ROOM 2 2010

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

2010-12-15T20:47:00.000-08:00

Well, last day in Room 2 tomorrow for all of us! We had 2 visitors on Tuesday, Mrs Cody and little Eva...she is gorgeous! Mrs Cody looks great and all is well- we asked a few questions about Eva, including whether she would get eyebrows!
Yesterday we went for another fun swim, and today we watched the Y3-6 Rehearsal for their Christmas concert, which was fantastic and involved lots of singing, dancing and playing instruments. We have our final assembly tomorrow, before finishing at 1pm.
So this year is coming to an end, but we are all looking forward to a new year in a new classroom. For my part I am really glad to have shared Term 4 with you Room 2, thank you! Judging from the blog for Terms 1-3 it certainly looks like you have had a fun, busy year! Thanks to all the parents who have helped out this year, and remember to keep reading over the holidays...have a fantastic holiday Room 2 and a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

The week before Christmas!

2010-12-12T18:08:00.000-08:00

What an exciting time we've been having. Tis the glitter season and we have been busy making cards, candles and lanterns among other things. We wrote our letters to Santa and posted them to the North Pole, and received letters back from Santa a few days later! We had our Christmas concert and sang beautifully in our red and green Christmas clothes. We also had a fun swim at the pool and got all the floats and balls out to play with. We met our new teachers for next year... AND it's not finished yet...we still have a few more days left in Room 2!

Term 4's Inquiry

2010-12-04T23:02:00.000-08:00

This term we have been looking at playgrounds, and how we move on the equipment. We have slid, jumped and twisted at Muritai playground, climbed and crawled at Bishop's Park playground, and turned, twisted and glided at Avalon Park. We talked about how each of these movements requires a push or a pull. Then we thought about what we would like, and designed and made our own playgrounds, also thinking about how we would make our equipment move. The result: amazing slides, fantastic swings and a wide range of other equipment including monkey bars, rock walls, and even roundabouts! Well done Room 2- a great term's Inquiry!

Christmas at Capital E!

2010-12-02T13:00:00.000-08:00

On Tuesday, as part of EOTC week, we went to Capital E's Christmas Woodland. We posted our wishes in the Wishing Tree in the Christmas woodland area, played Christmas games with and heard a story from Santa's elves, and climbed a rock wall! Then we made a Christmas decoration to take home. We had a great time, and a big thank you to mums and dads who came with us!

EOTC Week- fun in the sun!

2010-12-02T12:37:00.000-08:00

What a busy week! We were so lucky to have such fantastic weather for our EOTC week- have a look at the photos from Avalon Park and our parachute games!

Cricket

2010-11-17T17:55:00.000-08:00

Today Charlie and Raj came from the Westpac Stadium to give us some cricket coaching. We learned about the 3 important skills of batting, fielding and bowling, and practised each of them in teams. We learned to keep our arms straight when bowling, and to really watch the ball. When rolling the ball to each other we need to keep our fingers on the ground so we catch the ball. As the coaching was sponsored by Milo, we were given a goody bag with all sorts of cricket cards and posters, and a sachet of Milo for afternoon tea. We had a great afternoon, thanks guys!

Happiness!

2010-11-15T15:36:00.000-08:00

Today we wrote a class poem about Happiness! We had lots of ideas about what made us happy and these were some of the suggestions....

Happiness is making new friends in the playground.

Happiness is playing with my dog in the park.

Happiness is receiving a present I've wanted for a long time.

Happiness is eating lots of very sweet honey on fresh bread.

Happiness is catching a big fish in the harbour.

Disco Fever!

2010-11-14T18:52:00.000-08:00

What a busy week we had last week, Junior athletics, the beginning of Christmas concert practise, and finally the Disco on Friday evening! We put our best clothes on and danced the night away. A big thank you to all the Parents who made it all possible.

Athletics

2010-11-10T19:01:00.000-08:00

On Tuesday we were lucky enough to have a beautiful day for Junior Athletics. Everyone took part and really enjoyed the events. This is what we had to say about it:

Yesterday I did athletics it was fun. I liked high jump the most. There were six activities. One was long jump, high jump, tennis ball throwing, sprints, shotput and quoits. Kahu

Yesterday I did athletics. It was fantastic! I loved the sprints! Rufus

Yesterday I won high jump and long jump and I came third in the finals. Ryan

Yesterday we did athletics. It was cool. My favourite part was high jump because it was fun. Bridie

Yesterday we did athletics and my favourite was high jump. Daniel

My favourite thing in athletics is the high jump because I like jumping. What is your favourite? Noah

Yesterday my class went to athletics. We did running and it was spectacular. I came third. Edward

Next week is swimming...!

Reading Response

2010-11-10T18:16:00.000-08:00

As part of this week's Reading Response, the Whero Group acted out their play "The Cardboard Box" for us. What could you make out of a cardboard box? Superb reading and acting, well done!

Maths this week

2010-11-10T15:52:00.000-08:00

We have been practising our number bonds using the Save the Whale game . Find it on http://www.ictgames.com/save_the_whale_v4.html

We've also been looking at capacity, and today we tried to guess which of these containers would hold more than or less than a litre.

Fireworks

2010-11-04T15:19:00.000-07:00

This week we watched and listened to a clip of fireworks and made a list of wow words. We then made some firework pictures using glitter, crayons, paint prints and added some of our wow words. Enjoy the fireworks this weekend and stay safe!

