Production has begun

 Read this for an exclusive look at the production of 'Room 2 tells Ali's story'.

As a class we voted to tell the story of Ali's Journey of Change; his journey from Iran to New Zealand. It is an incredible story and we are going to strive to tell it as best we can. 

Our co-constructed storyboard - how we want our film to look.

The Next thing we needed to think about was how to film it and what techniques to use. Obviously we had some incredible ideas (as Room 2 ALWAYS does) and unfortunately it was Whaea Emma's job to rein in the budget from 'multi million dollar' set creation to 'how can we film this at school on iPods and iPads?'

The research began.

As always the students of room 2 have blown us all away and the decision has been made to make a stop motion animation movie using a black vivid, crayons, iPod, and tripod constructed from random things like cardboard tubes.

Obviously, like any major motion picture it is currently being filmed under a cloak of secrecy but here is one of the 765 frames shot so far.

We can't wait to share our finished film with you at the SPS film festival on Wednesday 18th of September.

Our New Playground!

Check out our new Junior School Playground...

Room 2 spent a bit of time this week exploring the new Junior School playground. The verdict is in and WE LOVE IT!!

Construction Zone

Building a playground

Tale writes about it when we watched out of the window each day as the playground was built.

Last week a big digger came to our school. First it dug a big hole and then it left. Next some men came and put poles and rope up to make our playground. After that some other men came and put bark down on the ground to make it safe. I like the new playground and I can't wait to play on it.

by Tale

Our first big play

Be sure to bring your children down this weekend and explore the new playground, it is pretty awesome!

New members of Room 2!

We are so happy to tell you that we have 6 new students in Room 2!!!

Here are Dazurel, Orlandis, Calaius. Clyde, Arani and Livi.

They are all very happy to begin their journey of learning in room 2, but there is no time to waste... lets get stuck in!

Arani is threading his letters and saying the sounds.

Livi is making words with the scrabble letters

New ways to learn in Room 2.

iPads are part of our day at school...

We are learning how we can use them, learning how to act around them and mostly learning that with new privileges comes new responsibility. 

With our awesome inquiry question this term (Lights, Camera, Take Action for Change! How can we tell a story about change through film?) we needed new ways to capture our learning. The Junior School has been lucky enough to receive new iPads for their learning in all curriculum areas. 

This week we really got stuck into using them to enhance our independent learning time (the time when the teacher is working with other groups of children and we follow up and reinforce what we have learned with the teacher by doing independent activities). 

Here is how it went and some of the student's learning and reflections.

I am recording myself writing and saying my skip
counting in 2's numbers on the Showme App. I shared
it with my maths group afterwards. Masiu.

We are 'balancing' numbers on the scale. On one side of the scale it has two numbers like 5 and 2 and you have to count on to solve it and then put the answer number on the other side of the scale, like 7. Squares maths group.

I recorded myself telling my story about getting a hair cut. I pushed pause and play when I was writing my story so I could remember the words I wanted to write. Tale.

I am listening to the letter sounds and saying them after and I can press it as much as I like because I am wearing the headphones and Whaea Emma can hear me saying it because I am saying it with my mouth (alphabet sounds App). Boston.

I am doing my maths and learning to keep my
finger on the number when I move it. Juanpablo.

I am counting on my fingers and finding the answer
for the iPad. Marcel.

I love the new iPads and we are going to learn more and more and heaps. Gizelle.

A little Picasso in all of us...

Picasso so famously said...

'Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain one as we grow up'.

Thank goodness Room 2 have not grown up yet because we were able to produce some incredible abstract self portraits with Whaea Dagmar's careful guidance. Check out the photos of our process and outcomes.

Whaea Dagmar showed us paintings by Picasso
 and talked about what made them different.

We felt our faces to see where our features were in relation
to each other.

Then we drew a self portrait.

After learning about Picasso, our faces and giving a self portrait a go we got to choose shapes to draw our main features on and glue them where we wanted them. 

Glueing the shapes where we want them.

Drawing the outline around the features, lines joining
them and patterns in the different sections.

Whaea Dagmar used the photocopier to enlarge our self portraits and then it was time to talk about colour choices.

We worked hard and listened to music while we added the colour to our portraits. They are finished now which gives us an enormous sense of achievement but also makes us sad because of the great time we had creating ourselves as Picasso might have.