A new term, some new challenges...

Week one done, ✅

⬇️ Rimu have had a full on week of getting back into it, here are some of the highlights ⬇️

The Marshmallow Challenge - Build a Tower, Build a TEAM

On Monday our skills in collaboration and innovation were put to the test when we found ourselves in groups of four with limited resources and a tempting task to complete!

We only had the materials below and were to construct a tower in 18 minutes! And the catch was -
DO NOT EAT THE MARSHMALLOW...because it had to be on top of our tower!

This challenge has been done all over the world to test and challenge teams of people in their abilities to work together. It was all about having a team of people who had specialised skills for the task, but in order to succeed, our team also needed someone with facilitation skills (that means someone who is good at running the team - like making sure we listen to each other, that everyone has a chance to share ideas, that we keep checking the time and stay on task etc.)

We had to reflect on our performance afterwards too and that was interesting...
check out our padlet below. 

Marshmallow Challenge materials

Tom Wujec on The Marshmallow Challenge - we watched this after we built our towers

Here are some photos of our creations - 

Then we also had Cross Country on Tuesday - everyone participated and showed excellent camaraderie for the each other. Rimu was by far the loudest and proudest cheer squad of them all!

Well done to our qualifiers for zones!

We also had another highlight this week - 

The CSO came to YMS!

(that is, the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra came to Yaldhurst Model School)

This was an excellent performance - here's a few snippets. We learnt so much about all their different instruments and even about some musical terms. 

Do you know about string, woodwind, and brass instrument families?

Do you know what pitch, tempo and a glissando means?

Come and ask us, we know now 😉

Glissando by Paige from TM

Can you guess this piece of music? Here's a hint - it's from H _ _ _ _  P _ _ _ _ _

Mia from Rimu (a CSO Ambassador) playing her trumpet for us!

We also had Winter Sport start this week, 

and did a lot of work on Matariki BUT that's for another day!

Don't forget to check out our individual blogs for more equally exciting content!

Until next time...

Inspired by ...

Normally on a Tuesday, we would be working on Being a  Detective, but since Mrs Taylor wasn't around Mrs Spragg decided to get arty. This was very exciting because as much as we love being detectives, we also love art!

Did you know that Rimu Year 5/6 have a really good idea what Matariki is? 

Well, they do and after a brief discussion, we watched a wee video to help to fill in any gaps we had. Mrs Spragg also asked us to look at the style of the art that is used to tell one of the Matariki stories. It is in Te Reo, so we had to use our reading skills to follow along.

Mrs Spragg then read us the story of Mother Earth and Father Sky by Gavin Bishop to help us understand the background of the story we saw in the video. It is in this book.

Mrs Spragg also zipped us through a different Matariki story to help us understand that there can be one or more stories to explain phenomena, like the Matariki stars. 

We did have to keep an eye out for interesting artwork to inspire us in our own artistic creations. 

Explaining the process of what we were going to do, Mrs Spragg drew a design on the board. She then explained that we were going to create our own design inspired by the stories and artworks we had seen. Next, we were to sketch the design onto our pieces of paper, drawing lightly so the pencil wouldn't show through. Using black PVA glue we were to paint over the pencil line and let it dry.

Once our paint was dry we began to add watercolour paint to our pictures. Mrs Spragg explained how we use watercolour, adding a little bit of water (not too much or we soak our paper) to the paint. We had to make sure it wasn't too dry either. We were then shown how we can blend the colours. We had to be careful not to mix the paints together, this was very important! 

What a lot of fun we had. These photos probably say more than words can. What do you think?

Mrs Spragg is going to back them onto black paper and hang them up. These will be shared when it is finished.

Do you like art? Have you used watercolour before? Does your school or class have plans for Matariki?