Walking the Length of NZ

How Many Steps?

We have been very fortunate to be involved in a some cool learning experiences that have been designed by School Kit. Earlier in the year it was Get NZ Writing and in Term 3, we participated in a Mystery Hangout with Pitt Island School.  

Towards the end of Term 3, we began another kit called, Walking the Length of New Zealand.  This kit has a health and mathematics component which has encouraged us to think about how we can use different types of activity to increase our daily steps.  Now that we have measured our step, tested different step apps, recorded steps around areas of our school and calculated the average kilometer walked on a day; we are ready to invite our family community to 'step out' with us on Friday of week 3 to 'Walk the Length of New Zealand'.

Click on the link below to check out our learning,

link to learning

5Star Marathoners

I spy with my little eye, 3 awesome 5Star athletes.  Can you see Sophie, Raymond and Lucas?  

Along with other Sunnyhills learners, they have been meeting up with Mrs Nelson each week to run 2kms - with the final 2kms to run today at the Auckland Marathon. 

With tension building and eyes focused on the road ahead - all the weeks of training became reality when "parp!" The horn sounded and they were off. 

Fitness Rotations

Every Monday and Friday the year 6’s and the year 5’s do fitness rotation for 15 minutes. They work hard to complete a series of activities. 

They do:

• Chest expansions  
• Half jacks
• Jumping T’s 
• Flutter kicks 
• High knees

These series of workouts are completed with music for motivation. Some of the exercises are hard for some - like the flutter kicks. 

🠛 Here are some photos of our fitness time 🠛 

Reporter: Alex
Photographer: Alex

A Maker Space

Last week on Wednesday afternoon, Room 5 became a maker space. Our choices were coding with Makey Makey, Lego construction, Fathers' Day cards or creating on Merge Cube. We had a fantastic time problem solving, collaborating and communicating.  I'm sure that many of the 5Stars can't wait until their next Maker Space hour!

Brain Talk

This afternoon, Dr Barr (Mr Mac's wife) visited Sunnyhills School to share some really interesting facts about the brain with us.

The brain is... 

• about the size of a small cauliflower and floats in liquid, within the skull
• approximately the same weight as 3 blocks of butter - about 1.5kg
• bigger than the brain of animals which are the same body size, e.g. chimpanzee

Different parts of the brain have different roles, e.g. the frontal lobe tells you when to move, while the hippocampus keeps memory (it backs up when we're asleep - just like a computer!). Other areas help with planning, senses and hearing.

While your body feels pain, your brain doesn't. So if you had brain surgery you would only need anesthetic while the surgeon cuts through the skin.  This is really useful so the surgeon doesn't damage a part of the brain that is being used. Dr Barr showed us a video of a man playing the guitar while he was undergoing brain surgery because they didn't want to damage that part of the brain that he needed for playing the guitar.  Amazing!

This is one of the videos that Dr Barr shared with us to help understand the brain's functions:

https://youtu.be/4Dcj6nYcbLI

Dr Barr shared some awesome words, e.g. neuroplasticity, electroencephalography, and neurons  These will certainly help to improve our scores next time we play Scrabble :)

There is so much to learn about the brain.  Maybe in the future, one of the 5Stars will be a neurologist or neurosurgeon. Watch this space!

#OneWord

Have you ever tried to describe your personal goal with one word?  The 5Stars have, and they found out that it's not as easy as it seems.

In the beginning of Term 3, the 5Stars used a hyperdoc to support learning around developing their #OneWord.  After watching several videos and listening to motivating music, they each came up with one word that defined their personal goal and how they wish to be.  Once they had this word, they then used Google Drawings to create a graphic which could be uploaded to Flipgrid with a video. 

Image of the #OneWord hyperdoc

It might be just #OneWord, but a whole lot of learning happened between thinking, designing and creating.  What do you think of our Flipgrid videos?

   

Click here to view our Flipgrid videos    

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Osmo Words

International students are visiting Sunnyhills School in the first half of term 3.  We have Mary, Cruz and Eason in Room 5.  They join in with our learning programme and also have special cultural classes with Mrs Shen. Osmo Words has been a fun way for them to develop their understanding of english words.  They play the game collaboratively and can often be heard calling out the word with excitement while they frantically find the correct letters to make the word.