The Amazing Race

 For Totara's interchange, one option was our Social Sciences unit where we made a virtual Amazing Race. Check out Millah's incredible presentation that she created. Ka Pai Millah! You are amazing!

T2: The Believing Rap

During Whanau Time last week, Mrs O set us the challenge of coming up with a rap about believing in yourself. Olivia, Zoe and Abbie took up the challenge and came up with this rap. I think it is pretty good! What do you think?

Well done girls, you are great role models!

Descriptive Writing

This week we have started working on writing a narrative. The goal was to use descriptive language to describe what was happening in the short video that they were shown. 

Here is Shruthi's piece of writing that she has planned and written, using some impressive descriptive language. 

Feel free to leave a comment for Shruthi, she would love some feedback! Well done Shruthi, you have certainly met the learning intention!

Words Worth Believing

The sun cascaded it’s heatwave over the windy road leading upwards. Oswald was sweating so bad, the sweat on his forehead dripped from his nose and some even got into his eyes making hot tears form. As he was nearing another bend he saw blood red fabric blowing in the humid wind, he was glad to see someone, maybe he could ask for some money, but his hopes dropped when he saw how strange the figure truly was, he looked like alive stick of licorice,drawn perfectly with a pencil and ruler, he had these peculiar sort of goggles that sat at the very beginning of his nose and it seemed as if the goggles were embed into his clay skin,high cheekbones and quite symmetrical,and of course there was that offbeat red scarf that sat on his neck and held onto the bridge of his nose like a snake around a master,  he almost looked as if he was malnutritioned. Nonetheless Oswald needed money and if this stick person was going to give it to him, so be it. He walked up to the man and stared into his goggles, although Oswald could not see his eyes, he could feel them on him, dark and cold. 

Zalik looked at this unusual child,how idiotic could it be to come up to someone who looks like himself. He just ignored and continued to hold out his thumb. ”Hello, Mister, can you see me,you are rather tall,but not as tall as  a giant I once read about. I could not help but realise how lonely you were, so I decided to keep you some company, while we wait, may I ask you some questions?”. Zalik was already annoyed with this imbecile, but still acted as if it weren’t there. “Well first of you are rude, and second of I’ll stop talking and walk away if you give me some pennies, you see my teddy bear is really hungry and…”, Oswald started to let his fake tears take over and play the trick he knew always worked, unfortunately. Zalike was not buying it, he was not amused nor was he entertained, he was in fact so agitated that he ripped off his scarf, in hope the boy would run away. “OH MY GREAT GODDESS, PICKLES ME TUESDAY, How horrific to see that in the mirror everyday!”. Zalik was taken aback, if only they had not sliced his mouth off and pulled his teeth out he would have torn this child to shreds and devoured him right there. 

Being Proud

 This week during Whanau Time, Mrs O spoke about the apportance of being proud of our achievements. We discussed what we were proud of in T2 and each one of us came up with a Google Drawing to illustrate what we were proud of. 

Explanation Writing

This week we have been working on explanations. The class were able to choose what they wrote their explanations on, as long as it was a 'how' or 'why' topic and Shruthi chose to write about how the brain works. She has written a fantastic explanation and I have added it below. Ka Pai Shruthi, you have reached extended abstract in our Solo Rubric!

How the Brain Works.


Our brains are one of the most vital organs in our body, although it does look like pieces of clay molded together, with alot of wrinkles. The brain controls every aspect of our physical body as well as not so touchable things like our emotions and mental health. There are about 100 billion neurons in your brain linked to one another by synapse, these synapses are like a road taking information from cell to the next.


The Brain's cells are arranged in a specific pattern that interrelate, thought, emotion, behaviour, and movement.For your brain to function you need your nerve cells to determine what information is coming from the world outside your body, the nerves then transmit information to each other about what is going and the brain will then decide the action to take or how to react to the situation. The brain is able to communicate to the body, by something called the nervous system, the nervous system sends information to the brain in split seconds, alerting it about the problem. (The nervous system in real life.)



