MAKING A CHAIR FOR CHOCOLATE

Chocolate is one of Mrs Ruawai's homeroom's teddy bears.  Chocolate is the littlest teddy friend we have in Piako Rua.

Chocolate told the teachers he was tired of sitting on the floor when all the Candylanders got to sit on chairs.  He said he wanted his own chair to sit on.  The teachers said that he'd be too little to sit on our chairs and he'd probably fall off.  Chocolate suggested someone could make him a new chair and the teachers knew exactly who to ask ... US!

Since we are all about becoming better learners at School, Chocolate set us up with some Success Criteria.  Our chair had to be made from paper and sellotape.  It had to look like a chair and be strong enough to hold Chocolate's weight.  Sounds tough ... but not for great problem-solvers like us!

We WONDERED how we would make the paper strong enough to hold Chocolate.  So we watched two videos about how to make paper stronger:

Armed with this knowledge, we set to work designing Chocolate a chair.

First we brainstormed what we were going to do and then we drew our plan.  After that we gathered the materials we needed and began making our design.  Along the way we had to talk about what we were doing and what improvements we could make.  We had to negotiate with our group and work together to achieve our goal of making a chair that met the success criteria.

Thank you Mrs Lunn for doing a workshop on folding the paper to add strength for those who needed it!

Myia taught origami!

When we had finished our chair, we gave Chocolate a turn sitting in it to see if it held his weight.  Then we REFLECTED on our chair - Did it look like or design?  Could we make it better?  Did it meet all the success criteria?

 We were able to share our chairs with the rest of Piako Rua.  Everyone's chair was assessed against Chocolate's success criteria.  Many of us were successful.  A few of us had to work on making legs for our chairs.

We have very creative thinkers in Piako Rua.  Some children made extra features for Chocolate's chair like a few that transformed into beds!  Very handy after a long day at school.

After morning tea, we wrote letters to Chocolate explaining all the great chairs we had made for him. Chocolate will be delighted! The letters, which are transactional writing genre, were impressive! Great job kids!!