Koru 3's Visit to Regenerate Christchurch

On Wednesday 28 June, four students from Koru 3 traveled into the city to meet Children's Commissioner, Judge Andrew Becroft and share their ideas for the residential red zone. 

Earlier this term Sian from Regenerate Christchurch contacted us to invite some students to a very special meeting with the Children's Commissioner of New Zealand, Judge Andrew Becroft. Sian and the team at Regenerate Christchurch recognised the effort and creativity that our Koru students had shown in their letters and models (as part of our 'Regenerating the Red Zone' inquiry) and were thrilled when we accepted their invitation.































Selecting only four students was very difficult for the Koru 3 teachers as there were many children who had thought of interesting and creative ideas. The teachers decided to invite Cole, Wyatt, Zeke and Zach to represent our team.

As the day approached, Mrs Togiaso began to work with the boys to put together their presentation. We knew there would be other schools presenting on the day and wondered what types of ideas they would have and how they would present their ideas to Judge Becroft. 


The team worked together to decide what things would make a good presentation. We thought our persuasive letters were interesting and decided to include a couple of these in our presentation. We also knew that we had created some really awesome models and were keen to use these in our presentation. 

Preparing for Our Presentation

On the Friday before the presentation Mrs Togiaso came in and worked with the group to put together a plan for the presentation. 

We decided we would each have a turn at speaking and that some of us would read out the letters while the others would share their models. 

We then sorted out what we would say and decided that our presentation would be better if we tried to memorise our key points instead of reading a speech off an iPad or piece of paper. We came up with what we wanted to say and Mrs Togiaso wrote it down so we could take it home and practice. 

The day before our presentation we spent the afternoon organising the order we would speak and practicing our speeches. At the end of the day, we practiced in front of the Green home group and they gave us feedback on what we did well and areas we could improve. Our home group were really supportive and lots of people gave us words of encouragement as they knew we were feeling a bit nervous. Joscelyn was really kind and said she felt really proud having us represent our team and that the team were all behind us 100%. These comments made us feel really good and proud to be part of Koru 3.

The Day of the Presentation...

Finally the big day arrived! As we were walking through the senior playground on our way to Mrs Togiaso's car, lots of our classmates gave us high fives and said really encouraging words which was awesome! 

Once we arrived at the Regenerate Christchurch office we headed up the lift to Level 2 and signed in. 







We then walked in and took a seat at a massive boardroom table. When all of the schools had arrived, the CEO of Regenerate Christchurch, Ivan Iafeta, welcomed us and introduced Judge Becroft. Then the presentations began. We were last to present and were happy to sit back and listen to the other schools' presentations (Banks Avenue School, Wāitakiri School and Haeata Community Campus). 

Then it was our turn. We all felt a bit nervous but really excited as we walked up to the front of the room. Once we were ready we began our presentation. 
 

      

 

 

After the presentation we stayed up the front of the room for almost 5 minutes as lots of the children from the other schools and Judge Becroft commented on our presentation. We were told from a number of people that they really enjoyed our presentation because we had lots of different and interesting things (e.g. letters, photos, models). 

We also had a number of comments on how creative our models were and how much effort we must have put into both our models and letters. Judge Becroft told us our ideas were really well thought out and Chris Mene (Regenerate Christchurch) asked Wyatt a few questions about building a Samoan fale in the red zone. 

At the end of the presentation Judge Becroft gave us each a special certificate from the Children's Commission and Sian presented us with a native plant for our school. To top off this awesome experience, we then got to have a delicious afternoon tea and hang out with the children from the other schools.  

On the way home, we were all really happy and proud of our fantastic presentation. Mrs Togiaso was also really proud of our team and of all the effort we had put in.

This was an amazing experience for our tamariki and demonstrated that our voices are powerful and that our opinions and ideas are important and have value. 

Well done boys for doing a fantastic job of representing our Koru 3 team. 

Treemendous Garden makeover !

Term 2 Provocation follows on from our Siapo and Regenerate the Red Zone theme of "My Voice is Powerful". A step by step parental guide.

These are the 3 themes running through our learning this year. 

