Scratching adn Cubing

 We had a bunch of studnens join Whaea Harriet and Mr J for some cubing and scratching today. 

 

Lots of fun learning. 

Another intake of builders

 The start of Term 3 sees a new group of enthusiastic builders enter the Steam Club. 

Together we will learn about our school values while having fun building together. 

Totara Minecraft Club

 

We have been learning to work together to build. Although there have been some bumps along the way, by leaning on our school values we have managed to build some great projects. 

Racing the Sphero Bolts

 We evolved our game into racing the Bolts around the class. We are getting pretty good at recalibrating.

10 Pin Bowling

 Today at the Totara Steam Club we were learning how to use the Sphero Bolts.  Kieran came up with a great idea to play 10 pin bowling. 

Making magazine pages

 At lunchtime today we had another day of working on our school magazine pages. We are learning to use Pages on our MacBooks and we are getting pretty good. 

Production Techies

The sound desk at our production has been going great this year. Our IT leaders have done a really good job at getting the microphones live at the right times and also playing the music and sound effects at the correct times. 

The view from the sound desk. 

Athletics Day Term 4

 Athletics Day Form

Above is the Athletics Day form which needs to be filled in by all Year 4-6 Parents/ caregivers. Those people who have updated their phones seem to be finding it difficult to click on the link.

Aquabots Fact Sheets

 Our teams have completed their Fact Sheets ahead of the competition. 

 

 

Kahui Ako Steam Day

We hosted a Kahui Ako Steam event with many years 5-8 students taking part in the building and
problem-solving tasks. 

Epro8

Our Kahui Ako is holding a Steam competition and in preparation we have been practicing with the Epro8 kits and solving some maths problems. 

Aquabots are in the water

 Today 4 of our 5 teams launched their Aquabots in our pool. Now the hard work of redesigning them starts. 

 

Junior teaching with the Ollies

 Junior asked if he could teach his mates to use our Ollies. We went a bit further and invited students from Totara. 

He taught them to use the drawing function and then we started looking at the block coding. 

Holiday Steam Camp

 During the holidays our school hosted a Steam Camp which was supported and run by @PBTechnologies and  @usingtechnologybetter.com . 40 students joined teachers and the camp leaders to explore drones, robotics and other Steam-related learning. 

Here is a short video of the Steam Camp.

Building is going well

 

Our T2 Steam club is focusing on building collaboratively in Minecraft. There is so much discussion, so much for kids just staring at screens. Some projects include a zoo, castle, a Nether portal and a mansion with a massive basement ;-)

Minecraft Club T2 2022

 We are up and building. A small but very enthusiastic group have started building. We are focusing on building with our school values as a starting point. The groups have decided to build a range of creations over the next few weeks. 

Aquabots winners 2021

Update: 

Our boys (now at JPC) have won the Nationals. Congratulations!

 For the second year in a row we had a winning team at our regional Aquabots competition.  Congratulations to Maclyn, Jo and Sean who have the opportunity to progress to the finals in Nelson early next year.

All of our teams should be very proud of their efforts. The students and adult mentors gave up a lot of their lunchtimes, met after school and even during the holidays to practice and prepare. 

Aquabots are launched

After a making day, some trials and getting our paperwork in order we finally put our Aquabots in the pool today. 

Some floated too well, some sunk, and some didn't have power. Lots to work on. 

  

 

  

Nintendo games

 Today we were lucky enough to be invited to use the Nintendo Switch consoles by the teachers from DNA Just a fun lunchtime learning to play some games while playing with friends.

Tuakana teina

 Part of the ICT Leader's role at St Mary's is to teach the younger students. Today they were teaching Kahikatea students how to use Scratch Jnr to tell a story. They did a great job and the short stories the younger students created were really good for the short amount of time they spent developing them. 

Annabelle demonstrating Scratch Jnr.