Ballet

2010-10-31T20:24:00.000-07:00

Last week we had some lessons from a ballet teacher in the hall. This is what we thought:

On Tuesday we went into the hall to do ballet. We learnt how to do lovely steps and we did it with Room3. It was cool. Jasper

On Tuesday we did ballet. We did steps, actions and creeping. It was in the hall. The ballet teacher was Shannon and at the end we did jumps over the river. It was fun because we did lots of things. Oscar

On Tuesday I went to the hall to get taught for ballet steps. We learned some moves from the olden days. The person that taught us the steps was Shannon. We did it after morning tea and it was fun. We did some steps that I do at my ballet. Alana

Yesterday we went to the hall. There was a ballet dancer and I was excited because I thought that we were going to be dancers. The first thing he did was to introduce himself his name was Shannon. We learnt some moves and we learned some actions it was exciting. Sophia

On Tuesday at school in the hall we learnt lots of steps. Shannon was the man who taught us the ballet steps. It was great fun! Eliza

This week we are going to see some of the RNZ Ballet's 'The Nutcracker'.

Reading Response

2010-10-25T19:20:00.000-07:00

We have been reading The Robber Fox and discussing wow words to describe what he was like. Then we drew him and used crayons and dyes to illustrate the picture.

Athletics

2010-10-20T14:59:00.001-07:00

On Wednesday we took advantage of the fine weather and practiced some athletic skills. These are photos of us practicing relays and long jump. After we learnt the skills needed for each activity, we got to practice them. When we got back to class we made a list of the skills we needed to use to achieve the best results.

These are the skills we shared with one another:

Long Jump
I need to use one strong leg to push myself forward
I need to land on two feet
I can fling my arms forward so I can push myself further forward

Relays
I need to put one arm behind me so I am ready for the next runner
I need to use my arms and legs to give myself power to run fast
I need to sprint to the next runner
I need to look forward so I know where I am going

Friday with Ms Gain

2010-10-14T20:24:00.000-07:00

Today we had a classroom focus on Japan. We had a visit from Tim Fieldes who lives in Japan. We sent a class Flat Stanley to visit Tim in Japan last term. Tim is now visiting New Zealand so he came in to talk to us about what it was like having Flat Stanley to visit. He also answered lots of our questions about Japan.

Questions for Tim

DOES JAPAN LOOK LIKE NEW ZEALAND?

Tim showed us a map of New Zealand and a map of Japan. We saw that New Zealand had 3 islands and Japan had 4. Japan is a little bit bigger than New Zealand but there are 30 times more people living there! Tim lives on the middle island called Honshuu, which he said looks like a banana. He said the top island in Japan is the coldest and the bottom island the warmest. In New Zealand our North Island is warmer than the South island, this was interesting to think about.

HAVE YOU BEEN ON A BULLET TRAIN?

Yes. Tim had been on a bullet train and he told us about travelling from Osaka to Tokyo. He said it would take 8 hours to drive but it only takes 2 hours by bullet train. He said bullet trains move so smoothly you don’t feel anything, and can go to sleep very easily.

Tim also told us that a lot of people in Japan travel by trains because there are so many people living in Japan there wouldn’t be enough room for everyone to drive cars.

CAN YOU EAT WITH CHOPSTICKS?

Yes, Tim uses chopsticks to eat with a lot. Tim told us the difference between Japanese and Chinese chopsticks. Japanese chopsticks are pointy at the ends, like pencils. Chinese chopsticks are flat and straight. He said even though Japanese chopsticks are pointy you shouldn’t stab your food to pick it up because that is bad manners.

WHAT KIND OF ANIMALS LIVE IN JAPAN THAT DON'T LIVE IN NEW ZEALAND?
Tim told us about snakes and monkeys, which live in Japan.

HAVE YOU BEEN ON THE JAPANESE ROADS THAT ARE ABOVE THE CITY?

Yes. Tim talked to us about how the Japanese motorways are put on poles high above the city because there is no room on the ground.

IS YOUR WATCH FROM JAPAN?/DO YOU LIKE PINK?
Tim was wearing a brightly coloured watch with a pink face. He said these kind of watches are very popular in Japan at the moment and that lots of men in Japan wear pink.

Tim showing us his pink watch.

ARE THE SHOPS IN JAPAN LIKE THE SHOPS IN NEW ZEALAND?

Tim told us that most of the shops in the big cities in Japan are open all day and all night. There are a lot of toy shops, costume shops, and sushi shops.

WHAT KIND OF LOLLIES DO THEY HAVE IN JAPAN?
Tim showed us lots of different types of Japanese lollies including candy floss that pops in your mouth and lemonade candies in a lemonade bottle.

WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE MARTIAL ARTS?

We learnt that Tim’s favourite martial art in Japan is karate. He also talked to us about sumo wrestling and how the men try and use their strength and weight to push each other out of the ring.

We also learnt that Samurais are like Japanese knights who live in castles. The castles of the Samurais have curved red rooves and are decorated with gold to show the people inside are rich and powerful.

WHEN DID YOU LEARN TO SPEAK JAPANESE?
Tim learnt to speak Japanese at high school and then he moved to Japan where he learnt how to speak it really well.

