Looking Great Fabulous Amazing Fantastic Everyone!

Dear Families for those of you who are busy and find it tricky to visit our room in person, this is what Room 20 is looking like right now!
Soon we have to take everything down for the end of the year so we thought we would show you all now!

Our Class Dojos. We are all different and we appreciate that fact when we are learning and working together. We each designed our own character and wrote the speech bubble to describe what our character is like.

These are our camouflaged Skinks and Stick Insects - can you find them? What are their Adaptations to their Environment or Habitat?

Look at this herd of Zebras! The idea was to learn how to paint a sunset background and show silhouettes with the trees. And then the Zebra is in the front or the foreground. The black and white patterning links well into maths and was a challenge to those that are used to patterning only from left to right! Black tissue paper was added to enhance the 3-D illusion.

Look at these glorious giraffes! Hands on construction is always fun and it's a great way to recycle found objects. We have used giraffes as a subject for Maths Inquiry learning  about estimation and measuring height.

Happy Divali to all!

Did you notice we have changed our wall paper?
There is a Rangoli pattern there now. Do you know what that is?
Where would you find one at this time of year?
They are very beautiful and are part of the Divali celebrations some Sunnyhills' School families will be taking part in this weekend.
We are going to make some Rangoli patterns of our own in the next week - they will beautify our classroom!

Adaptation and Animals

Room 20's Inquiry this term is based on Adaptation and Animals. We visited the Auckland Zoo last week. We have been learning to skim and scan through books and the Auckland Zoo web site for information. We are gathering the information to plan and write a report on our findings.
We have made camouflaged skinks in painting and collage.

Watch this space for the next step in our Inquiry!

Such excitement!

A stunning end to our journey through art inspired by Janine andCharles Williams.

A special thanks to the children in R8 and their teacher Ms Bedford, at Bairds Mainfreight Primary School who inspired us with their creativity!

Our School houses of Takahe, Hoiho, Tui and Kea are represented in our paintings and designs. After spending hours pencil sketching, researching the birds' habitats, mixing colours and understanding what complimentary colours do to the eye, using mixed media; and cutting and designing layouts inspired by the murals by Auckland artists, Janine and Charles Williams, we have completed our own works of art!

Each art work contains the chosen Bird, which the children are to protect as they grow up in Aotearoa. The children can become the kaitiaki or guardians of these native birds so that they will continue to see them in years to come.

Art Exhibition after a Term of design

Art Exhibited in Room 20

So proud of all the children in Room 20

Children in R20 came to 3 way conferences this week and shared their learning.

 You have all talked, problem solved, drawn, written, played, listened and thought hard this term. I can't wait to find out what we will embark on after the holiday break! 

Here are 4 super members of Team 20

Hamish and Ali for working on maths thinking; Chloe for great expression in drama and reading aloud; Jasmine for a beautifully painted Kea! 

Starting the first layer of paint for our Birds

Working with the colours we have already been exploring, we began painting our final bird pictures.

Some colours were mixed on the side of the paper to get the shade the artist wanted. Then the artist could change and blend in the colours as their painting evolved. 

Room 16 came to visit our Studio! We are sharing ideas with them and they are giving us helpful feedback. We visited their Room 16 Gallery too and have found great inspiration from their techniques. 

Painting with warm colours!

We have been looking at the complementary colours on the colour wheel. Our backgrounds are going to be complimentary to the main colour palette of our birds. 

We have used white to blend into red and yellow to make new colours. 

Sketching in our sketch books with R16

Refining and reworking our observations using photographs of our house birds. 

Making our own art in the style of John Pule

John Pule had painted a story about the move from one country to another - Niue and New Zealand and drawn all sorts of things to remind him of the place he had left.

We had to think and dream about a place we had been to and quickly record ideas. 

Next we used very fine brushes and sticks to dip into ink to paint our own story or journey. 

Diane showed us how to use the ink creatively. We could dip, add more water, blow, paint with the ink. 

Ian Scott a New Zealand artist

What is a family? How do we see the people in this painting?