Room 13 students created cultural tiles representing their diverse backgrounds to showcase what they learned during a cultural inquiry journey. They brainstormed design ideas, practiced the designs, and then painted them on fabric tiles. They problem solved how to display the tiles by sewing them into a quilt and adding a wooden board. The students reflected that they were happy with their work but would put more effort into their designs if they did it again.

1. Room 13’s Inquiry
Journey
Come share it with us

2. Haka

3. Citizenship, Culture and Visual Arts

4. Our Cultural Family
 Room 13 children come from all over the
world and have a variety of cultures. We
celebrate our differences and are glad that
we are all unique. Some of us can speak in a
language other than English.
 We link ourselves to the following
countries, China, South
Korea, Philippines, Samoa, Canada, South
Africa, India, New Zealand, Fiji.
 Every morning we call the roll in a range of
greetings. How many languages can you say
good morning in?

5. Our Place in Society
 We looked at where we fit into society.
 We discovered that we are members of
many groups such as our family, after
school activities, Willowbank School, East
Auckland, Auckland, North Island, New
Zealand, The World.
 We then listed why each group was
special. We found it easy to list lots of
things for most groups, however finding
unique things about East Auckland was
the trickiest.

6. Roles & Responsibilities
 We studied some jobs in society and
talked about why they were important to
us. We also made lists of what we
thought their responsibilities would be.
 We chose kids, mums, dads, teachers,
health professionals, firemen, policemen
 We realized how important it is to have
people who will care for us and look after
us. It’s what makes our community
special

7. NZ a-Thon
 Willowbank School held a NZ a-Thon to
help us learn more things about this
beautiful country of ours.
 Everyone in the school were so excited
and worked hard to uncover the answers.
 Some of the children in Room 13 even
won prizes for our efforts
 Watch out! We would like to quiz our
parents on our open day to see how
much they know about New Zealand

8. 2011 Rugby World Cup
 Rugby has always been a favourite
New Zealand game, and has become
part of the kiwi culture.
 This year the Rugby World Cup was
held in our city, our country. There were
20 teams that competed and the All
Blacks won! We are now the world
champions!
 The All Blacks have the NZ silver fern on
their jumpers and we used this symbol
when we created our calendar art.

9. Indian Culture
 One of our mums came in and showed us a slide
show of all the special things in India. It made
some of us want to visit there one day.
 She used henna to create a peacock design on
Miss Ross’ arm. It looked beautiful. We then
made our own using felts
 Henna is a plant that can be made into a paste.
You then use it to create designs on the
skin, usually for celebrations.

10. Rangoli Patterns
 Rangolipatterns are used in the Indian
culture during celebrations. They are
often placed in an entrance way to
welcome others. They are said to bring
good luck.

11. Manderin
 Anotherone of our mum’s came in and
wrote some words in Manderin on the
white board for us to learn. Most of us
found this fun, but very tricky. Why don’t
you give it a go.

12. Chinese celebrations
 Some of our students told us that in China
they use lanterns and fans in their
celebrations. We decided to create
some of our own and had such a
wonderful time doing it. We are now
experts and will be happy to teach you.

13. Korus
 Korus are often used in Maori and NZ art.
It is spiral shape based on the NZ silver
fern. It represents new life and growth
 Room 13 made some of our own koru art.
You can see them around our room.

14. Buddhist Temple
 Team 1 wanted to learn more about other
cultures so we visited the Buddhist Temple.
 It was so peaceful and had beautiful gardens
and lots of bells.
 We learnt all about Buddah, and our guide
suggested to us that we do good, think good
and say good each day.
 We had lunch there. Some of us thought we
were eating chicken, but it was actually crispy
soy. We felt proud that we had tried something
new.
 When we came back we made some of our
own temples.
 You can see our photos displayed in our room.

15. Taking Action –
Our Big Idea
 When deciding on what we could do to
showcase our inquiry journey, we had a
walk around the school. We noticed
there wasn’t enough children’s art on
display, so we made a decision to make
some of our own.
 We came up with the idea of making tiles.
They would represent a piece of culture
that we personally relate to..

16. Cultural Tiles
 We first brainstormed all the pieces of art we had
done; korus, chinese writing, silver ferns, kiwis, art
from NZ a Thon, flags, greetings, rangoli patterns
and henna.
 We then made a pros and cons list of what would
be tricky with each design if we were to use a
paintbrush. Eg would it hard to paint little stars?
 We each thought of our own design and
practiced for a few days on paper. We repeated
the same picture each time to ensure it always
looked the same.
 We decided we would use outside tiles and paint
them and then display them on a wall for visitors to
see somewhere around our school.
 We couldn’t get hold of the tiles we wanted so we
brainstormed some new solutions.

17. Making Decisions
 We decided that we could use material
tiles instead.
 We ordered in some special fabric and
copied our designs on to the material.
We were very careful. We used 2 main
colours for our base. The next day some
of us used material felts to draw finer
detail on in a 3rd colour.
 We used the projector to look at various
ways we could display our work and
found a quilt. Miss Ross said she could
sew all our tiles together to make one.

18. Making our tiles

19. More brainstorming &
decision making
 Our next problem to solve was, how we
could hang our work up in order to display
it. We brainstormed some more ideas
and decided to look at some options on
the projector.
 Our solution was to sew material loops on
to the top our quilt and insert a piece of
wood to hold them on to.

20. Our completed work.
 We love it.

21. Reflection
 We were happy with our individual designs
but if we did it all over again we would put
more effort into them.
 Most of us were careful when we used the
paint and paintbrushes so our work turned out
well.
 Most of us were happy with using material for
our tiles. We would still like to use outside tiles
one day so lots of visitors get to see our work.
 We learnt lots about our country and other
cultures during this inquiry