Tim taught us how to say:
hello: konnichi wa
good morning Ms Gain: Gain Sensei Ohaiyoo Gozaimasu
thank you: arigato
goodbye: sayonara

After Tim’s visit we continued to learn about Japan with some more Japanese activities. We made some origami booklets, see the link to the video on the right hand side of this blog page to have a go at home. We also learnt about Children’s Day in Japan, which is a day that celebrates children. We did some colouring of Japanese children wearing traditional clothes and started making some carp kites, which are flown on Children’s day. Keep a look out for our finished carp kites next week!

Edward's Colouring

Jasper and Noah with their origami booklet.

Noah and Henry making their origami booklets.

Finally we said goodbye to Finn who is going to England for the rest of the year. We played a game of Fruit Salad and finished the day with chocolate cake and a goodbye song. Ka Kite Finn, we will miss you!

Finn sharing his farewell chocolate cake.

Holiday

2010-10-10T19:32:00.001-07:00

This morning we shared places we had visited during our holidays and stuck our names alongside the place. Students visited many places throughout the North Island and South Island while others had fun staying in Wellington. We found it interesting how one student visited Cape Reinga which is right at the top of the North Island and another student visited Stewart Island which is right at the bottom of the South Island.
We heard some interesting stories about what people did and have started writing letters to one another describing what we did. We will blog some of these once we have finished.

Holidays

2010-09-23T19:16:00.000-07:00

Remember to continue to read, practice your basic facts carriages, revisit your spelling rockets and practice them so you can accurately use them in your writing, play Maths and Literacy games through the links on the class blogs and have lots of fun with your family and friends!

Have a fantastic holiday break and see you on the 11th of October well rested and ready to learn!

Reading Response

2010-09-23T19:11:00.000-07:00

Kowhai reading group read a non-fiction book about Giant Pandas. They used their note taking skills to record facts about pandas and then report back to the class. Here were some facts they shared with us:

Most pandas live on their own
Giant pandas are endangered animals
Some babies are born in captivity and they need to be fed by hand
They have black and white fur
They love bamboo
They live in Central China
They live alone
They do not hibernate

Production

2010-09-23T18:58:00.000-07:00

The students put in so much effort towards learning and practicing their dance routines for the school production we decided to have a production party!!! Prior to the party we discussed what foods we could bring, remembering the food pyramid and what foods we should eat lots of, some of and little of.
We sat outside and had a delicious picnic with Room 4!

Buddies

2010-09-16T14:05:00.001-07:00

This week we worked with Room 13 and used some of the computer skills we have been learning this term to draw on kid pix, write a comment on a Muritai School Blog, play Letterland, take photos on photo booth and play numeracy& literacy games on class blogs.
It was fun!

Friday with Ms Gain

2010-09-09T20:21:00.000-07:00

Today we listened to the story of ‘The Three Legged Cat’ by Margaret Mahy. We then wrote some descriptions for the main characters in the story who were:

Tom the three legged cat,
Cyril the swagman, and
Mrs Gimble of 7 Cardamom Street.

Here are some of our descriptions:

Oscar:
‘Tom the cat is a fat tabby tom cat. He is a three legged cat. He is a ginger cat. He is good at dreaming. He is good a snuggling up.’

‘Cyril the swagman travels around the world. He has a stinky old hat. He is a prowler. He is bald.’

‘Mrs Gimble doesn’ like earthquakes or prowlers and especially doesn’t like prowling through earthquakes. She likes furniture.’

Georgie:
‘Tom the cat is big. He is a 3 legged cat with a wooden leg. He is a ginger tabby cat. He is a warm cat which makes him a fantastic hat. He likes food. He dreams of exploring the world.’

Alana:
‘Tom the cat is good at curling his tail up and going to sleep. Tom is ginger and he dreams of going around the world.’

Noah:
‘The explorers hat is a cat with a broken leg. A cat who has warm fur and likes to go to sleep. That makes him the perfect hat.’

After we had all had a go at writing our own character descriptions we wrote one as a whole class as a piece of shared writing. This is what we came up with when we all worked together sharing our ideas:

‘Cyril is an adventurous swagman who likes to explore the world and sleep under the stars. He has an old scruffy Russian hat to keep his bald head warm when he prowls.

Cyril likes to talk about travelling around the world and the adventures he has. He doesn’t like talking about furniture polish or about the indoors. He likes the outdoors.

Mrs Gimble doesn’t like anything that prowls. She doesn’t like hearing about Cyril talk about prowling through earthquakes. It makes her scared and worried. She is always worried about what her nosey neighbours who pry and spy think about her brother.’

You can see in our writing that we tried to include:

some long descriptive sentences AND short sentences,
interesting words, and
lots of information to really describe the character in detail.

Today we also continued work on our Flat Stanley project. We looked at Australia in detail today, using our atlases to find answers to questions about places in Australia including:

Different cities including: Sydney, Brisbane, Canberra, Adelaide, Melbourne, Darwin, and Perth
Uluru (Ayers) Rock,
The Great Barrier Reef,
The Tasman Sea, and
Tasmania.

We also looked at the Australian flag and learnt that the stars on the flag symbolise the Southern Cross, which is a pattern of stars (constellation) that you can see from Australia (and New Zealand too). We also drew different Australian animals including: echidnas, koalas, crocodiles, platypuses, kangaroos, snakes, dingos, wombats and more.

