West-a-Maths

Go Team Kaniere! 

Rūma Kererū students have their fingers crossed for Abby, Greta, Caleb and Andrew as they head off  to the West-a-Maths competition at Grey Main today. They have a tough task ahead. They will be using all their maths skills to answer 20 questions within 30 minutes as they compete against other Year 6 teams from across the West Coast. We are waiting to hear how they do.

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Learning to Save Lives

Last week we were really lucky to have Kathryn come into our class to deliver St Johns 'People Savers' course. Ruma Kereru couldn't believe it when a whole heap of bodies came out of the bag that Kathryn carried into class.

Before they knew it the students were down on their hands and knees and doing keeping time to the song 'Staying Alive' while they did chest compressions to pump air into the models. After they have done the 30 compressions they needed to blow air into the models.

Things got really exciting when Kathryn got a model called Brayden out of her bag. Brayden lit up when enough oxygen was pushed through to the brain. It was exciting to see who could get their timings accurate enough to make this happen. Here are some photos but keep an eye out for the videos that are coming soon!

Kade gets his hands on the 'live' model Brayden

Rotating around the models - it got tiring!

Covering the mouths on the titled heads.

Kathryn demonstrates how the 'live' model will work.

Learning to Create Flow Charts

28th May

Drawing Flow-Charts 

So far this term the class have been learning to write explanations that tell their reader how or why something happens. After watching a small TED talk video clip that explained how baby turtles grow. It also showed some of the dangers that turtles face. Students discussed in buddies all the steps they could remember. They wrote notes about these and then watched the video again. The next step was to break the different steps and stages down into a flow-chart of events that chronicled the life of a sea turtle. Drawing pictures using google draw or the shapes tool on google slides allowed the students to 'see' the different steps.

You can see below examples of Belinda, Greta and Jaidon's learning so far. Keep watching for future updates!

Jaidon, Belinda and Greta's Planning Flowchart

Sign Language with Ruth

15 May 2019

We were really lucky to have Ruth come into our class this week to give us a 'taster' session on New Zealand sign language. From the time Ruth stepped into the class she didn't speak - a very different experience for everyone. Using picture cues and modelling with her hands the class learned how to sign the letters of the alphabet and sign their own names. It was great learning how to sign simple greetings and ask questions such as, "Your name what?" and "You have animals what?" As Ruth explained to us all the 'little' words are not used when signing.

Kaycee spelling out her name. 

Rebekah masters the sign alphabet.

Flynn learning how to ask questions.

You can almost see Aaliyah's brain working!

Kid's Lit - Greymouth 2019

14 May 2019

We are super excited to share the news that our team of Year 5/6 four students WON the Year 6 Kid's Literacy competition in Greymouth today. Check out some of the photos of the action below. The smiles say it all. Congratulations Abby, Belinda, Caleb and Andrew - you did us proud! Enjoy reading your book prizes.

Write NZ

Over the last couple of weeks, Rūma Kererū students have been busy writing descriptive poems based on colours. After that, each of the students wrote an eighteen-word poem based on one of a small object that they were given. These ranged from a small ship in a bottle, a puzzle piece and a candle. Postcards were written and these were decorated to form the design that you can see on the 32 postcard pictures. Our poems are now winging away their way to a school in Auckland and we are eagerly awaiting our package from another school. Thanks School Kit. We really appreciated the coloured pencils and equipment you gave our class.

Cards for Constable Jos

The whole school 'turned out in blue' yesterday in recognition of Constable Jos who, along with Constable Terri, has been coming to Kaniere School over the last 15 years to teach our students valuable skills. Rūma Kererū students also look forward to the safe cycling lessons and biking around the challenge course on the turf, before practising their new skills out on the roads. All classes also made cards for Constable Jos and know he is going to be kept pretty busy reading them! Rūma Kererū students put thought into designing their cards on google draw and thinking about what they wanted to write. Well done, Abby, Rebekah and Kaycee your cards look great!