by Jamie

Suddenly an ear-splitting roar shook the canopy of trees around me. The mighty jaguar was on to me; I imagined his fangs tearing at my flesh. I hid in the bush, hoping he wouldn't find me.

I peeked out and a flash of black shot past me. Little frogs jumped around in the canopy of trees. 
"A poison dart frog," I thought.

There was a hissing sound up in the trees as a tree snake dropped down. It looked at the bushes and slithered away stealthily.

The freezing cold water | by Nolan

I shuddered as I dipped my foot into the freezing cold water. For some reason I thought it was hot although I was shivering. A whistle blew. I regained my senses and swam. Everyone was 1 lap ahead. Anyway I came second in the end. But of all the races, 1st, yay!

So after that I searched for my mum. I knew she was there. Finally I found her. The first thing I said was, "Can I go home?"
Obviously she said, "No, it's only halfway through school!"
"Awww!" I moaned.

30 minutes later, on the bus, I felt relaxed and relieved but tired.

My cousin | by Jet

Me and my
cousin,

what do we do?

We like playing basketball
like some dudes
getting three baskets in a row.
Did you know?
That's me and my bro?!

Reach's presentations | by Tama

Tears were one step away from my eyes; I was grinning like an idiot. All the people were staring at me. I pressed play; I shut my eyes and blocked my ears. 1 2 3. Time ticked as slowly as a turtle. After what seemed like forever, it stopped. I opened one eye; people were clapping. Maybe this stuff wasn't so bad.

Afterword

I wasn't actually sharing; well, it's complicated. I was playing a Puppet Pals video about navigation, instead of actually sharing, but one thing was sure, all those things were true.

It was about compasses, maps, stars, and one of the most famous people in history, Captain Cook.

I really enjoyed other people's, so thank you George, Tim, and any other person from Reach who is reading this.

Marina's story | By Mahinaz

I take one last look back at our house. I try to remember the whole house and the stuff in it. I hope Gleam and Glow are okay in their fishpond. I think I will miss the big oak tree because I remember when I climbed it. The flower garden was growing very well and very high. I'll remember the back window and the wooden house. I feel sad for two reasons, because I don't want to leave the house and I don't want to leave Gleam and Glow behind. Another reason we are sad is because we have to look for Dad and find him and then help him. I hope we find Dad very quickly.

This was written after reading the beginning of Gleam and Glow, a story of a family forced to flee in the Bosnian conflict. This piece is written from the perspective of one of the children in the family.

Model-making resources

Dear Parents and Caregivers,

M13 are creating models of their designs for protecting/improving the land at the Island Bay Sea Wall or the South Coast Kids’ Bike Track. They have planned what resources they need and have discussed who is able to supply their resources for their model-making. If possible, could they please bring this to school tomorrow so we can get cracking?!

Nga mihi,

Megan and Amy

2D and 3D shapes and our reflection on giving feedback

We are learning about 2D and 3D shapes at the moment. We are trying to make connections between 2D and 3D shapes, and to identify what the 2D cross-section of a 3D shape would be...

To explore 3D shapes, we have been using isometric paper to help us draw cubes.

Last week we started by learning about Little Boxes together with our learning buddy.

We also discovered some new language: vertex, vertices, edges, faces...

We've been using multilink cubes to help us create and visualise the drawings we're making.

At the end of our lesson, we have a gallery walk where we have a look at each other's learning, and then we give feedback to other kids by writing them a star (something they've done well) and a wish (a next step to work on) on a sticky note.

Today we had a few issues with giving each other feedback so we had a problem-solving session after break. We put on our (Edward De Bono) black and yellow hats to help us. After we identified the problems, we talked to our learning buddies about solutions then shared them with the class:

What were the problems?	What are some solutions?
Some people had too much feedback while others didn’t have enough.	Share out feedback evenly; look at other people’s learning.
Some people didn’t give a star and a wish.	Make sure you give both a star and a wish; get your sticky notes ready with a * and a à first.
We couldn’t understand the feedback.	Think about it before you write it down; ask your buddy, “does this make sense?”
Some people weren’t listening when we asked them to be fair.	Listen. Think about others’ feelings.
Some people gave conflicting feedback.	Read the other feedback first; make sure your writing makes sense.
Some people repeated feedback unnecessarily.	If your ideas have already been said, say something different/ go to someone else’s learning.
Some kids were arguing over who got to give feedback.	The first person who gets there gets to write the feedback.
We got feedback on the wrong learning.	Write the date on your learning. Does it matter? It might still be useful feedback.
Some people weren’t listening to the teacher’s instructions.	Make sure you are listening yourself; encourage others to listen. Follow instructions – if you don’t hear, ask your buddy. Ignore distractions.
	Take your time; do it properly.

We're pretty good problem solvers! We're looking forward to our next gallery walk and feedback session so we can put all of this in to practice.