Ilam School Cultural Day

Today we celebrated the many cultures we have at Ilam School with a "Cultural Day". 

 Room 3 children made a real effort to dress up! We discussed the different cultures in our class and the traditional costumes of those cultures.

Room 3 children in their costumes

A silly pose!

Representing....CHINA!

Representing.....The USA!

Representing.....THAILAND, VIETNAM and KOREA!

Representing.....The MALDIVES and The PHILLIPINES!

Representing.....HOLLAND, ENGLAND and ISRAEL!

Representing......NEW ZEALAND!

Representing.....CANADA and SAMOA!

Micah from Room 4 with his lovely basket of home grown produce

Hanan with his little sister Florence

Later, we paraded down the street in a procession filled with the colours of the many costumes and flags.

After morning tea we watched a concert together. There were dances, martial arts displays, a Korean Drum dance, singing, piano playing and a Japanese drum group.  

Afterwards, we shared a delicious lunch consisting of food from different cultures. 

In the afternoon, we took part in activities such as Calligraphy, Origami, South African games and Samoan dancing.

We started off with simple origami patterns and moved onto harder ones

Camp Photos

Some photos have been posted of our camp at Wainui. Check them out on the "Camp" page.

Our Brilliant Brains!!

A brain with a brain tumor above the brain stem

Today Dr Pip Tremewan came to talk to us about brains. We learned about what each of the 4 lobes of the brain are responsible for, what the cerebellum and the brain stem do and how the brain receives messages from the nerve cells located in various parts of the body. 

Amazingly, we got to see specimens of real human brains including one that had a blood clot inside it and one that had a brain tumor above the brain stem. We even got to feel a real pig's brain to find out the texture of a brain!!

 

A brain showing a blood clot

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Mika and Hanan putting the plastic model of the brain together

Touching a pig's brain - they don't smell too good

Levi and George examining the specimen

We are making "thinking caps" to help us remember the parts of the brain and what the functions of each lobe are for.

We discovered that the frontal lobe is the biggest in humans because of how much we think in comparison to animals.

2013!

Welcome back to school for 2013 everyone!

This term is going to be busy and exciting. 

Welcome to Mrs Dudley who will be teaching in Room 3 on a Friday.

A little reminder to keep looking at the blog. We are going to Wainui Camp from February 18th to the 20th which is in week 3 of Term 1. Make sure you read the "Camp 2013" page under "Pages" on the right side of the blog. We will be having a gear check in week 2!

Another page worthwhile reading is the "Homework" page. This explains the minimum expectations for children's homework in the senior school. Any valuable, interesting links to topics/subjects being studied at school by the children will also be under "Pages".

And, on a final note...

Modifying and Improving Your Product

We're experts at making ice cream now! We're improving our ice cream based on our market research.

 Team work!

 More Kiwifruit

More Pineapple Lumps

Market Research - Technology

 The next step of the technological process is "Review". We created questions and ways to collect responses to find out what a selection of kids and adults thought of our ice creams. This will help us decide how we need to improve our ice cream.

 Mr Weirsma testing the black pepper and pineapple lump ice cream.

 Other taste testers of the lycee and manuka honey.

Dividing the taste test samples up.

Technology

Last term, we researched countries that participated in the London Olympics 2012 and then produced brochures about these countries (see earlier post). As a follow on, we have now been given a problem we need to solve relating to the culture we researched. This comes under the subject "Technology" and we will follow the design process which consists of 'design, plan, create, review, modify and evaluate'.  This is going to be really exciting!!! Watch this space for photographs of our learning!


Here is the problem we need to solve:

Problem:

In New Zealand, we are lucky enough to have a large number of immigrants from a variety of cultures.

Many find it difficult fitting into our culture and can suffer from loneliness.

Need:

We need to develop an ice cream for a group of immigrants that combines aspects of their culture with the New Zealand culture. The ice cream needs to developed, produced and packaged. You must produce an ice cream combining  flavours of your chosen culture and the New Zealand culture.

VIEW the Technology & Design  page on the right, for ideas about Kiwi culture and flavours, ice cream packaging, as well as lots of games and information on food safety!

 First, we made the base recipe.

 We whipped egg whites an.d sugar until they formed stiff peaks

 We beat egg yolks and sugar until they became thick and pale.

 We whipped cream.

 We combined the three mixtures.

 And folded them together. We halved the base recipe and added our own flavours.

 Jiayi and Anusha. Immigrant culture = China. NZ and Chinese flavours: lycee and manuka honey.

 George, Georgie & Sara.  Immigrant culture = Jamaica. NZ and Jamaican flavours: coconut, mango and apple.

 Mixing and folding.

Discussion.

 Jason cutting up pineapple lumps.

 Scott slicing kiwifruit.

 Jason beating egg whites until they form 'stiff peaks'.

 Busy creating!

 Caitlin slicing meringues.

 Getting ready to freeze their ice cream.

Jason adding egg yolks to egg whites.

 Harry and Ethan sharing the job of beating.

 Make sure you get all of the mixture Jessie!

 Danbie adding Manuka honey.

Groups, Immigrant cultures and flavours and
New Zealand flavours

Ethan, Danbie, Jessie
USA - Coconut and Manuka Honey

Holly, Jessie, Harry
Nigeria - Black pepper and Pineapple Lumps

Sara, Georgie, George
Jamaica - Mango and Apple

Boris, Raymond, Levi
Germany - Lemon, Cinnamon and Pineapple Lumps

Tama, John, Hannah
Italy - Mixed berries and kiwi fruit

Andrew, Caitlin, Caitlin
France - Chocolate mousse and pavlova

Anusha, Jiayi
China - Lycee and Manuka Honey

Scott, Jason, Jason
South Africa - Blueberries and kiwi fruit


The next step: to do some market research by testing their ice cream flavours on a variety of people.

Will they need to modify their ice cream? And, how?....

Stay tuned!