Student Events – 2023

The Leavers Dinner is an event for Year 8’s, where we celebrate our time at Northland. We get to dance and take heaps of photos in our photo booths.  We also get to customize what we want at this event such as food, what type of photo booths and lots more. We have a theme, such as this year’s red carpet, so we would dress up for the red carpet.

In Ruru we thought about what imagination looks like in our head and how we get ideas, for example when we are story telling.

“We made a lounge with a volcano and an entrance with little pieces for our imagination. People bungee jump into the brain.”

“We were catching imaginations. We made an island and Jeff threw ideas – if it landed on the grass it was a good idea, if it landed in the mud pit it was a bad idea. The ideas went up into Jeff’s brain. I really liked doing it so me and my mum want to do it at home.”

We are designing houses:

“Mine has a car in the garage with an ice-cream on the back. I have a party corner and giant bouncy flower pit. There’s also an 11-handed chef.”

“My house has a garage, a bed for me and my siblings, a bed for mum and dad, and a chef to make desserts. There’s a baby pool, a kid swimming pool and an adult pool, as well as a candy pool. I have ginormous flowers that make fruit.”

Earlier this term Kōtare and Tīeke went for a trip to the landfill which lead to some students writing persuasive arguments about if we should or shouldn’t have landfills. Some people have been planning on debating about their opinion on landfills. We have also been working on writing letters to people about their recycling.

In Kōtare we have been making life cycles of resources like oil, bauxite, iron sand, silica sand and trees. We have been making stories and turning them into cartoons. The challenge was an exciting journey and lots of fun.

On 10th November Kōtare and Tīeke did Mahi Rangahau, researching the landfill and recycling. For Mahi Rangahau both classes went to the landfill. 3 or 4 weeks later we were tasked to make our own landfill site out of Lego. There were many buildings and places to build, some being easy others being hard, to make things fair we each drew a piece of paper giving us what we had to make. My group was tasked with making the green waste transfer station. At first it was confusing and challenging but later it got easier and easier the more we built. Once everyone was done we put all the buildings together to build the final landfill! This was very fun and I’m sure everyone enjoyed it! It was a lovely surprise from our normal Mahi Rangahau and we would like to thank all the teachers that planned it.

This term in Kākā, the Year 7s and 8s have been working on their stitching art. We are stitching an underwater scene. Firstly, we designed and sketched our ideas onto our sketchpad and decided which colours we’d use. Next, some of us did some screen printing so they didn’t need to do as much hand sewing. After that we all brought in our thread and sat down whenever we needed to relax or felt like just doing something else for a while. Our art was so fun to make  and I think everyone did such a great job.

For the last couple weeks we have been working on our end of year reflections that are going to be in our snapshots (school reports). We had to include what we want to work on next year and different things we enjoyed during the year or term. Then we had to write a summary of our whole reflections and use the most important information. For the Year 8s, the next steps were mostly to do with high school and new things we want to try.

In Kāka, we have been making Sierpinski triangles in maths. We made them on isometric paper by drawing along the lines and making triangles. We made big, small and medium sized triangles and then we had a pattern. They are fractals: if you zoom into the pattern and then slowly zoom out, it will look like it’s in an infinite loop. 

On 13th September a group of children went to the Michael Fowler Center to perform for Dance Splash 2023. Dance Splash is a dance you perform for people from different schools. The people who were in the dance splash had to practise for weeks till they were the greatest they could be. On the night of the performance many were nervous and scared, Northland School were 5th to perform so we had to walk backstage almost immediately! Before we knew it we were called to line up to go on stage. At first dancing was scary and almost made me cry but later on it ended up being really fun! For our school we had 4 dances: dance 1 was Puppets and Puppeteers aka Con-artist, dance 2 was spraypainters, dance 3 was thieves trying to steal a beautiful diamond and lastly dance 4 was all the dances put together! Dance Splash was a wonderful experience and all the other dances made it even better.

