. Less well known were the Toki, Pikorua, Kowhaiwhai, Torea, Manaia and Taniwha. 
On Thursday we made our very own salt dough pendants copying the symbols we had learnt about. We made the salt dough using this recipe:

SALT DOUGH
Salt dough can be used like clay and baked in the oven until hard. 

YOU WILL NEED:
300g/3 cups of plain flour
300g/2 cups of salt

Wooden spoon
Large bowl
30 ml/2 tablespoons vegetable oil
200 ml/1 cup water

METHOD:
1. Put the flour and salt into a large bowl.

2. Add half of the water slowly to the flour and salt mixture, mixing thoroughly so there are no lumps. 

3. Add the oil together with the second half of the water, and mix to form a dough. Also, you can add food colouring to the water at this stage, if you want to colour your dough.

4. Knead the dough until it is smooth and firm.

5. When it is ready you can use it straight away or store it in an airtight container in the fridge.

Hints:

Try to make your shapes rounded and regular sized – thin pieces will break off easily and shapes that have different sized bits won’t cook evenly. 
Bake your salt dough shapes in a cool oven (about 100 degC/225 degF). 
The time required will depend on the size of your piece. Turn carefully part way through cooking. 
When finished, you could paint or varnish to decorate.

We had a great time making our maori pendants. Thank you Mrs. Mansfield for teaching us about Maori culture and Te Reo.

Skyscrapers Art gallery trip

Art Gallery trip

Our Skyscrapers Art gallery!

We have had a very arty term. Our Inquiry focus has been "Patterns in Art across history." 

Throughout the term we have learnt about several influential art movements including the Ancient Egyptian, Renaissance,  Abstract, Impressionism, Cubism, Pointillism and many more... 

We worked together as a community to create a number of art pieces inspired by these famous movements.

 

 

 Finally we have displayed all of our art in our very own Skyscrapers art gallery. Come and see it during Sharing the Learning this week. 

Delicious Lemonade

Thanks to Grace we all know how to make delicious Lemonade as a result of another successful "Teach me Tuesday" this afternoon. 
First, we had to cut up and squeeze a bowl of lemons. Next we strained the lemon juice ridding it of pips. 
Then we added 3-4 table spoons of sugar and 5 cups of water. We all enjoyed drinking the refreshing juice that we made together. Thanks Grace!

Yummy Teach Me Tuesday!

Today Tamzin and Millie taught us how to "pimp our doughnuts". They showed us how to cut our doughnuts and then cover them in sugar and cinnamon. Next we grilled them in a sandwich press. This made the doughnuts fresh, sweet and crispy! 

What a great idea for Teach me Tuesday! Thanks Tamzin and Millie.

Keeping Ourselves Safe with Constable Bluemel

This week Constable Bluemel came to UPHS to talk with us about Cyber Safety. Together we came up with a list of Cyber Safety rules that we agreed would be important to keep us safe online. 

These were the rules we agreed on. 
1. Ask parents when we want to go online
2. Ask parents before signing up for games etc.
3. Devices should be kept in lounges or parents rooms at night.
4. No "R" rated games or sites
5. No sharing of personal details online
6. Be nice! No swearing, mean comments etc..
7. Use "Hector the Protector"
8. No inappropriate photos online
9. Never meet up with anyone you meet online.

Cricket for Teach Me Tuesday!

We are nearing the end of out Teach Me Tuesdays for the year! On Tuesday Xavier and Caiden taught us how to play non-
stop cricket. We had a fun game together and enjoyed the winter sunshine too! Here are some photos from our cricket game.

Gymnastics sessions

Last week we started artistic gymnastics sessions with tutors form North Harbour Gymnastics. 

So far we have focussed on landing securely and rotation. Here are some photos of us doing gymnastics.

Dream Giver stories

This term we have been developing our descriptive writing skills by retelling and reworking animated fantasy stories. One of these was "The Dream Giver". (See clip if you want to watch it).
Our writing focus has been to use deliberate language features (strong vocabulary, metaphors, simile, alliteration etc) to enhance the writing. Here are some of our stories...

The Chantico Shadow serpent- By Riley B

One night there was a boy named Zac. He was sleeping in his silky soft bed. One night the old wooden window of his bedroom slowly opened and a little elf-like person fluttered in and landed on the boys bed.

He opened a sack of glowing dream eggs. He carefully cracked the precious golden goose egg over a book about the solar system. The runny honey like liquid soaked into the book. Instantly, the dreaming boy started to dream about floating in space.

