Why Is Bike Safety So Important at Haumoana School?

Bike riding is a lot of fun, but accidents happen. Every year many children go to the emergency department because of bike injuries, and some have injuries that require a few days in the hospital usually from head injuries.
A head injury can mean brain injury. That's why it's so important to wear a bike helmet. Wearing one doesn't mean you can be reckless, but a helmet will provide some protection for your face, head, and brain in case you fall down.

A Helmet

Bike helmets are so important that the NZ government has created safety standards for them. Your helmet should have a sticker that says it meets recognised standards.  Wear a bike helmet EVERY TIME YOU RIDE, even if you are going for a short ride.

Your bike helmet should fit you properly. You don't want it too small or too big. Never wear a hat under your bike helmet.

Once you have the right helmet, you need to wear it the right way so it will protect you. It should be worn level and cover your forehead. Don't tip it back so your forehead is showing. The straps should always be fastened. Make sure the straps are adjusted so they're snug enough that you can't pull or twist the helmet around on your head.
Here is Harry wearing his bike helmet.

Road Rules

If you're allowed to ride on the street, follow these road rules:

·         Always ride with your hands on the handlebars.

·         Always stop and check for traffic in both directions when leaving your driveway, an alley, or a curb.

·         Walk your bike across busy intersections using the crossing and following traffic signals.

·         Ride on the left-hand side of the street, so you travel in the same direction as cars do. Never ride against traffic.

·         Use bike lanes or designated bike routes wherever you can.

·         Don't ride too close to parked cars. Doors can open suddenly.

·         Stop at all stop signs and obey traffic  lights just as cars do.

·         Ride single-file on the street with friends.

·         When passing other bikers or people on the street, always pass to their right side, and call out "On your right!" so they know that you are coming.

Here are two children from our class leaving the school grounds to bike home.

                                    Safe Riding Tips 

Remember to:

• Wear a Properly Fitted Bicycle Helmet. Protect your brain, save your life.
• Adjust Your Bicycle to Fit. The seat should be level front to back. The seat height should be adjusted to allow a slight bend at the knee when the leg is fully extended on the pedal.
• Check Your Equipment. Before riding, inflate tyres properly and check that your brakes work.
• See and Be Seen. Whether daytime, dawn, dusk, foul weather, or at night, you need to be seen by others. Always wear neon, fluorescent, or other bright colours when riding day or night. Also wear something that reflects light, such as reflective tape or markings, or flashing lights.
• Control Your Bicycle. Always ride with two hands on the handlebars. Carry books and other items in a bicycle carrier or backpack. 
• Watch for and Avoid Road Hazards. Be on the lookout for hazards such as potholes, broken glass, gravel, puddles, leaves, and dogs. All these hazards can cause a crash. If you are riding with friends and you are in the lead, yell out and point to the hazard to alert the riders behind you.
• Avoid Riding at Night. It is far more dangerous to ride at night than during the day because you are harder for others to see. If you have to ride at night, wear something that makes you more easily seen by others. Make sure you have reflectors on the front and rear of your bicycle (white lights on the front and red rear reflectors are required by law).
  Safe Cycling.

The Study of an Artist –Vincent van Gogh
Birth Year : 1853
Death Year : 1890
Country : Netherlands 

Vincent van Gogh would become one of the most well-known artists in the world. His paintings have become easily recognizable to cultures throughout the world, and he has become the archetypal “tortured artist.”

Van Gogh was born in 1853 and grew up in Holland. He was raised in a religious family with his father being a minister. When his school ended, Vincent followed his uncle’s profession and became an art dealer learning the trade in Holland and then working in England and France. Vincent was successful and initially happy with his work. However, he soon grew tired of the business of art, especially in Paris, and lost interest in the trade.
 After returning home, Vincent began to study theology. While very passionate and enthusiastic, he failed exams to enter further extensive theological programmes.Characteristic of his personality, he was intelligent, able to speak multiple languages, but he did not think that Latin was a language for preaching to the poor.
During this period, he worked as a missionary in a coal mining community living with hard working poor common people. As his development as a preacher was stalling, his interest in those around him was increasing. His life as an artist was beginning.

In 1880, at 27 years old, Van Gogh entered the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, Belgium. The following winter, living in Amsterdam, Vincent fell in love, had his heart broken, and began painting for the first time. The next few years would result in little success both in love and art.

