Rm 5 - Dana Taylor - danat@westernheights.school.nz

Rm 5 - Dana Taylor - danat@westernheights.school.nz

Wednesday 20 August 2014

Stadium Constructions

Today Room 5 had the opportunity to think about how our school might create a stadium in our our school sports  courts and field.  The goal was to work with a team to build a Commonwealth Games-type stadium around our school courts and field.

Collage of photographs - children collaborating on Minecraft construction
See slideshow below for detailed views of these photographs.


The first step was to research images of a chosen sport and mark them up with arrows. The children then discussed with their groups then the class about what they noticed in the photos
(See slideshow below.)

Photo of a stadium
Jordan was most restrained in his use of arrows. See the slide
show below to view how exciting it was to put arrows
on photographs.   

We all went outside to walk around the edges of the school's paved courts and the sports field. We looked closely at the places where stadium seating, changing rooms, ref's areas might be.

Next the children were asked to work together with other team members to construct a stadium venue that contained the features they found in their photographs.  This was quite a focused effort.  After initial settling in and excitement noise you could hear the collaboration and concentration.  We stopped to gauge how well we were doing as groups and designers giving the thumbs up, down or sideways. 

Minecraft stadium constructions
This is a work in progress for the team of 4 children working on it.
The sound of concentration and collaboration was in the air.
(See slideshow of each child's work below.) 



This project involved (among other key skills) measurement, design, incorporating the research data into the final construction.  The class discussed the success criteria throughout the day.

Ask the kids to talk to you about what they have begun to create, the processes and why we were working in Minecraft.










Saturday 9 August 2014

Motat Trip!

On Wednesday 6th August, Room 5 and the juniors from Piwakawaka Syndicate went to MOTAT.
We wanted to see how technology had changed over time, and we had a look at how things are different nowadays.
We had a great session with the educator who showed us how daily life has changed throughout the last century. We got to dress up, wash clothes and dishes, write with a quill, look at tools and guess what they were used for, and much more...... We had such a great day, and again, a HUGE thank you to our parent helpers for looking after us!