We finished the day with the story of ‘Josephine Wants to Dance’ by Jackie French. This was an appropriate book because the ballet came to Muritai School this week and the book was full of Australian animals including brolgas and lyrebirds, which were new to many of us.

Royal NZ Ballet

2010-09-08T14:28:00.001-07:00

On Wednesday we had some dancers from the Royal NZ Ballet perform for us. They started with warm ups, we were amazed how flexible the dancers were! After the warm up they showed us 4 different dances. The men used crutches for one dance and the girls danced to a Lady Gaga Song, they were fantastic! We loved the show!!!

We got time to ask the dancers some questions, these were some questions we asked:
What are your ballet shoes made of? paper mache
How often do you need to buy new ballet shoes? 2 pairs a week, they are $100 a pair!
When did you start dancing? When I was 2, 6 and 14
How old are you? 18 years old, 22 years old, 24 years old.
How often do you practice? 5 days a week from 9.00am to 5.00pm

Check out our trolls!!

2010-09-06T16:51:00.000-07:00

We have been reading fairy tales, writing our own fairy tale endings and character descriptions. After reading The Three Billy Goats Gruff we wrote a description of a troll using interesting similes. After writing our character description we drew and painted the troll.

Come into Room 2 and read some of our work!

Junior Assembly

2010-08-29T20:34:00.001-07:00

Last Thursday Rufus and Sophia were our Junior Assembly hosts. They did a wonderful job especially speaking in clear voices so the audience could hear them.
Kahu and Olivia shared their fairy tale endings and we sung Te Tinana (The Body) song.

Friday with Ms Gain

2010-08-27T02:54:00.000-07:00

Today was a busy day! As well as trips to the hall for production practice we did some fun activities as part of our Flat Stanley project.

A RULER OF BRITISH HISTORY: Kings, Queens, Years, and Roman Numerals

Olivia’s Flat Stanley arrived back from staying with family friends in Portsmouth England with a ruler of British History. This ruler had the names and dates of all the Kings and Queens of England. Using photocopies of the ruler we worked in pairs to count up the numbers of Kings and Queens with the same name.

We then put this information into a graph. Edward and Henry were the most common names for a King, there have been 8 King Edwards and 8 King Henrys. Henry and Edward in Room 2 thought this was pretty neat!

We also practised reading years starting with 2010 and counting backwards to the year 2000. We then counted backwards in hundreds till we got back as far as 1000, which is as far back as the Kings/Queens of England on the ruler went.

We also noticed that after each King or Queen’s name on the ruler there were some symbols, which we learnt were Roman numerals. These Roman numerals showed whether the King/Queen was the first with that name or the second or third etc. We learnt how to read and write Roman numerals up to 10.

We enjoyed working out and writing the answers to questions using Roman numerals such as “if the next King was a George what would he be called?” (King George the Seventh). Room 2 were very quick to learn how to write Roman numerals and to commit to memory how many Henrys, Edwards, Georges etc there had been –they answered questions like this with amazing speed!

THE VOYAGES OF CAPTAIN COOK: Developing our expertise in reading world maps.

We then looked at a world map that mapped the three voyages made by Captain Cook on his explorations of the Southern Oceans. We used our fingers to trace the three different journeys and identified all the different continents/countries that he passed by and collected information about, including New Zealand and his discovery of the Cook Strait. We used our ruler to find out who the King of England was that encouraged Captain Cook’s voyages of exploration during the years 1768 – 1779: King George the Third.

There were a lot of questions about Captain Cook and his boat, which was called the HMS Endeavor. Some things we want to find out are: what did the people on the boat eat? How did they get their food? How many people were on the boat? What did the different people on the boat do? Were there any children on the boat?/Cabin boys? We will have to do some research!

JAPAN

Next week Mrs Fields who works in the library is coming to talk to us about Japan, where her son Tim lives. We sent one of our class Flat Stanleys to him in Osaka, Japan, and he has sent it back with lots of photos. Mrs Fields is going to talk to us some more about her own trip to Japan and show us some maps. Today we learnt that Japan has 4 islands and that the biggest is called Honshu. Tokyo and Osaka are 2 major cities on the island of Honshuu. We coloured in maps of Japan showing the 4 different islands.

MATHS

2010-08-23T20:38:00.000-07:00

This week we have started learning about money. We started with a brainstorm about what we know about money. Most of us can identify coins and their value.
During our money unit we will compare values of coins, add coin and note value by skip counting and using addition and subtraction.

At the beginning of each maths lesson we start with a number focus. This week we are continuing to learn about multiplication for x2, x5 and x10. We would love to make groups of 2,5 and 10 at home so we can learn our times tables!

e.g.
2 x 1 = 2 groups of 1 or 1 x 2 = 1 group of 2
2 x 2 = 2 groups of 2
2 x 3 = 2 groups of 3 or 3 x 2 = 3 groups of 2

Life Education Classroom

2010-08-18T16:49:00.001-07:00

On Wednesday we went into the Life Education Classroom to learn about Food For Energy. We made a Food Pyramid and discussed which foods we should eat lots of, some and little. We can share some of these with you!

We are also learning about how food gives us energy. The Life Education Teacher, Jo, taught us how food travels through our mouth into our food tube and into the stomach. We know the heart pumps the food around the blood tubes and up to the brain for energy.