Van Gogh’s Potato Eaters, his first major work, was painted in 1885. By this time, he was still having difficulty finding love, but was beginning to receive interest in his paintings.
 He was now fully devoting himself to painting: living frugally, studying colour theory, and admiring the works of artists like Peter Paul Rubens. Unfortunately, as would be his entire life, his paintings were still difficult to sell.
 His brother Theo, an art dealer and the recipient of many letters from Vincent, commented that there should be more colour in his work. Van Gogh was painting peasants and rural landscapes using dark earth tones. Around this same time, Impressionism, with its bright vivid colours, was becoming popular.

The next year, Vincent moved to Paris where his art began to take on the style that would make him famous. In Paris, he was discussing art with some of the most avant-garde and influential artists of his time – painters like Gauguin, Bernard, and Toulouse-Lautrec. He was using more colour, applying the paint with thick, bold brushstrokes, and painted all that surrounded him. Van Gogh arranged to show his work, to positive reviews, but was still unable to sell any pieces.

One of Van Gogh’s dreams as an artist was to start a colony for artists in Arles in the south of France. Vincent moved to Arles in 1888 where he was joined by Gauguin. While there, Van Gogh entered the most productive and creative period of his life painting his famous Sunflowers. However, it also was a time of great turmoil for Vincent, beginning a period of hospital stays for mental illness and physical decline.

After just ten years of painting and producing some 900 paintings, Vincent van Gogh took his own life in 1890. Never fully appreciated in his own time, it wouldn’t take long for the art world to recognize the genius they lost. Within twenty years of his death, there were memorial shows of his works all over the world – influencing generations of artists to come.

So this was the artist our Room 5 class studied intensely for a one week period. We discussed what art is, what makes a Masterpiece, and how an artist can express himself. Vincent van Gogh’s life was looked at and how his personal experiences influenced his art. We looked in wonder at some of his 900 outstanding artworks, all produced in just the final ten years of his life.
One painting the class looked at was one of his bedroom, painted in 1888, while in Arles. It was analysed for its depth of colour, three dimensional perspective, subtle outlining to highlight features, and its message of a lost soul and loneliness.

We attempted to paint this painting of Vincent van Gogh's using many of his techniques of colour mixing, depth, vanishing points and outlining. Thank you Renee, Imogen and Molly for sharing your work.What do you think?

Here we have written samples of children expressing their idea of what they think art is.

                            What is art?

Sometimes people think to themselves and say, “What is art?”

Well art is a way to show emotions. Art can be big and bold or nice and soft. Art can be found anywhere, from galleries to magazines.

 The key to art is using your own style.

Art can be rebellious, like breaking a rule. Art can be realistic or your imagination, like the dream you had last night for example.

Art is a nice way to make a statement.

Those are some of the reasons I love art.

By Renee

        What Is Art?   

Go into an art gallery.

Look around.

What do you see?

What I see is mystery, wonder and so many emotions.

I see artists trapped.

Trying to let out all their feelings on canvases.

I see broken hearts, happy families and people at war.

                                                   ***

Art doesn’t have to be realistic.

You can let your imagination run wild.

 I see chocolate oceans with gummy whales with chocolate fish.

What do you see?

Art is full of things you never thought possible;  flying cars, talking sharks and karate displaying jelly fish.

                                                 ***

Art isn’t just pretty.

It can show terrifying horror, headless horseman, ghosts and peanut butter and little boy sandwiches.

Art can show many different times in history.
War, dinosaurs, Ancient Romans and Gauls like Asterix.

Art is many different things; drama, photography and dance.
Slow drifting movements showing sorrow.

To me art is a way to express your feelings.

I love making art that is bold and creative.

I see colourful villages of orange elephants.                                                      
What do you see?

By Imogen

Skills for Growing Unit 3

There are five major units, each focusing on a different theme and specific skills. The themes are repeated at each grade level. Each unit contains an introductory activity and four to six lessons offering classroom activities for an entire school year.

Skills for Growing was our study for the first two weeks of Term 4. It was a focus on Unit 3, Making Positive Decisions. It encourages the children to consider the choices open to them, make a positive decision and enjoy the good consequences.

·         Unit 1 ‘Building a School Community;

·         Unit 2 ‘Growing as a Group’

·         Unit 3 ‘Making Positive Decisions’

·         Unit 4 ‘Growing up Healthy’

·         Unit 5 ‘Celebrating You and Me’

Given the thousands of decisions we make every day, all having consequences that can create positive or negative results, skills to improve this capability might be considered fundamental to a productive life. Learning decision skills provides the opportunity to increase positive outcomes while decreasing the consequences of failure that are part of the learning process.

