Out trip to Te Manawa

We had a great time at Te Manawa yesterday. It connected really well with our mechanisms idea and we got to touch things! Not something that's common at an art gallery.

This graphic was made using 'Comic Life'.

Calling all computer experts!

Are you in Room 5 and want to be trained as a computer expert?



You need to have a computer at home, be committed to 'upskilling' on it and give up some lunch times for C.D? (Computer development)

You will be a helper for others in the class when using the computer. You must also be good at being nice to others, patient and responsible. You may even get good enough to help some of us, teachers.

If this is you, write a short comment on this post, at home, and tell me why you would make a great expert! You could get your parents to help. Register a google account name and make that application by next Monday. I will only work with a maximum of 5.

Looking forward to your comments...

Zia's snowboarding picture

Zia's dad took this picture using a special 'aplication' that combines many quick shots into one.

This is what Zia wrote about it:

"This is a photo that my dad took of me. I am on a rail slid at turoa. I like it at the mountain."

Welcome to our blog.

Wow! You've landed at the blog of Room 5 at Riverdale School!

We want to be able to share all the cool things we are doing, reveal what we can do and let you in on the things we need to work some more at.

At the moment this blog is something of a prototype while we investigate the best way forward for our school in the ever 'fluid' world of I.T.

We would really enjoy getting some feedback from you. Please make a comment if you can. It would great to have some discussion happening between myself, parents and caregivers and the children. I know the children would love to see that their community is interested in them - as I know we all are!

Let's get bloging!

Mr Herring

Connected Update - Jack and Jill Challenge

WALT: Plan, design and evaluate a working mechanism.

The goal for this technology challenge was to help Jack and Jill get some water out of the well. After writing our own version of the nursery rhyme we started our design process.

Here are some pictures of the planning stage. Each group had to research some well mechanisms, think about what they were trying to do and what they needed to think about. Then came the fun part....drawing our ideas!

Our next design step was to decide what equipment we would need. Each group needed to have the teacher's approval before starting. There were some good questions to ponder about possible 'hiccups' that may occur but making changes is part of the design process!

Today we were able to watch some groups test their mechanism on the hill. The criteria for success was:

- to have a stand alone structure,

- to draw water from the well,

- to be able to identify what mechanism we were using.

Here are some pictures of our stunning successes!

Tomorrow we will be evaluating our efforts. We will think about what we need to change to make it better and improve it....

Do you think we did a good job? Do you have any feedback for the students? Please, make a comment in the box on the home page!

P.E Skills - Soccer!

WALT: Kick and pass large balls.

(We are learning to)

For the next four weeks we will be using soccer as a game to help us improve our kicking and passing skills.

On Friday we saw how important it is to be able to pass in the direction that we want the ball to go in. We played a game of knock the skittles down. Not many of us did very well! (We gave ourselves a rating of 5/10)

We decided that we needed to practise our passing skills. we learnt how to kick with the inside of our foot (this gives us more control).

We're problem solving with our video feeds. You can click on this link and watch from 'Youtube'!:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dSVHptt5jc

We then played a game where we earned points for kicking it through some cones (before we played a game of soccer, of course).

What do you think of our skills so far?