Science

2010-08-18T16:46:00.001-07:00

Junior Duathlon

2010-08-18T13:54:00.000-07:00

On Monday we had our Junior Duathlon. The students had to run around the block and then bike or scooter along a track inside school. After the race we used our thinking hats to discuss how we felt after the race and the good points about the event.
These were some of our red hat thinking comments:
After the race I felt....
speedy because Finn nearly past me at the finish line by Daniel
happy because I came 3rd in the Year 1's race by Jasper
pleased because I was coming last then I overtook loads of people by Noah
sick because it was tiring by Oscar
sick because I ran and ran by Georgie
very tired because I ran a lot. It felt like I was suffocating! by Alana
proud because I did better than ever! by Olivia
tired because I had to wait to go back to class by Rufus
happy because I over took 3 people by Edward
happy because I came 5th by Finn
glad because I tried my hardest by Eliza
sick because I was sweating and I had a sore throat by Holly
glad because I came second in the race by Sophia
really happy because I came 1st by Oliver
tired because I had to run by Ryan
tired because I sprinted fast by Bridie

Friday with Ms Gain

2010-08-12T20:41:00.000-07:00

Sharing our Writing

Today we did some reflection writing. We reflected on our week and had to think of:

Something fun that we had done
Something we had enjoyed at school
Something that had made us feel proud, and
Something we were looking forward to doing at the weekend.

We shared our writing with each other in a sharing circle. Here is some of our writing:

I enjoyed Jump Jam in Room 1. Georgie

After school me, Mum, and Amelia went to the Post Office. We had some fun in the car. When mum came back she had games for us each. We were happy. Sophia.

On Wednesday I was proud of muself because I scored 3 goals. Leon.

I enjoyed doing all the experiments. I discovered how to draw moths in 3D. Oscar.

At the weekend I played soccer and I got player of the day. I felt happy. Sam.

Yesterday Olivia came to my house. We played heads down thumbs up with my mum and my favourite doll, and me and Olivia played hide and seek and we hid my doll too. Alice.

This week I went to Lone Star with my family. I had a hamburger. At school I really enjoyed reading the book called ‘The Same But Different’. I got player of the day at rugby and I was happy. Oliver.

My sister came down from Scotland and we went to Campbell Park and we played Monsters Ham. Bridie.

I felt proud of scoring goals in netball. Something I am looking forward to is swimming lessons and soccer on Sunday. Kahu.

I enjoyed making the gingerbread man painting and drawing at school. I was proud when I got a certificate on Thursday at assembly. It was fun. I got the certificate because I listened to the teacher. Alana.

Last weekend I went to the movies with my family. It was fun and I took a friend. We went to see Toy Story 3. My friend’s name was Kate. Eliza.

I am looking forward to practising riding my bike. Jack.

I liked showing my rock monster at news time. I felt proud when I washed up the dishes and I got to stay up late. Tomorrow my friend is coming to my house. We are going to have fun. Edward.

Something I felt proud of is: I’ve almost finished my spelling rocket. Something I’ve been looking forward to: going to the Huia Pool! I’m going with my mummy, daddy, and sister Sam. Olivia.

This week I went to Room 5s assembly and I saw my friend. I finished my chapter book. I was proud. This weekend I am going to Edward’s house. I am going to do everything. Daniel.

On the weekend I played soccer. I got some goals but Jack was player of the day. I like soccer. Ryan.

Every Sunday I play soccer with Jack and Henry and Ryan and Jasper. Every Monday I play on the playground. It is fun. Finn.

Today we also looked at more Flat Stanley mail. We looked at pictures of Flat Stanley adventures in Prague, Portsmouth England, Scotland, and Christchurch. We then took Flat Annie from the Netherlands for a walk around our school. Here are some of the photos we took of Flat Annie’s adventures around Muritai School.

Maths

2010-08-10T21:58:00.001-07:00

In Maths this week we have been learning about multiplication. We know X means groups of. We started making groups of 2 and then solving them as times table problems. Next week we will learn about groups of 5 and 10.

Practice making and solving these at home:
1 x 2 =
2 x 2 =
3 x 2 =
4 x 2 =
5 x 2 =
6 x 2 =
7 x 2 =
8 x 2 =
9 x 2 =
10 x 2 =

Football tournament

2010-08-10T21:51:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday we had a soccer tournament. It was cool and fun. I got sweaty

when I was playing a game. We got 4 points, it was cool. After the game I

felt proud of myself. We had some time off.

By Sophia

On Tuesday we had a soccer tournament. My team was called the Kai

Matthews. In my team there was Kai Matthew, Joshua, Kahu and Esme. I

felt really happy. I scored a really good goal because it was hard and low.

By Kahu

On Tuesday we went to a soccer tournament. It was fun. I side tackled and

scored a goal. It was only because it was teamwork. I felt happy!

By Leon

On Tuesday we had a soccer tournament. We worked as a team I thought we

tried our best. We push really hard and I was really impressed of our group

because our team came 5^th. On that day I felt puzzled and happy too.

By Alice

On Tuesday my class went to the football tournament. When we started the

game some one kicked the ball in my face. I felt happy because it was fun.

By Edward

On Tuesday we had a soccer tournament but we didn’t get any goals. We

tried our best. We drew twice. I played really good because I was taking the

ball off good players.

By Jack

Friday with Ms Gain

2010-08-05T21:51:00.001-07:00

Opening our Flat Stanley mail.....