In the middle of the dream Zac rolled over and kicked another  golden dream egg. It landed on another book named, “Chantico shadow serpent”. So the exciting space dream turned into a NIGHTMARE!

Now Zac was in an ancient mossy forest. As he explored, he discovered a lost temple that he thought was built from a long ago Aztec culture.

Suddenly, a black shadow monster awoke and began to emerge from the dark temple. It chased Zac to a towering cliff.

The monster looked up and saw a huge droplet of golden egg syrup falling from the sky. It landed on a tiny sprout. The sprout started growing into a huge, thick rope-like vine that trapped the terrifying monster.

Zac, who was still crouching at the end of a deadly cliff watched an elf like dream giver flutter away. He woke up- and was happy that it was just a dream.

The dream Giver- By Robert D

Once on a dark, starry night a tiny bony creature fluttered in the night sky. He was called the dream giver. He crept to an open window. Clutching a bag containing lava glowing eggs, he landed next to a boy in a deep sleep. The dream giver carefully opened the bag and cracked one of the lava glowing eggs. Out came a golden yolk.

The dream giver tipped the yolk onto some baseball cards. The cards were swallowed whole by the shining lava colour. Then out of nowhere flaming baseball players hopped out of the cards. The boy instantly dreamed about baseball as the flaming baseball player spat.

Then the dream giver cracked another lava egg onto a space book. A shining light burst in the darkness of the room. The dreaming boy was now the boy in space.

Then suddenly the astronaut boy shifted and knocked one of the lava eggs over. It landed with a smash on an aztec legend book. Yet again the shining lava swallowed the book whole. Out of nowhere BOOM! a massive spray of purple tendrils came out of the book. It pushed the dream giver away. The dream giver had a look over horror on his face. The tendrils formed a vortex and sucked the boy into the spray of purple. 
A look of horror stretched across the dream givers face. The unknown world was so peaceful with amber butterflies fluttering gracefully. Then the boy looked around and saw ancient god like stone faces. He walked slowly staring around and then he found a temple.

He leant on a little stone statue and broke it. Glowing golden eyes appeared.

Suddenly, a massive thunder roar broke the silence. The boy ran as fast as lightning. The creature was as black as coal. This mysterious creature chased after him with another thunderous roar. They reached a very rocky cliff!

Then out of nowhere magical dream eggs dropped from the sky. Claw-like roots rose from the ground. The creature had one last thunderous roar and then died. The dream giver had saved the dreaming boy.

The Dream Giver- By Ruben S

“Creeeeak!” as the door slowly opened, as an elf like man walked through the door with a bag filled with golden eggs. He flew over to the little girl and took one of the golden eggs, and cracked it open. Inside there was magic golden-like goo dripping into the girls ballet shoe. Then the shoe turned golden and a little golden ballet dancer came out of it and started to dance.

Next the dream giver flew across to a little boy and cracked open another egg. The liquid fell onto his astronaut book and instantly there was a miniature dream astronaut flying above his head.

Again the dream giver flew to the next child and cracked another magical egg on his head. All of a sudden there was a miniature softball pitch and softball players.

However, while the dream giver was preoccupied, one of the sleeping children moved his leg and knocked one of the mysterious eggs off his bed. It fell onto an ancient horror book!

The dream astronaut was floating happily, but suddenly he went tumbling down to the ground into the ancient world. When he got back up, everything looked so beautiful and peaceful. He turned around and there was ancient ruins of aztec kings everywhere. The dreaming boy decided to explore the buildings. He saw a huge temple. So he decided to rest his arm on an ornamental brick.

Suddenly a sleeping monster was disturbed in his cave. He rose and started to chase the little boy. His dream had become a nightmare!

The dream giver had been watching on and he dropped another magical egg into the dream. Giant yolk dropped from the sky and created an earthquake. An enormous tree began to grow and trap the monster, lashing it to the ground. The boy was safe!

He awoke from his sleep, panting and wide eyed to see an elf like man fluttering out the window.

Teach me Tuesday- learning from two cultures!

It was Teach me Tuesday again today. What a success it was. 

To begin, Keita taught us how to say a few basic greetings and words in Japanese. He also taught us how to write these words in "hiragana" (japanese character writing system). We had a lot of fun copying the hiragana and saying the words. Thanks Keita!


Next, Neha taught us about a "Rangoli" which is a folk art from India in which patterns are created on the floor in living rooms or courtyards using materials such as coloured rice, dry flour or flower petals. 
It is usually made during Diwali or other Indian festivals. We made our Rangoli patterns on small pieces of card with coloured rice and glue.

We learnt heaps today about your cultures today Keita and Neha! Thanks for sharing with us.