We try to weave the learning areas we need to cover -at each year level- through these themes in an authentic and meaningful way.

These themes drive our learning-  and provocation forward -to give it meaning. So this blog is an introduction for you , on how we go about planning our way forward (and sometimes it doesn't always go to plan, or we go off on  a little tangent,or an idea just takes our fancy), but generally we try to make learning relevant ,so one piece of the puzzle fits with other pieces so we have some form of synergy and cohesion flowing through our learning.

We use the  following thinking tool to help guide -and focus in -our learning : 

provoke, think, create and share.

Provoke

If we then look at Provoke    , we used the Treemendous Garden Makeover Competition with its attached 4 prizes  of a $10,000 garden makeover and some $500 prizes as the motivation for our learning

To add weight to this provocation , we got Mr.Kinley to show us the school re build proposal plan.He then talked about things that he would like to see around the school ( a 'game pit' like at Living springs, a large pile of dirt that his kids ,in a former life ,loved climbing up and sliding down/ slippery slide. He also gave insights into how he positioned his garden etc to catch the sun and be out of the prevailing wind. We then went on a little walk and talk around the school with him ,looking at suitable areas for development that needed a face lift.

 

THINK
These are some of the places we identified as possible areas suitable for a makeover.

These included the walkway, the mounded area behind koru 3, the back fence of the MTB track, possible butterfly gardens etc.

Children were then buddied up in mixed groupings and brainstormed their thoughts so far after our little walk .They then viewed other school garden past winners uploaded to our Seesaw blog and again added to their brainstorm clarifying their ideas and possible area , product they would like to design and how best to present their idea(Imovie, model, speech, advert or a combination ).

Planning a timeline so that we had milestones to keep us on track.

Past school winners ideas! WOW!

THINKing in a maths context

One of the problems is that the competition requires contestants to plan a garden  area of 600-1000 square metres. And, believe me, there is an awful lot of learning to figure out just how big 600-1000 metres looks like! We first started by seeing just how many children could fit into a square metre using 4 one metre rulers , so that we had an idea of what one metre looked like( 15, girls won see our tweet).We then went outside and working with buddies measured 1 basketball court to give us an area to compare with.

The most interesting thing I picked up is that the kids -knowing that the basketball court is a rectangle- tried to record systematically every square metre and counted them up in ones.You or I would , hopefully, just measure width and the length and multiply. As it happens both courts together is an area of about 500 square metres. So, straight away there are options for future teaching of arrays, counting in 5's or 10's as a quicker way to tally the area.Our next step is to choose 1 idea and find out just how big an area we have to work with.Stay tuned.....

Week 3 Update


Chloe, Tegan and Daniel are measuring up how many square metres their proposed 'maze' will be.They will then record on grid paper, draw in their hedges and paths and lastly decide on what type of hedging to use that clips well.

Lacey, Mark and Darius have a similar idea for a maze behind Koru 3.

Rylee, Shania and Miyah are working together to figure out how many square metres there are behind the bike track.They are looking to beautify the fence line.Their next step is to do a detailed 'Birds eye view' of the bike track using grid paper and then decide on a planting plan.

Anna, Riley and Zoe are looking to make a raised garden bed in the junior area for a strawberry garden!

Fapiola,-being helped by Holly-is planning on using the exisiting fence line outside the junior block and creating a 'wall of sound'  using recycled kitchen utensils and found objects ( dust pan lids, pots, wheels etc).These will be spray painted eye catching colours , attached to the fence, and played with drumsticks .Our very own 'soundscape area".

Daniel and Jacinta planning their maze as well.

Deklyn and Robert are planning to make a flying fox coming off the existing gum trees. They are planning on a raised platform , a safety strip of bark the full length, stopping at a post by Koru 3.

Jacinta and Daniel working it all out!

Our next steps are to do detailed grid "birds eye view ' drawings and also cross section views on what our ideas will look like.Once this is done we can think about our presentation medium and ideas.

The journey continues 27/6/17

Well, the time you will have read this we would have submitted our entry proposal. The children worked well together and mostly submitted I-movies or Explain Everything e-books as entry mediums.Here is some of their entries...