This term in Team Kākā we have been doing our calendar art. For calendar art we have been making leaf art. We drew a design on a piece of either black or white. After that we would sharpie the design. Next it would be cut out. Then we would get some tissue paper and cut it out and fill up a piece of paper with it. Then we would glue the design onto the piece of paper with tissue paper. This was a really fun art project to do and there were some very cool designs.

In Term 3 we made this cool art piece. To make it we first folded strips of coloured paper in half and cut the sides to make them into squares. Secondly, we bent the squares in different directions to create a chequered pattern. Thirdly, we glued all the cut up strips of paper onto black card in unique shapes. This was a really fun art activity to make and I would love to do it again.

This term people from Brick 4 Kidz have come to Northland School to engage kids to use creativity. We got a box of Lego with motors and you followed a set of instructions to build something e.g robot bikes which you could control from your tablet. The year 1-3s built a rowboat, a sailboat and a fishing guy, the fishing guy would lower his fishing rod and then pull it back up like a person catching a fish.

When the older kids finished their creation they would create a code for their creation which would make it move. After they had finished the original code they could make their own or add onto it.

Some of the year 7 and 8s, were selected to help the juniors (yr 1-3) build their Lego creations. After the juniors had finished making their builds, they could either modify their build and/or add mini figures.

Mathswell is where lots of schools bring one or two teams of six to compete in a fun and challenging math competition. This competition was going to be held at Raroa Intermediate School, but there were so many teams that they had to change the venue to Victoria University. Each team splits up into two subgroups of three, one for problem solving and one for multi choice. Those groups compete in round 1 and then switch categories for round 2. After round one, the top half competes for the cup while the bottom half competes for the plate. The top 3 teams in the cup and the plate at the end win prizes. There were special prizes like t-shirts, but the normal prizes were chocolates, calculators, certificates, and problem-solving books.

In the problem-solving round, you have 15 minutes to answer 13 questions; you have two tries for each question. In the multi-choice round, you would choose from a, b, c, d, or e. You have 13 minutes to answer 15 questions in total, but you have 5 minutes to answer the first 6 questions, and after that, you have 8 minutes to answer the other 9 questions. Every point answered was 1 point, and the team with the most points won.

Year 4s made paper zebras in Kōtare before we went on a zoo sleepover. First you need 2 pieces of paper (cut one of them in half) and 5 popsicle sticks. Put black and white lines on both of them and roll them up into a circle. To make the neck you need to cut a little bit of the paper 2 times on the end. Make sure that there’s a little bit of space between the 2 little cuts. Then fold the bit that you cut: you can fold it up or down. Then put a popsicle stick on the fold bit and also make sure it can touch a bit of the bottom. Glue one of the bits on the popsicle stick that’s touching the paper with a hot glue gun and get another piece of paper and cut a long bit of paper and make it black and white.

Ruru have been making islands because we have been doing research about the early Europeans in the harbour and we were wondering what the islands looked like when Kupe arrived. We got junk and papier mached over them. Then we painted them and added details like trees, houses, bushes, waka. They are now mostly finished.

Pedal Ready is a biking club. People come to teach you some things you might need to know on the road and some safety hazards. Patrick was one of the people who taught us some bike things. First we did our bike check (air, brakes, chain and drop test), next we got on our bikes and rode with one hand for a bit and then did a few other activities. This was an amazing experience.

Western Zone miniball was a fun indoor sport. The tournament was hosted at the ASB arena on Tuesday 5th of September. Miniball is like basketball but you have to wait until the opposition comes past halfway. 

At the event Northland had two teams from Year 5 and 6, an advanced team and a beginners team. Years 7 and 8 also had an advanced and beginners team. I was in the advanced team myself because I play after school. At the end of the day I had a great time playing miniball and I bet all the others that were playing did too!

Genius Hour is one of team Kākā’s favourite activities! 

We love Genius Hour because of the range of activities and we get to pick what we want to do as well! For Genius Hour the teachers offer a range of really fun activities e.g. Minecraft Ed, crochet, 3D printing, and making a movie with   iMovie. These are some of the most popular activities. We do Genius Hour every Thursday afternoon.