Google Education Group NZ

This is well worth having a look at. Learn about blogging and why to blog and also some great ideas from the SMACKDOWN!

Edublog Student Blogging Challenge

You don't have be using the Edublog Platform to be part of this challenge. You can also opt into the challenge and then pick and choose what you complete during the time. I would suggest you look into it as it provides a ready built resource for challenges and tasks that you can complete. Its also an opportunity to collaborate with other teachers involved in blogging and also you can register your students individually. This is the post describing the challenge that I posted on the Room One Class Page:

Today Room One discovered some fantastic news - we've had our work featured in Miss W's Student Blogging Challenge.  The challenge which is run every year, features the best online work and is a great introduction to online blogging with classroom and student challenges.   Miss W has highlighted the work of Alyssa in writing an introduction about Auroa Primary School and our area from the start of the year.   You can click on the link to see the feature here, and you can sign up for the blogging challenge here.  If you want to click on Alyssa's blog you can do so here.

Its a great introduction for blogging for teachers looking for resources and ideas and wonderful to see some of our other online friends mentioned - Mrs Yollis from the USA and our friends from If Only the Best Birds Sang in Ireland.  You can click on the links to the wonderful work of these fantastic teachers and classrooms here.

Emily Post About Auroa School Market Day

Today Auroa Primary School held their Re-Purposing Market Day. One of our students, Emily, whose had nearly 8,000 pageviews on her student blog, wrote this recount and created this slideshow about the event. You can source the original post on her blog here. 

Today was a very important day for our school, our unit topic for this term is "Re-purposing - the art of turning something old and making it new again" Every student enjoyed it but without a doubt the best part for me was the market day. At the start of term we all chose a re-purposed product that would be thoroughly tested and tried over the next few weeks. Our group chose an original idea called "Drinking Jars"

The Concept-

It was made of a Re-purposed jar, taped with a stripy design and then spray painted, once you peel the tape off it reveals a nice design we then drilled holes into the lids and added a straw. Afterward we filled it with juice for our customers. But the great part is, it can be used again, and again, and again!
We thought our idea was pretty cool.  Everyone must have thought so too because the customers kept pilling in so much that we actually sold out in a matter of minutes!  However there are also many other businesses and classes that need to be credited for their hard work and dedication.  Here is a slideshow with a few photo's capturing the day in all it's glory.

Market Day 2014 on PhotoPeach

Connecting with the Current Events in our Area

This afternoon thanks to a big supporter of our school, Sanfords, Auroa Primary School students were able to view the 'missing' trans Tasman Kayak of Scott Donaldson.   Scott Donaldson attempted to solo Kayak from Australia to New Zealand, however sadly after 83 days at sea he had to abandon his attempt.   Since then he's been looking for his Kayak, including searching for it extensively, but being unable to locate it.  Today it was found, close to Auroa Primary School.  It was recovered today and brought into school for our students to have a look.  These photos of the craft were taken this afternoon.

Kayak2014 - Video Maker

You can read about Room Seven writing about the event here. You can read about Room Eight writing about the event here. You can read about Emily from Room One writing about the event here. The fantastic thing about this post is that Scott Donaldson contacted us directly after we posted it, and mentioned on breakfast TV today that his Kayak was visiting some local Taranaki Schools.

Room 3@Auroa Schools Amazing Pick-A-Paths

Auroa Primary School Holiday Blog Posts

Theres some fantastic work from our students to highlight in the meantime. Emilys Blog continues to go from strength to strength and soon she will reach the 7,000 page views mark. You can keep up to date with her fantastic postings, including her review of the New Plymouth Phantom of the Opera here.

We've been successful during these holidays with our Basketball team winning the Langton Cup, a local competition you can read a report about it by the tournament MVP (Girls) Isabelle here.  We've also had students completing work independently in the holidays.  Have a look at Alyssa's review of Frozen here.

Gemma played in the Taranaki Development A Team - you can read this recount of her tournament here.

Alice has just returned from holiday in Fiji.  While she was there she took a number of photos and has since created a slideshow with some amazing images from her time away.  You can click on this link to view her work.

There are also some other fantastic Auroa Primary School Class Blogs Ongoing.  Mr Spice has just celebrated a fantastic achievement - 15,000 page views this year! Room Eight have posted some great pictures from the snow, which you can see here.  Mrs Ericisson Class produced some outstanding examples of our Ako, Repurposing.  You can see their amazing planter boxes here.

Practical use of 3d Printer

During the past several weeks a group of Auroa Primary School students have been working on a design project with our 3d Printer.   As mentioned in the original post it centred around a broken latch for a classroom cupboard in Room One.

Today was an exciting day in class as the students believe that they have solved the problem.  The latch has taken many designs and many forms from its original incarnation to the version that has been printed in the last day.   You can see details of this in the video created by the students.  Michael and Logan, with the assistance of James, who is currently overseas have driven a project from the start.

They have identified the problem, created the design on paper (in their own time), designed it virtually (using Tinkercad), printed versions of the latch, re-designed the latch several times (currently in its eleventh version) and continued to re-model and redesign the latch.  They are at the point were they have created a 'ball and joint' mechanism, modelled on a socket design, that fits perfectly and will tomorrow be attached to the cupboard to solve the problem.


3D printer project: cuboard clips from Myles Webb on Vimeo.


A student solution to a problem with a great process and we couldn't be more proud of them.   This video below was created by the students and detailed the entire process.   The students are currently re-working a Google Presentation about the process which will be posted shortly.  This video created by Michael and Logan on Thursday 3rd July, 2014.