Today in Room 2 we received more parcels about Flat Stanley adventures around the world. We saw photos, slideshows, and read letters about:

Rufus’s Flat Stanely adventures in Leicester, England
Ryan’s Flat Stanely adventures in Matamata, North Island of New Zealand
Georgie’s Flat Stanley in Auckland, North Island of New Zealand
Olivia’s Flat Stanely in Portsmouth, England
Kahu’s Flat Stanley in Sydney, Australia
Our class Flat Stanley’s adventures in Osaka, Japan, with Tim Fields (the school librarian’s son!)

Next week we will be looking at Alana and her Flat Stanley’s adventure in Scotland and our class Flat Stanley’s adventures in Prague with Mrs Mills-Smith’s son Dan! We will also take Flat Annie from The Netherlands on a walk around our school.

Today we also did some work on African animals and started reading a story called ‘The Aardvark Who Wasn’t Sure’ by Jill Tomlinson, which is all about African animals. Lots of us in Room 2 are really interested in the continent Africa, and the animals that live there. We are hoping to get some news about one of the Flat Stanley’s that went there!

Room 2 was full of music today too. We sang lots of songs and used different percussion instruments. We are getting really good at playing our instruments and moving to the beat!

Listen to the music 1 2 3....

Football tournament

2010-08-01T21:28:00.001-07:00

If fine Room 2 will be partaking in a fun junior football tournament from 12.30 on Tuesday 3rd August.

Keep an eye out for the photos and writing on our blog!

Friday with Ms Gain

2010-07-29T21:09:00.000-07:00

We had a lot more parcels to open up today, very fun!

Today we had mail about Alice’s Flat Stanley adventure in Beijing in China, Jack’s Flat Stanley in Germany, Oliver’s Flat Stanley in Christchurch, Daniel’s Flat Stanley in South Australia, and Oscar’s Flat Stanley in the Netherlands - and he came home with a Flat Annie who he had met while he was there!

Oscar's Flat Staley and the Flat Annie he brought home with him!

We got into small groups to look at the photos and to read the letters carefully. A lot of us were interested in the differences in the buildings in the different countries. We noticed that the buildings in China were “bright and colourful”, “had layers”, “had lots of red and gold”, “had roofs that curved up at the ends”, "were lower and wider", and that many had “lanterns”. We noticed the half timbered houses in Germany and thought the wooden strips on the houses looked like zig zags and like the letters Z, A, and V. Jack also thought it was interesting that “the windows have lots of little windows in them” (lots of little panes). We thought both the Chinese and German buildings were very different to the photos of old castles that we have been seeing in Europe.

A building in Beijing in China

A half timbered house

Alice opening her parcel.

Alice showing us some Chinese writing including her name in Chinese.

Jack's au pair from last year sent us a powerpoint about where she lives in Germany and we watched this as a slideshow. We also got an email with some photos from Noah, who is away on holiday at the moment with his Flat Stanley. The photos were of Noah and his Flat Stanley with kangaroos and koalas in Australia. There was even a photo of them doing some jet skiing!

Today we also did some dance and movement stories. We danced the story of Racy Rabbit and the Slow Torotise. We also told the story of 2 mice who visit the zoo using our feet as the mice.

In the afternoon we had assembly and we watched lots of Kapa Haka performances by the year three and fours.

Maori Language Week

2010-07-29T13:57:00.000-07:00

Dissolving M & M's!

2010-07-27T21:56:00.000-07:00

First we saw the colour changing. Next we saw the water change into different colours. Day after day the water changed and the M & M's changed. Next we saw the water change colour. This happened because the water made it dissolve.
By Eliza

First we put 2 M & M's into 4 plastic cups. Georgie poured water in the cups. The M & M's made it colourful! because the M & M's dissolved.
By Henry

We put 2 M & M's in each cup. Georgie put the same amount of water into our cups to make it a fair test. First, the incredible M & M's in the cup changed the colour of the water. The M & M's dissolved into the water. Then.... the outside disappeared. Then there was chocolate black! The next day the chocolate black M & M's cracked slowly and there was white! Next we saw the M & M's change colour. This happened because the water made it dissolve!
By Olivia

Friday with Ms Gain

2010-07-23T00:16:00.000-07:00

Today we had lots of parcels to open, and emails to read, with news and photos about where some of our Flat Stanleys have been travelling. We shared the photos and news as a whole class and looked on the world map to see where the Flat Stanleys had been. Then we did some writing about some of the Flat Stanley adventures we had read about.

'Today a parcel came in the post and it was mine and it was about my Flat Stanley in France. My Flat Stanley saw BMX riders and Flat Stanley saw kite flyers.' Jasper.

'Today our class got some mail about Flat Stanley. My Aunty Julia sent some photos of my Flat Stanley in London. My Aunty took Flat Stanley to a fancy restaurant and he had mint tea.' Edward.

'Today our class got some mail about Edward's Flat Stanley's adventure. We got a parcel. The parcel was from London in the UK. In the parcel there was photos. Edward's Flat Stanley went to work on the underground train and up a skyscraper. He went to a restaurant and got an ice cream.' Oscar.

'Today in Room 2 we got mail about Edward's Flat Stanley adventure. We got an email and a parcel. It came from London. Some things that Flat Stanley went to were: up a skyscraper, to an ice cream shop, to a fancy restaurant, Buckingham Palace, to the Big Ben. He saw soldiers at Buckingham Palace dressed in red with their busby hats.' Olivia.

'Today our class got some mail about my Flat Stanley. It was from Korea. It was an email. My Flat Stanley has been working with my uncle. My Flat Stanley loves food and cafes and my uncle took him to one.' Holly.

'Today our class got some mail about Finn's Flat Stanley adventure. It came as an email. It came from Scotland. We saw some photos. One photo was a robot that looked like a tank. The robot takes bombs away. Flat Stanley saw the army [and the bomb disposal robot] in a really old castle called Edinburgh Castle.' Kahu

In the afternoon we did music and singing. We learnt lots of new action songs including 'Pussywillow', 'Riding in a Helicopter'. 'The Shaker Song', 'Flea Fly', '5 Current Buns in a Baker's Shop', and 'Ka Kite' a goodbye song in Te Reo Maori that we sang to finish off our day.

Inquiry

2010-07-20T17:34:00.000-07:00

Today we started our inquiry unit with a class brainstorm. We each shared an idea for how food can change.

Here are our thoughts.......

Bananas start as a plant and then turn green and then yellow. By Oscar
Bananas change from a plant, they are green and then yellow. When they get older they turn brown. By Georgie
A cake changes from an oven. By Olivia
Cookies change from the mixture to a cookie that you can eat. By Alice
Bread changes from dough and then you make it into a shape and then put it in the oven. It comes out as a bread loaf. By Bridie
Lemons change from green to yellow and then they get old and turn a bit brown. By Leon
Apples change, they start from a plant, they start off little. After a while they get big and turn red or green. By Rufus
Carrots start off as a plant and then they turn orange and you get to eat them. By Daniel
Carrots start off in the ground, they turn orange and you can pull them out. By Kahu
Pancakes start off as a mixture. You put the mixture on the frying pan. When they are ready on the outside they are cooked and then you can put stuff on them. By Finn
Pineapples start as a pineapple plant. They grow for a long time and then they get bigger and grow spikes. By Edward
Pears grow on a tree and then they get bigger and you can eat them. By Sam
Apples start from an apple tree and you can pick an apple and the seeds can come out and start another apple tree. By Jasper
Banana gets rotten from the sunlight. It turns brown and you can use it in a banana cake. By Henry
Tomatoes grow from a plant. It starts off green and then it turns red and then you can eat it. By Jack
Apples grow on an apple tree. You can pick them off. If you leave it for a long time they can get rotten. By Oliver
Strawberries start from a strawberry seed. It grows. It starts off green and as it gets bigger it goes red. By Holly
Banana starts off nice and green and then if you leave it for too long it goes yellow and brown. By Eliza

Maths

2010-07-19T20:29:00.001-07:00

This week in Maths we have been learning about length. We set personal benchmarks for 1 metre, 1/2 a metre and 1 centimetre. This is what we came up with:

1 metre is about 1 big stride
1 cm is the width of our finger or finger nail
1/2 a metre is an arms length.

We used our benchmarks to measure objects around the room e.g. a door frame, whiteboard duster, big book and table.

At home this week see if you can measure items around the house using a personal benchmark, report back to class!

For Number we have been learning to recognise 2 digit, 3 digit and 4 digit numbers. See if you can read these numbers to Mum and Dad,

72
34
18
97

567
432
123
809

3214
6788
9210
2467

Koru Collage

2010-07-19T20:24:00.001-07:00

This term in art we are using mixed media. We looked at some symbols in Maori Art. We drew our own Koru Design and then used block colours from magazines to collage it.

Here are some examples.

Friday with Ms Gain: The Flat Stanley Project

2010-06-26T01:07:00.001-07:00

In Room 2 today we had a lovely surprise when we received our first letter about a Flat Stanley adventure. Most of us have only just sent our Flat Stanleys away this week but Eliza had made a Flat Stanley at home all by herself and posted it to her grandparents in the United States of America a few weeks ago! The letter from her grandparents came all the way from Wyoming, one of the states in America. They sent us a letter full of interesting information and photos about this state and the state capital city Cheyenne.

We learnt about and saw photos of:

• Cowboys lassoing animals in rodeos,
• Indians dressed up in traditional costumes and dancing in a parade,
• Festivals with pancake breakfasts,
• Oil refineries (where they process oil)
• Railway trains (Cheyenne was originally a railroad town, and still is)
• The golden Capitol Dome (of the capital city building)
• Snowy Range Mountain, and
• Lake Marie (which Eliza visited when she was 3 years old).

Wyoming - One of the 50 States in America

A Cowboy in a Rodeo

Lake Marie and the Snowy Mountains

We then did some investigating about the United States of America. We learnt that this country is made up of 50 states (each state is like its own little country). We all found the state of Wyoming on our own maps of the United States of America using atlases and google maps on the data projector to help us. Some of us in Room 2 had heard of President Obama, the president of the United States of America. Lots of us were also curious to find out about what kinds of animals lived in the North American continent. We visited a fantastic website from an American Zoo (Smithsonian Zoo), where we looked at a photo gallery of animals in North America including:

• Bald eagles,
• Mexican wolves,
• Flamingos,
• Beavers,
• Otters,
• Gila Monsters (poisonous lizards),
• American Alligators, and
• Hummingbirds

The photo gallery has lots of information and photos of animals in the different continents, which we will explore in class as we learn more about the different countries and continents. You can visit this website at home by clicking on the link ‘Smithsonian Zoo’ under ‘The Flat Stanley Project’ on the right hand side of this blog page.

