Technology Challenge

For much of this term every class in the school has been focusing on the concept of "Special Places". Room 8 chose to study Ancient Rome and other ancient civilisations. One of the activities was a technology challenge. We were given the task of creating something made famous by the Romans. It had to be small enough to bring to school, made from materials you could find at home, and parents were encouraged to help. From the variety of choices that we brainstormed, many children chose to make a model of the coloseum, some made weapons or armour, and several children made a working catapult. We had to present our finished products to the class and give information about the thing we had made and how we went about making it. We are very proud of what was made and we were pleased to be able to share our work at last week's assembly.

Museum/Art Gallery Trip

On Thursday 17 September, Room 8 went on a class trip to Dunedin. The purpose of the trip was to support our current topic which is Ancient Civilisations. First we went to the Otago Museum where the educator talked to us about some of the exhibits on display and then we acted out a Greek play. We then acted out the process of mummification and were taken to the room were actual mummies were on display. We learnt a lot about life in ancient times and it was fascinating to see how advanced their technology was thousands of years ago.
After lunch, we went to the Dunedin Art Gallery where John, the educator, took us for a tour of the gallery, pointing out some art works of interest and telling us some stories from ancient times like "Androcles and the Lion". Finally we arrived at the classroom where John explained that we were going to be doing mosaics, a type of art made famous by the Romans. We had to work quickly to draw our pictures and then cut out the numerous small pieces of coloured paper that needed to be stuck on to create the mosaic effect. Once they were finished, the mosaics looked great as can be seen in the examples below.

Sports Activator Visit

On 7 September our sports activator, Rory, came to to take us for a session on basketball skills. Firstly, we practised our dribbling skills in a straight line and then Rory set out some cones and we had to sidestep them. Next we had to try to bounce the ball between our legs and behind our backs as we went around the cones. We were then put into pairs and we practised chest passing. The next type of pass we learnt was the bounce pass and finally we had to do the bounce pass with one hand. Room 8 really enjoyed this session and can't wait until Rory's next visit.