Old Blue Story

After thinking about saving Rowi Room 13 started to think about other endangered birds- our teacher read us the story of saving the black robins of the Chatham Islands. Room 13 thought this was a great book to read. Old Blue was the rarest bird in the world. This book is one of the best children's books and it is a true story.  If the rarest bird in the world can be rescued from extinction, then given human determination and effort, no species need to become extinct . From 5 black robins to 130 black robins how did it happen? This book was written by Mary Taylor. Dr Don Merton helped save the rarest bird.

We recommend that every New Zealander should read this amazing book!

Flags Project with Artist Tiffany Singh

 The Year 4-6 classes have been involved in an art project with performance artist Tiffany Singh for the Auckland Arts Festival in 2013

We looked at Tibetan prayer flags and designed personal flags which captured the most important ideas in our lives. We looked to the future and the dreams and hopes which are important to us.

Prayer Flags (image from Creative Commons)

We found that strong themes were peace, friendship, accepting others' beliefs and customs, human rights and helping refugees all round the world. These ideas were developed by Room 13 as we explored the concept of Globalisation and looked at all the ways we are connected to each other locally, in our school and wider community, nationally, and globally.

We discovered that we are a nation of immigrants: we all come from elsewhere even the first Pacific Voyagers who came to Aotearoa one thousand years ago.

We also now appreciate that the world is a shrinking place in terms of travel and people moving from country to country.

Many people are also forced to become refugees because of war in their country.

NZ has had a history of accepting refugees from many countries around the world. Learning about their plight has made a big impact on us.






We designed symbols that were
 personally meaningful. 
We changed some very famous symbols.

We explained our designs to Tiffany and her mother...

Tiffany's mother...

 

It was hard to transfer the pencil designs to the fabric!

A film-maker filmed the process as a documentary record of the project with school children

This message is very clear...

It was good to do our pencil sketches first so we knew the
message we wanted to give to the audience


We can't wait to see all our flags at the exhibition Tiffany Singh will assemble at the Auckland Arts Festival in March 2013!

The exhibition is called Fly Me Up to Where You Are.

Thank you so much to Tiffany and her awesome team of helpers!

CH's save the penguins

Even the cuties puppies can kill penguins.

GM's Little Blue Penguin Poster

SN's kiwi poster

TD's Poster

BWH's kiwi poster :)

Posters can be powerful!