Kaikoura Suburban School

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Thank you to all those that kindly gave up their time to help construct Shearwaters mini golf this Sunday.

After consultation with The Board of Trustees, Shearwaters did a little research and got quotes for marine ply and astro turf for the course but both would cost around $1000. The original design brief was to create the mini golf from recycled materials, to be sustainable and cost effective. So we decided to stick with that to make the first stage of the full scale courses. Shearwaters will review its effectiveness, durability and use during the winter months and then consider modifications.
Four of the eighteen courses designed by Shearwaters have been created out of recycled materials behind the school house for all the children to enjoy and learn new skills.

Our students had the most incredible opportunity this week!

They celebrated Matariki with an exciting jam packed day full of activities with Brett Cowan at Takahanga Marae.

Our students managed themselves perfectly to participate and cooperate in the following activites:

• Planted 230 native trees with Department of Conservation on Kaikoura peninsula.
• Created Matariki telescopes and mobiles.
• Made kites.
• Cooked in bull kelp
• Created meals to share.
• Made Putiputi flax flowers for their buddy.
• Sung 3 waiata.
• Set new and exiting goals for 2011.

Then many of the middle and senior took up the challenge of staying the night at the marae and face an unknown task in the evening. ………….

The students were given a Maori legend in the form of a book that they had 45 minutes to recreate into a play for the audience. It was a colossal challenge but as always our Fyffe Force Learners reached the summit. The resulting movie will be shown after assembly this Thursday, or see Sue Rogers for a copy on dvd.

Thank you to Brett Cowan, the whanau of Takahanga marae, all the incredible parents that contributed to this unique experience and to the students for demonstrating The Force and key values of the school.

Congratulations to all that took part in the day!

WE HAVE LIFT OFF!!!

Planet earth and beyond Inquiry launched with squeals, shrieks, yahoo’s and open mouths this week as the students discovered space had come to Kaikoura Suburban School!

Shearwaters is now a black hole full of stars, planets, aliens, rockets and Nasa control station (lots of new Mac computers).

The purpose of our classroom is to really inspire our learning and curiosity for the unknown. Also to question information and its authenticity. We are going to think critically about all the information that we find during our research into planet earth and beyond.

A huge thank you to ITM for donating the black paper to make this all possible!

Fyffe Force Learners are all very busy creating their terrific toys, each Inquiry class has chosen the toy design that best fits their design brief and they are now busy creating the first model to test and modify. Teachers have managed to convince husbands yet again to bring some expertise to the classroom (Thank you boys!)

Rainbow Roller (model 1)

Congratulations to Shearwaters afternoon class. You are using the FORCE and technological knowledge to design toys and now create a class toy. Xenobia you have a very creative mind and positive attitude to modification ideas from your team.
This is Xenobia’s design enlarged to full size!

Terrific Toy!

Shearwaters afternoon class have been talking and learning more about what it means to think, to be great learners, to be great writers and to be great readers. They know that they have a lot of knowledge to gain in order to have full back packs and make it to the summit of Mount Fyffe. But they have also learnt that if we work hard as a team that we can all succeed.

The photos show us deep in thought!