What skills are important to decision making?

Decision making skills is gaining knowledge to make our choices more effective. Skills include:

• Using a process that provides a consistent set of steps leading to a decision outcome.  
• Discovery and creativity skills that can help identify alternatives.
• Imagination used to envision possible future consequences.
• Information, data gathering, and observation methods that assist evaluations.
• Assessment of risk to the likelihood of outcomes
• Collaboration, communication and listening needed for decision making.
• Self discipline that motivates commitment and action for a chosen solution;
• Time and task management needed for successful implementation.

How can decision making skills be improved?

Choices we make every day present us with daily opportunity to improve our skill in making decisions. Many of these choices are made out of habit, but just bringing these selections to a conscious level can enable self reflection that can be used to improve these and other decisions.

Improving decision skills will come from the learning gained from experiencing the consequences of making poor decisions. However, for high value decisions with significant consequences, we would like to have developed these skills in advance in order to avoid disastrous outcomes to the extent possible.

Decision making games provides one such environment, providing the opportunity to develop skill with exploration and projecting likely outcomes based on probabilities. Simulations can provide experiences that enable improved coping. They can also help address one of the challenges with complex decision making problems.

Building skills that last

Decisions define our future. They often come in a series of connected decisions and encourage us to think about what will come next. Decision making skills cross all disciplines and are transferrable to any job, career, or vocation. A focus on these fundamental skills should be considered essential to any meaningful education.

We make thousands of decisions a day. Making a choice is easy. Choosing well takes knowledge and skill.

 Here are some publicised suggestions, many related to our Skills for Growing decision making process, of how positive outcomes can result from good decisions. Our school children are generally well versed in good decision making procedures some clearly verbalising the main steps.

A logical and systematic decision-making process helps you address the critical elements that result in a good decision. By taking an organised approach, you're less likely to miss important factors.

There are six steps to making an effective decision

Step 1: Create a constructive environment

To create a constructive environment for successful decision making, make sure you do the following:

·         Establish the objective 

·         Agree on the process 

·         Involve the right people

·         Allow opinions to be heard 

Step 2: Generate Good Alternatives

This step is still critical to making an effective decision. The more good options you consider, the more comprehensive your final decision will be .When you generate alternatives, you force yourself to dig deeper, and look at the problem from different angles.
Ways of doing this could be by brainstorming, writing ideas, listing alternatives or doing bubble maps.

Step 3: Explore the Alternatives

When you're satisfied that you have a good selection of realistic alternatives, then you'll need to evaluate the feasibility, risks, and implications of each choice. The children could do this by using de Bonos Hats, using Plus/Minus/Interesting(PMI’s) or Decision Trees using mapping skills, all of which are familiar to our pupils.

Step 4: Choose the Best Alternative

After you have evaluated the alternatives, the next step is to choose between them. The choice is usually quite obvious.

Step 5: Check Your Decision

 This is where you look at the decision you're about to make dispassionately, to make sure that your process has been thorough, and to ensure that common errors haven't crept into the decision-making process. It is usually intuitive by methodically testing ideas used against own personal experiences.

Step 6: Communicate Your Decision, and Move to Action!

Once you've made your decision, it's important to explain it to those affected by it, and involved in implementing it.

Here are some stories related to decision making by selected Year 5 children.

                                            Decision making

Some day in life you will come to a point where you have to make a decision.  There can be good and bad decisions so that’s why you have to think carefully about what decision you make.
Decisions can help you make friends and helps you not get into trouble. If you make the wrong decision and do something wrong there could be a bad consequence coming your way. Like being grounded.
There are choices in decisions and if you make the right choice your self-esteem will get higher. In life decisions can help you a lot. 
Remember there are good and bad consequences. So I hope you try and get the good consequences.
Always make the right decision in life. Who knows where it could get you. 

By Lucy

                  Decision Making.

Decisions are great because you have choices to make.
You can have good decision and bad decisions that lead to bad things.
Good decisions lead to good things. Good decisions are great because they help.
Bad decisions are not so good.

By Connor

           A Negative Decision 

   Once my dad let me drive. So I drove very slowly to the end of the road. Then I had to turn around.  My dad then put the car in reverse.
 Suddenly I noticed the car was rolling back. In a panic I hit the accelerator. But it was still in reverse so the car went flying into a ditch.
When I was in the ditch I couldn’t think straight. But then I noticed what happened.
So I guess the moral of the story is never let a ten year old drive!

    By Oliver Meikle