Tech Opportunities in Term 4: Ending the Year with Purposeful Play 💻☀️
Kia ora kaiako 👋
Term 4 is always a whirlwind - wrapping up reports, managing transitions, and keeping energy high as summer edges closer. It’s also a golden opportunity to try something new, dip into projects you’ve had your eye on, or carve out space for fun, student-led exploration.
The Digital Pīkau is packed with ready-to-use activities that are free, accessible, and Aotearoa-specific, so you can jump straight into purposeful digital tech learning without the planning overload. Think of this blog as your self-directed PD guide for Term 4. Whether you have five minutes or five lessons to fill, here are meaningful ways to engage ākonga with digital technologies this season.
☀️ Summer: Celebrate the Season Outside and Online
As temperatures rise and energy runs high, take your learners outside - or bring the outdoors into your digital learning. Summer offers the perfect context for project-based learning that connects students with their environment, strengthens digital fluency, and introduces new technologies through play and purpose. These ideas are designed to support inquiry, data literacy, and creativity for learners of all ages.
🦀 Data Collection at the Beach
Support ākonga to explore classification, statistics, and computational thinking through a summer-themed data collection project.
Start with a beach walk (or simulated environment) and encourage learners to tally different types of seashells or natural treasures. Then, using Python and matplotlib, guide them to turn that data into a pie graph. This activity supports multi-level engagement; junior classes can use physical sorting or tallying, while senior students can write code to visualise their findings.
Python Basics with matplotlib
🌊 Sphero Swim Series
Use summer as the theme for prototyping, engineering and physics challenges. These Sphero activities build design thinking, problem solving and coding skills and are a great way to foster creativity in Term 4:
🎄 Christmas in Aotearoa: Celebrate the Season, Your Way
End-of-year celebrations look different in every classroom and in Aotearoa, that means sunny days, pōhutukawa trees, and diverse holiday traditions. Term 4 is a chance to honour that diversity with tech-integrated projects that are creative, respectful, and student-led. This is also a great time to explore identity, tradition and storytelling through a digital lens.
🌺 Pōhutukawa Projects & Remembrance
The pōhutukawa is not just our summer bloom; it’s a symbol of Christmas, remembrance, and environmental connection.
Pair this with Makey Makey and storytelling to create an interactive classroom display where students share Christmas memories, environmental pledges, or family traditions.
🎮 Scratch Projects with a Kiwi Twist
Let ākonga get creative with Scratch to build:
A Kiwi Santa Dress-Up Game (jandals, sunnies, BBQ apron!)
A Hāngī Simulation Game with steps to prepare a traditional feast
A Holiday Card built in HTML & CSS or ScratchJr
These projects reinforce sequencing, logic and design while giving students the chance to express their culture and personality.
🔢 Sorting Network – Holiday Edition
Adapt the Sorting Network activity to suit end-of-year topics — rank Christmas foods, holiday traditions, or classroom memories to bring unplugged learning into the mix with a fun, social twist. Use The 12 days of Christmas extension as a great starting place.
🛠️ Project-Based Learning: Big Energy, Big Builds
As the term winds down, the best projects are the ones that feel like play but deliver powerful learning. PBL is a great way to bring teams together, spark curiosity, and let tamariki explore technology in self-directed ways. Whether you run it across a few days or a few weeks, these projects give you flexibility and freedom in the classroom.
🏁 Driving & Sphero Challenges
Set the stage with Driving Sphero - a great intro to Sphero’s movement and control.
Then level up to the Sphero Shape Challenge, where learners test geometry and angles using code.
These are ideal for small group rotations, student showcases, or classroom competitions. A simple rubric or criteria can help frame it as a mini tech fair.
🚀 Run a Moonhack (Hackathon)
Term 4 is the perfect time to host your own Moonhack. Choose a Digital Pīkau resource as a starting point, and support students to:
Ideate and plan in groups
Design, build and test a project
Present their hack to the class or community
This is inquiry learning at its best and a brilliant way to celebrate student voice and progress before the year ends.
🌏 Culture & Identity: Learn Through Celebration
Diverse celebrations in Term 4 offer powerful opportunities to build belonging, inclusion and global understanding through digital learning. Lean into these events to explore history, storytelling, design, and data in ways that centre your learners' voices.
🪔 Diwali with Digital Tech
Celebrate the festival of lights with our Diwali resources. Use block coding to design rangoli patterns, light up diya lamps or build animations that explore key cultural themes. Pair with classroom discussion around traditions, similarities, and student experiences.
🐦 Bird of the Year
Connect students with New Zealand’s biodiversity and conservation efforts through the Bird of the Year resource. Learners can research native species, create posters, design persuasive campaigns or build bird-spotting apps. A great way to blend digital tech, art and science.
⏱️ Gap-Fillers That Are Fun and Functional
We all know Term 4 has those odd time slots: after testing, before prizegivings, in between events. Instead of screen time for the sake of it, here are some smart, creative ways to use short windows for meaningful digital exploration.
Minecraft Hour of Code: Let students explore code while building in a game they love
MakeCode Arcade: Students can design and play their own pixel games
Quiver 3D Colouring: Download templates and bring them to life with augmented reality
These tools work well as independent rotations, early finisher options, or Friday fun time but still tick the DT boxes in a light-touch way.
🎒 Your Digital Pīkau is Ready – What Will You Unpack?
The Digital Pīkau is filled with resources for every classroom, learner level and learning style. Whether you’re after a one-off challenge, a deep dive inquiry, or just something creative to finish the year strong, the ideas are in there – and ready to go.
➡️Explore all resources
📩 Get in touch if you’ve got questions, ideas, or classroom stories to share!