Making our own kites

We only have one more Kete lesson to finish making our kites before the Festival of the Arts presentation on Thursday. Here are some pictures from our work today:

           This is the large bird kite,
           based on the smaller kite
           Mr Mitchell brought along.

      This is the traditional English kite made
      with a long tail to help stability in a
      strong wind.

           This is a creative kite made
           of black polythene sheet on
           a bamboo frame. We added
           a face to the kite to give it
           character.

      This is the frame for a large
      manu taratahi, a type of
      Maori kite. We will be
     adding a wall of fluteboard
     panels on Thursday.

          This is a "spider-web"
          framed kite which gives
          us an octagonal shape. It
          will be decorated on
          Thursday.

      This is a smaller manu
      taratahi which has panels
      made of old venetian
      blinds attached instead
      of traditional materials
      of raupo leaves.

           Here we are attaching the
           venetian blind panels to our
           manu taratahi.

      This kite has an
      unconventional frame
      which adds strength
      when flying.

      We will finish decorating
      this kite on Thursday.




We will also be adding string to our kites on Thursday and seeing how well they fly.

More Technology

A funny looking monster . . . hiding behind a toy!

Just kidding. Here is Kirsty showing off her latest creation from Soft Fabrics class at Hornby Technology Centre.

Well done Kirsty!

Next Steps on the Kites

Once the hessian fabric strips were in place on the wings and the body we weaved our harekeke (flax) through the fabric.











Then we folded the loose ends of harekeke back through the wire frame.







Our next step is to stitch the completed wire frames to the outer bamboo frames, then we're ready to attach our wings to the bodies.

Teachers are soooo tired!

With all the late nights and weekends writing reports and getting things ready for the end of the school year this picture could not be more true:

Johnny and Hussain's Weaving

This is a harekeke mat that Hussain and Johnny made in Whaea Jo's weaving class as part of the Festival of the Arts kete.


Good work boys, this is a great example of this art form. You have shown amazing skill in your weaving, and I look forward to seeing more of your work soon!

More Progress on our Maori Kites

Today we made wire frames to fit inside our wings and the bodies of our manu aute.

Then we attached these with plastic cable ties.

Next we added our fabric strips to each frame, so they are ready for us to weave our harekeke in next week.














                           Things are really starting to take shape!

Thoughts about Geometry

It's all up to you . . .

Thought for the day

Three Ring Circus

That moment when you realise that, despite the number of clowns who go there, your school isn't the biggest circus in town!

Technology

These are some of 8Mt's creations at technology this term:

Frames for our Manu Aute

Today we finished constructing the bamboo frames for our Maori kites, the manu aute.

We started with ordinary bamboo growing hoops from a garden centre or hardware shop

We then lashed them together (using sheer lashings and square lashings) to make our wings . . .

  

 . . . and our bodies:

Our next step is to make wire frames to match the bamboo frames. Then we will be weaving fabric onto the wire frames.

Today

Friday Sport 18/11/16

After a deluge of rain on Thursday we had a beautiful day for Year 7/8 Sport today. We  had the choice of touch, cricket, softball, volleyball, tennis and unihoc. Despite a few hiccups with the sign-up process on Thursday everyone had a good time . . . what a great way to end the week!

     

Zombie Apocalypse

The students were learning about make-up as part of their "Zombie Apocalypse" unit in Science. This is some of their handiwork.

Celebration for Conrad

This morning we had a special morning tea for Conrad to celebrate how much success he has had at school this year. We had an amazing chocolate cake (which Mark cut up in a really creative way), some funky-looking cup cakes and some hot chips.

Mrs Gibson, Mrs Elley and a few guest from 8Gb joined us for the occasion.

We all had a sugar rush and were a bit noisy in class the next period. All good though!

Many thanks to Estelle who provided the food . . . and also to Conrad for having so much success. Conrad, without your hard work we wouldn't have had such a wonderful morning tea. Keep it up!!

 

Earthquakes ... again!

Despite the major earthquakes and subsequent tsunamis that have hit our little country over the past few days, it's business as usual at Hornby High. We are lucky enough to be built on land that used to be an old river bed. The land is not so good if you want to dig any holes (very rocky ground), but really good in an earthquake.

First Workshop - High Fliers

We had our first workshop today, including a chance for "sandpit time" with the websites on the Kites page on Mt's Site. Then we went outside to have a go at flying the various kites we will be using from time to time during our workshops.
Here are some pictures and videos from our time outside:

High Fliers Webpage

I have updated my website to include a page for the High Fliers workshop. This can be accessed with the following link: High Fliers.

This page contains some links to useful websites about:

• Maori kites
• kites from around the world
• how to make kites

High Fliers Workshop

The "High Fliers" (kites) workshop is part of the Festival of the Arts Kete which is one of the highlights of the school year for Year 7 and 8 students at Hornby, and runs from Week 6 of Term 4 until the end of the term.

Building on the success of last year’s Manu Tukutuku project, this year the workshop is looking at a variety of different types of kites from New Zealand and around the world.

We hope to make some unique art for our new school as well as designing and making our own kites based on designs from a number of cultures.

Festival of the Arts: Blog Template

This is the format we will be using for our Weekly Reflections for the remainder of the Festival of the Arts Kete:

Each Year 7 and 8 student has been sent this (in their Literacy folder of their Google Drive) as a Google Drawings template. When we make our weekly posts we need to:

1. make a copy of the template
2. enter our reflection (including adding a photo or video)
3. save the file as an image (e.g. as a JPEG)
4. insert the image in a new blog post.
5. add a label FOA 2016 to the post.

Haere Mai

Welcome to the official blog for 8Mt.

This is where we will be posting information about our learning and other activities, including links to our best work.

Our class website can be found at sites.google.com/a/hornby.school.nz/mt/ or by clicking on: Mt's Site

Enjoy