Beautiful Brain!

Hola everyone,

This week in our reading group, we have been learning about neuroplasticity. Neuroplasticity is neurons changing  and forming new pathways when you learn things and make connections. We all had to create a presentation about the brain and how we can train our brain to become bigger and stronger!

Here are some fascinating facts about the brain:

1. The left side of your brain controls the right side of your body and the right side of your brain controls the left side of your body!

2. The brain grows three times its size in the first year of life!

3. The human brain has approximately 100 billion neurons!

 image from ARGUS

Everywhere you look!

Wainui Beach School Pepeha:

Ko Maungaroa te maunga,

Ko te Poho - O Rawiri te Marae,

Ko Hamanatua te awa.

Wainui Beach School's awa - or stream is Hamanatua, which is just about 10 minutes away from our school. Last year some students planted some Harakeke - or flax down by a pathway next to the stream. Today we went and did some weeding around the plants because we are the kaitiaki (guardians) of our stream. There were lots of weeds everywhere we looked! Including fennel and nightshade that we had to dig out of the ground. We also added some mulch around them to keep them moist. We got very dirty but were proud of our mahi in the end. Now all the harakeke and a couple of kawakawa are looking very beautiful! Here are some photos from the stream:

Super six!

Kia ora,
Kya here from Wainui Beach School! This year i'm a year 6, which means lots of fun activities like surfing and school camp. I can't wait to create some awesome new blog posts and share some of my learning with you. Be sure to leave some positive and helpful feedback so that I can improve my posts.
Thanks for reading!

Culture club

This term our inquiry focus has been to learn about different cultures around the world. Each person had to create a presentation about their chosen country and then share it to our whanau on Friday. Everybody brought in a national dish from their country so that we could all try something new! Here is the presentation and video that my friend Perle and I made about Greece:

LINK TO CULTURE CLUB PRESENTATION

Our video: LINK TO CULTURE CLUB VIDEO

Cool Kapa Haka!

Last week on Wednesday Wainui Beach School participated in the Turanganui Kapa Haka festival. Our syndicate learnt 6 songs including the girls Poi and the boys Haka. Then some girls created the poi actions and we then performed to our community. Lots of families came to watch and it was a very exciting day! My favorite songs are He Honore and E Minaka. Here are a couple of photos taken on the day:

Culture Club!

This term instead of the usual friday music lessons, the teachers are testing a new program which includes the whole school including the juniors - who didn't participate in school music in previous years. This term is a trial run to see if they want to continue doing school music this way for next year. Every student is assigned to a teacher and activity. For example every Friday I go to room 11 and do drama with Koka Claire. Other kids go to room 4 to dance. The year 6s who surf on Friday go to room 5 and watch a movie when they come back. I enjoy the new scheme because it gives me the opportunity to participate in things like drama and dance. I also appreciate that Koka Sue our music teacher is still running the year 5 & 6 Ukulele lessons.

Spectacular Shakespeare!

This week I got moved up to the reading group Huia. Huia is an independent reading group and this week we had to learn about William Shakespeare. We all had to make a slideshow about Shakespeare but most importantly why Shakespeare's writing is still important approximately 400 years later. Here is my slideshow: