Binney Class 2025

Kia ora,

Welcome to the Binney Class blog page. On this page I will be posting about our class learning journey for 2025. You will also be able to find links to individual student blogs and look at their personal learning journey. We hope you enjoy reading our blogs and we invite you to leave comments. We will post a mixture of ‘learning-in-progress’ and ‘published’ content so feel free to share comments about what you liked, what you found interesting or give helpful feedback. If you have a blog, share a link so that we can follow your learning journey.

Ngā Mihi,

Mr Albert,

Binney Class Teacher.

Haunted House AI

Kia ora bloggers!

This week during Cybersmart. we looked at how we could generate media using AI. We used Adobe Firefly to create images. We had to use a prompt that described in detail what we wanted the picture to look like.

Here is my prompt:

I see a haunted house. A full moon is behind it, making it look dark and gloomy. It is a 2 story wooden house with rooms in the attic. There are lots of cobwebs and there is some damage to the windows and some of the weatherboards. There are 9 windows and 3 tower turrets. There is a veranda at the front and the number 13 on the door. Ivy is growing in some places around the house.

And here is the picture that was generated. The picture was much better  than I expected. Let me know what you think or share your own picture in the comments.

Ka kite.

Film Festival

This year we had amazing film entries for the Film Festival. Check out our entries below and leave positive, thoughtful and helpful comments. The movie, School Olympics made it through to the Ako Hiko St Lukes Film Festival!

Cook Island Language Week

Kia orana bloggers!!!

This week we celebrated Cook Island Māori Language Week by reading stories, watching videos and doing quizzes. It was fun to learn and say Cook Island Māori Language words. Some students chose to do an activity on their devices. Anoosha share her Pick-a-path with the class. She included slides to help you learn the answers. (Even if you get the answer wrong, you’re still learning). Have a fun.

Aere ra bloggers!

Dash Dot Robot!

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Kia ora bloggers!

Today we had the MOTAT Steam toolbox at our school. The people from MOTAT came to teach us how to code robots. We worked in pairs with a Dash and Dot robot and an ipad. We had the opportunity to try out challenges. The challenges included following a map, a synchronized dance, an obstacle course, a soccer game and a drag race. It was lots of fun. Have a lot at our blogs to find out more about our coding lesson.

Ka kite.

Hailstones, Hailstones!!!

Hello Bloggers!!!

Last week we had an exciting surprise. Hail! It was raining and the noise got louder. The class got up to look out the window. Then the noise increased and the students yelled, “Hail! Hail!” I picked up my phone to get a quick video of the hailstorm. I had to stop the class from running out. It was exciting. It lasted about 5 minutes. After that I let the class out. Very soon the courts were filled with laughing students making hail snowballs and throwing them at each other. I thought it would hurt, but no one complained. I wondered if they were too excited or too numb to feel any pain. What I remember most is big smiles …

Have you experienced anything like this before? Let me know in the comments.

Ka kite …

Trying Animation

Hello Bloggers!!!

I have been learning how to use media including YouTube, Google Drawings and Google Slides. It’s been a lot of fun. I made this animation using google slides. I particularly enjoyed creating my own character. Being creative keeps learners motivated and engaged. The digital tools we have available are excellent for a wide range of creative tasks.

Let us know about your use of digital tools to be creative.

Ngā mihi,

Mr Albert

Favourite Shortcut

Kia ora bloggers!!!

I recently asked the class to share their favourite shortcut so I thought it only fair that I share mine. My favourite shortcut helps me to make ‘macrons’. A macron is the line you see above vowels to indicate that the vowel has a long vowel sound. This is very useful because I’m making a big effort to use more Māori words.

All you do is hold the letter down and a menu appears.

Then you select the mark you want. These marks are called diacritical marks. This link will explain more about them. They are used in lots of different languages.

I used to find the words with the macrons on the internet and copy and paste them into my document. Often I’d have to change the size and font as well so this is a big timesaver! Thank you Basma for showing this to me.

I hope this is useful to you someday. Please share your favourite shortcut.

Noho ora mai

About Us

Kia ora bloggers, It’s week 8 and this is our first class post of 2024. We are room 6 and we are from Hay Park School. We are a class of year 4, 5 and 6 students. Our school is in Mt Roskill, Auckland. There are 29 students in our class and about 160 students in our school.

Our local maunga (mountain) is Puketāpapa / Mt Roskill. Puketāpapa was a fortified pa under Māori occupation from at least the 13th or 14th century but was no longer intensively occupied when European settlers moved into the area in the mid-1800s. In 1841 Ngāti Whātua (local iwi) exchanged 13,000 acres, which included Puketāpapa, with the Crown.

Please comment and tell us about your school.

Thanks

Positively Replying

Today we worked with Whaea Tanya on replying to comments. We learnt we need to be specific when saying Thank you, or someone might think we are thanking them for just being alive.


Here you can see how we construct replies and a couple that one of the students made.
I found it tricky because although I have replies they don’t all have a questions so what do you say? – What would you reply?