Whaea Teagan came to school one day with some paint charts. We looked, explored and even guessed some fun new names for the colours.
How were these colours made? We learnt that we could make any colour we wanted using just red, yellow, blue, white and black paint.
This week we got to make lots of different paints and make up our own names for them.
I made lots of different colors and shades and I found out what color makes what.
My first color I made a really uglly brown because I used red, blue white , yellow and black.
I learnt that you had to be precise with your measurements because if you weren’t you would end up with a different color. I was measuring mine in drops.
What if we accidentally made a colour we love, but didn’t know how to make it again? Ah, this is where the math comes in. We had to learn to write our paint recipes down, and make sure our measurements were accurate in order to make the same colour twice, and if somebody else was to you use our recipe, they should be able to enjoy our new creation as well.
We looked at ratios - if I wanted this colour that you have made in a small amount to paint an entire room, how would I know how much to use? We looked at measurement - using pipettes to “drop” paint on to our paper to test the colours, for example: 1blue:1yellow:2white. This recipe would use 1ml of blue, 1ml of yellow and 2mls of white giving us a green.
If we wanted to make 1 litre of this paint, we used a mixture of maths skills, by using our ratio and turning that in to fractions helping us know how much of the 1 litre paint will be for each colour. In total there were 4 drops of colour, so ¼ of the tin will be blue, ¼ yellow and 2/4 white. When converted back in to measurements for a litre, we know that it will be 250ml of blue, 250ml of yellow and 500ml of white to create 1 tin of this green paint.
A part we loved was watching some videos of paint being mixed in the big tins and guessing what the colour will make. The paint? The man puts in a code - which then tells the machine what needs to be added to the white base to create the perfect colour every time.
We created our own paint cards - complete with the formulation to create our colours and some funky names that we think suit the colours perfectly. What would you call these? Do you think our names were accurate?
Having initially begun my career in education as a teacher aide in 2016, I have thoroughly enjoyed working alongside students to build their confidence and develop pride in their identity. I’m passionate about te reo Māori and kapa haka, as I firmly believe this is an important part of students finding their identity and sense of belonging as a student in Aotearoa.
With a particular focus on building students’ mana, I have developed a strength for building connections and relationships with my students. In my daily practice, I seek to achieve this by encouraging students to step out of their comfort zone, and show opportunity by giving everything a go.
Outside of the classroom, you can find me getting lost in my kindle or spending time with friends and whānau at the lake.
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