Financial Literacy

Last term we were developing our budgeting skills through a financial literacy programme.  On the first day we added 35 years to our age and then designed what we thought our life would look like at that age.  We made decisions about our family, pets, cars etc.  This then became the basis for our project.  Next we selected and income card.  Some of us were paid wages and some of us were on salary.  The card also told us if we had a mortgage, were mortgage free or renting.  We then had to calculate our weekly income and tax as well as our weekly housing payments. 

Once we had calculated these we were then given a monthly budgeting sheet to complete.  Each week we entered our income then deducted our tax and housing payments.  We then were given a grocery card to add up and deduct.  Finally we were given a fortune card each week.  Ten percent of these cards gave us money and the rest took money off us. Some examples were, school fees are due so you need to pay $50 per child based on the family you designed.  Some of us were in debt at the end of the first week!

At the end of the month we were given more bills to pay including electricity, phone and internet, insurances and car expenses.  This put many of us in debt at the end of the month. Luckily we were then given savings accounts with $2000 to withdraw from to balance our account.  Five of us banked money into our savings account at the end of the month.

This was a very eye opening experience for many of us.  We had to practice many maths skills including calculating percentages, adding, subtracting and also developing an understanding of budgeting.  We are going to begin another months cycle next week. It will be interesting to see if the same people end up with money at the end of the month.

Skateboard Ramp Project Part 1

Many Totara 3 students are keen skateboarders.  We are lucky to have some ramps in our playground at school however because of the increased popularity of skateboarding we no longer have enough to cater for the number of students who wish to use them.  The Skate Crew decided that this was a problem and spoke to Mrs P about what could be done.  Then a plan was formed.  

First a letter was written to our Principal Mrs O asking for permission to fundraise, design and build some more ramps for the playground.  She gave us the go ahead and so Totara 3 decided to make it a class project.  We elected a project manager - thanks Geordie and then dived straight in.  

Stage one: Raise the funds.

Our first fundraising project took place on the last day of term 1.  We held a sausage sizzle at school where students could purchase drinks for 50 c and sausages for $2. We were very fortunate that the school had some leftover sausages from previous fundraisers that we could use and we were also generously donated some.  To prepare for our fundraising event the project manager and his team had to estimate how many sausages we would need, how many loaves of bread, cups, serviettes, tomato sauce, drink etc.  

Once we had done this we created a grocery list and purchased our supplies.  We also advertised our fundraiser in the school newsletter and were thrilled with the response.

On the day we formed cooperative groups and every group had a job to do.  Some children collated orders, some prepared bread and drinks, some counted the money, some cooked the sausages and then we all served.  It was a hectic couple of hours but well worth it.


                                                                  




The fundraiser was a great success and we raised over $500 to start off our project.  Our next step is to meet with a skateboard ramp design expert and formulate a plan.  We can then cost our materials and assess if we need to fundraise more money. 

Watch this space for stage 2. 

Identity Art

Our first art project for 2019 was to design our own avatar that looked like us.  We then put a transparent grid over our avatar design and used this to enlarge our avatar onto A2 paper.  Finally we painted our avatars and added detail with sharpie. 

Not everyone has finished yet but we are quite impressed with our results.  We will be presenting our art in our upcoming school assembly and then will post photos of our own artwork on our individual blogs.  Here is some pictures of us in action.

Census at School

Today our class participated in the Census at School. As part of this we had to complete a series of measurements and tasks. We then had to complete an online census form. 

We found some of the questions particularly interesting and they generated a lot of discussion especially around the amount of screen time daily and social media usage. 

We are looking forward to analysing our class results in the coming weeks and also making comparisons with our peers around New Zealand.

Welcome