The brain, also properly known as the cerebrum, has many parts, the main ones being the Frontal lobe, Parietal lobe, Temporal lobe, Occipital lobe and the Cerebellum. The Frontal lobe controls motor movement, problem solving, spontaneity, memory, language, initiation, judgement, impulse control, and social behavior, overall the frontal lobe is considered our emotional center and is known to hold our personality. A surprising fact about the frontal lobe is that in fact you can live without it, although it honestly would not be the best idea, you would lose cognitive abilities and motor control, you would not be able to reason or form simple thoughts, you would also be physically paralysed,so making sure it’s in the best state is essential.



The Parietal lobe is situated behind the frontal lobe, it is in the upper area of the skull, and in front of the occipital; lobe although it’s known as one part is split into two functional hemispheres, one part governs sensory information regarding the location of parts on the body, for example the skin playing a large part in scenery. The other is concerned more with retaining visual information, it also processes language and mathematics. The left hemisphere is associated more with those who are right handed people, this part is known to handle more analytical thinking. The right lobe is more active with people who are left-handed, the left hemisphere is more creative and visionary. As for people who are ambidextrous use both hemispheres equally.



The Temporal lobe is surrounded by the frontal lobe, the parietal lobe and the occipital lobe as well as right underneath supporting it is the cerebellum. The temporal lobe is primarily responsible for auditory skills(hearing sensory), which makes sense, because it’s situated right next to our ear, it’s centered around helping us make sense of speech, words, vocabulary or thing around sound. This also means this part of the brain affects someone who is deaf. It is accountable for creating and preserving long term memories, this makes sense for the hippocampus is located in the center of the temporal lobe that is why long term memory is one of the functions that fall under this specific part of the brain.


The Occipital lobe is the smallest of the four. Similar to the Parietal lobe it functions around visuals although it is more in depth. It visualizes depth and distance, colour determination, recognition of objects and faces, and the formation of a memory. If the occipital lobe were to be damaged there is a high possibility of loss of sight, and depending on how bad or where the injury has taken place, it could result in visual hallucinations and illusions.


The Cerebellum is that part that looks like it did not know where to fit in so it just stuck to the bottom of the four lobes, it is also latin for little brain which just concludes how odd it honestly is. It has a common misconception that it has a link toward motor movement, but this is incorrect, it is still linked to movement, but in a different way. The cerebellum contributes to coordination, precision, and accurate timing, it’s commonly associated with reflexes, for example if a ball were to be thrown towards you your cerebellum would take control and indicate to the frontal lobe to move in order to avoid an injury.


To summarize how, the brain works, it would take quite some time, it is very intricate and detailed organ, what makes it so odd is the fact we are using our brains to basically learn about our brains which seems like an endless cycle, but all in all the brain is a quite complex and interesting the way it works has baffled many, including myself. I personally like that every part of the brain works hand in hand with each part of itself as well as the body.It’s definitely something that will forever be questioned which in a way is fascinating.

Perseverance

This week during Whanau Time, we talked about perseverance. We discussed what perseverance means to us and then T2 were given the task to create a poster on Canva showing what perseverance means to them. Neisha, Saamiya and Bella created these posters which we think look really cool. We have decided to share them on our blogs and print them out as it is a good reminder to never give up when we are trying new things. 

Week 8 Key Coms

This week has been a short but busy week. We have continued to learn the ukulele and have been working hard to finish off our 3D pyramids. Congratulations to Hunter and Niah who have received this weeks Key Coms.

Key Com's Week 7

We have had another busy week settling back in to the routine of school. This week we introduced the use of independent timetables where each student got to create their own timetable for the week to work on subjects at different times. 

We have also started to learn the Ukulele in T2 which has got some of us really excited. Watch this space!

Key Com's Week 6

Congratulations to Rowan and Abbie who received this week's key coms. It has been great having most of the class back and we have really enjoyed getting our teeth into our topic of Ancient Egypt.

