Category: Ako | Learn

Today’s morning CRT session was full of creativity, coding, and conservation. We worked with Elizabeth and started by listening to the story Somebody Swallowed Stanley by Sarah Roberts. It’s a powerful (and a bit heartbreaking!) tale that helped us investigate what happens when para (rubbish) ends up in our moana. We learned that many of our beautiful sea creatures mistake plastic for kai.

Bee-Bots to the Rescue! To put our problem-solving skills to the test, we used Bee-Bots (which we called “Moana Bots”) and moana maps. The mission? Operation: Ocean Clean-up.

We came up with our own games: some programmed Moana Bots to collect para or rescue a Hector’s dolphin. We had to watch out for the Taniwha, Lion’s Mane jellyfish, or seaweed! For every successful mission, we used sea pennies as rewards.

After a quick break for morning tea, we had our first Lego Robotics session. For most of us, this was a brand-new experience! The room was full of the sound of Lego rummaging as we searched for the exact pieces we needed. We worked with a buddy, followed instructions, and collaborated to build our very first vehicles.

On Friday, we read the Better Start Literacy big book ‘The Boat Race’. We decided it would be a really good idea to create our own waka! For the next block, we turned our space into a creation zone as we were all designing, sticking, cutting, decorating and building our boats. We then took a photo of the final projects. We used what we could find in the studio and took some inspiration from the story! You may notice a theme of shark fins. Waka of all shapes and sizes were created!

Some of our tamariki made the connection between the characters in this story, who also feature in the phonics plus books we read in our small groups for pānui pukapuka.

Here is the video of our waka creations! Unfortunately, we didn’t get time to test whether they floated. Which one do you think will float the best?

We’ve had a fantastic initiative that’s running at our school: a lunchtime Robotics Club for 12 of our Year 3 students. This club has been a huge hit, thanks to the fantastic Debbie from Imagination Station, who secured funding from GCSN to get it off the ground.

In Term 2, Debbie has been leading these sessions, and it’s been incredible to see the students’ engagement and learning. Each week, our Year 3 students have worked with a buddy to build and code various challenges using LEGO® Education SPIKE™ Essential kits. The focus has been on hands-on problem-solving, teamwork, and developing foundational coding skills in a fun and interactive environment.

Elizabeth will be taking over the club for Terms 3 and 4, building on the fantastic foundation Debbie has laid. Elizabeth is looking forward to continuing this journey of discovery and innovation with our young engineers!

What Our Robotics Enthusiasts Thought!

• I enjoyed the building aspect, especially the mini-golf challenge. I liked working with the base plates and motors to create the hitting mechanism for the ball. I did find the programming hard because it didn’t make sense at times.  Nehemiah
• ‘I loved it so much!” and it was “super fun” and I enjoyed building the helicopter. Josiah
• I loved the building side of things and using LEGO. The colour sensor was a challenge to work with. Ashley
• Both Jai and Eli liked working with a friend, having a buddy to build with and enjoyed making the boat.
• I found it fun to see what other people were building and seeing how they built with a buddy.  My buddy and I created a mini golf game and used a colour sensor to detect the colours of the pinballs.

We are so grateful to Debbie and GCSN for making this enriching experience possible for our students. We can’t wait to see what amazing robots and projects our Year 3s will create in Terms 3 and 4!