Ancient Egypt

Welcome back to school T2! We have started back in Level 2 with a syndicate wide theme which is Ancient Egypt! However we didn't tell the children what the topic was and they had to solve clues in order to work it out. The first task they had to do was solve 3 jigsaw puzzles. Once they had done that, they had to solve some anagrams which were words that related to Egypt. Once they were solved, they had to find those words in a wordsearch. The next task was a west-a-maths competition where the teams had to solve maths problems to get letters. Once they got all of their letters, they had to unscramble them to create the words ANCIENT EGYPT. They then had to find Egypt on a world map and confirm the flag. Heaps of fun for the first day back! 

Week 5's Key Coms

Congratulations to Hannah and Neisha who received our class key com's this week!

Week 4's Key Com's

Congratulations to Olivia and Jorja who have received the class key coms this week. You girls are doing an amazing job learning from home!

Jasmine's Writing

Check out Jasmine's fantastic piece of descriptive writing. The use of similes is awesome! Well done Jasmine!

Week 3 Online Key Coms

We have had a very busy, productive short week in T2. It has been great to see so many children online and completing their work to a high standard. Well done to Mitchell and Seamus who have earnt the class Key Coms this week. It's great to see the boys interacting on our Google Meet's and completing their work.
Well done boys!

Key Com Awards

Congratulations to Shruthi and Declan for receiving the class Key Com Awards for this week. I have been so impressed with the mahi you have done! Keep it up!

Descriptive Writing

This week T2 has been focusing on using descriptive language in their writing to either describe their special place or a character. We have been working on showing the reader, not telling them and here are some examples of the fabulous writing that T2 has written this week from home!


By Shruthi



By Abbie



By Bailee


By Hannah

Key Com Awards

Because we are in lock down and can't all meet for assembly, today Mrs O live streamed assembly for us! During that time we got to hear who had received awards this week. A huge congratulations goes to Martin, Adison and Olivia for receiving Principal Awards for term 1. You guys have worked extremely hard and should be super proud of your efforts.
This weeks key com awards go to Bailee and Jasmine. Both girls have worked really hard at home this week, producing some incredible work. Thank you for all of your hard work girls. It is a pleasure to teach you from home!

Hide and Seek Writing - By Shruthi

This week we started our online learning because we are still in Level 4 lock down. Our writing task for this week was to use descriptive language to describe a game of hide and seek. Shruthi has used some great descriptive language and I wanted to share it with you. Well done Shruthi!

Happy holidays

Happy Holidays from Mrs O. Stay safe in your bubble :-)

Mistletoe Bay Activity

Kia Ora everyone. Through all of the chaos that has been going on throughout the country, T2 have been working on some camp follow up activities. We were so lucky to be able to go to Mistletoe Bay the week before the country went into lock down!
One of the activities that the children had to complete was to create a video that showcases Mistletoe Bay, Martin has created this fantastic advertisement for Mistletoe Bay that I just had to share! I think Martin has a future career in advertising, what do you think? 

Last week T2 were lucky enough to head away to Mistletoe Bay on camp. We had the best time and spent our days walking, swimming, sailing, fishing, kayaking, paddle boarding and hanging out playing games. Miss Hines made a video of some of the things we did on camp. A huge thank you to Mr B, Amy and all the parents who came to camp to support us.

Life Education

Today we had our first session at Life Education. We were learning about making choices and the consequences that each choice may have. One activity that we had to do is decide on a holiday destination. Each destination had pro's and con's including who we could take, the amount of time we would have off school and the money we would have to spend. The majority of us chose the Queenstown option, we had to go there for 4 weeks, we had $2000 to spend and we could take 5 friends. The downside was that if we chose Queenstown, we had to complete a 30 minute presentation to present to the class. This was off putting for some! 

The photo below is Monz's 3 'victim's'.  We are looking forward to going back tomorrow!  

Sticks and Stones

For Novel Study this term, we have begun reading Sticks and Stones with T3. Below is some of the work that we are going to be completing whilst reading the novel.