Dancing Raisins

2010-06-23T21:30:00.000-07:00

Some students in class told me about an experiment Room 11 did called Dancing Raisins, I was very intrigued so I looked on their blog and decided to do the experiment with Room 2. Those students who had not heard of the experiment were told we were going to put raisins in a jar of lemonade and in a jar of fanta, they had to go away and write a hypothesis. After they had written a hypothesis we did the experiment and discussed why the raisins danced! The students went away and wrote what they saw and explained why it happened.

Hypothesis:
I think the raising will dance or turn fizzy.
What I saw:
The carbon dioxide made the raisins go up and down.
Why it happened:
Because the carbon dioxide pushed the raisins up and down. It was so cool.
By Oscar

Hypothesis:
I think the raisins will go fizzy and mushy or dance.
What I saw:
They were going fizzy. There skin was going flat but they didn't look like raisins they looked like grapes.
Why it happened:
because the carbon dioxide pushed the raisins up and back down.
By Bridie

Hypothesis:
I think that the raisins will dissolve.
What I saw:
The raisins went up and down.
Why it happened:
Because the bubbles had carbon dioxide which made them go up and down.
By Rufus

Malaysia

2010-06-23T21:19:00.001-07:00

This week we have had two student teachers from Malaysia work alongside us. Their names were Qish and Nadia. They enjoyed being in Room 2 and teaching a small group about Malaysian Culture. The group reported back to the class.

We learnt how to say some things in Malay. This is what we learnt
Good Morning in Malay - Khabar Baik
How are You - Apa Khabar?
I'm fine - Khabar Baik

We got to see what a groom and bride would wear on their wedding day. We all agreed they were beautiful and even said we would wear them if we got married!
We compared Malaysia and New Zealand Christmas on a venn diagram. Some similarities were, we both have Christmas trees, decorations and Santa Claus.

Friday with Ms Gain: More Mapping and Music

2010-06-17T23:01:00.000-07:00

Today we read a story called ‘Possum Magic’ by Mem Fox, who is an Australian author. In this story 2 possums (Grandma Poss and Hush) travel around Australia in search of different types of food.

“They ate Anzac biscuits in Adelaide,
Mornay and minties in Melbourne,
Steak and salad in Sydney
And pumpkin scones in Brisbane….”

And in Darwin, “in the far north of Australia, […] they found a vegemite sandwhich.”

“Later in a beach in Perth, they ate a piece of pavlova” and
“In Hobart, late one night, in the kitchen of the casino, they saw a lamington on a plate. Hush close her eyes and nibbled”.

We used atlases to find all these Australian cities and put them on blank maps of Australia. We are becoming good at describing where cities are using the directions North, South, East, and West. We then drew some pictures of Australian animals that were mentioned in the book including: possums, koala bears, dingoes, wombats, emus, echindnas, kookaburras, kangaroos, and snakes.

Next we learnt about 2 important canals: The Panama Canal and the Suez Canal. The Panama Canal is between North and South America and allows a ship get from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean without having to go right around the bottom of South America. Then we looked at the Suez Canal, which is in Egypt and lets ships get from the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea and down to the Indian Ocean – what useful water passages!

After morning tea we went to the hall and did some music. We sat in a circle and everyone had percussion instruments. We had drums, castanets, claves, woodblocks, triangles, and bells. We then learnt a song about catching a turkey that has escaped from the barn. We used our instruments to help us sing along and at the end of the chorus we put our instruments down and ran around the circle singing “shoo turkey shoo shoo!”. When we stopped we picked up a new percussion instrument to play and did it again. It was a fun way to play lots of different instruments.

We also learnt a dance game called ‘Gold’ and ‘Silver’ where we held hands and danced in a line singing ‘London Bridge is Falling Down’. Two people were the bridge and the line of dancers danced through the gates until someone was caught as the bridge came down. When a dancer was caught they had to whisper to Ms Gain if they wanted to be ‘Gold’ or ‘Silver’ and she told them which of the two bridge holders to line up behind (no one knew till then which person was gold and which person was silver). It was lots of fun and ‘gold’ got the most people. In the olden days the two teams would have had a tug of war at the end but we just decided the team with the most people would win!

Junior Cross Country

2010-06-13T21:15:00.000-07:00

This morning, the junior syndicate walked down to Bishops Park to have our cross country race.
Mr Skilton and two very helpful Year 8 boys, Harry and Isaac did a superb job of setting up the course for us.
The teachers were very proud of all the students enthusiastic, positive attitudes they displayed.
Our place getters were:
Year 1 Boys
1st Oliver (Room 2)
2nd Ryan (Room 2)
3rd Kai Matthew (Room 4)

Year 1 Girls
1st Chelsea (Room 4)
2nd Evie (Room 4)
3rd Holly (Room 4)

Year 2 Boys
1st Patrick (Room 6)
2nd Theo Jones (Room 6)
3rd Chevron (Room 5)

Year 2 Girls
1st Ruby (Room 6)
2nd Samantha (Room 5)
3rd Leah (Room 6)

Friday: Geography and the Football World Cup

2010-06-10T21:04:00.000-07:00

BOB TALKING TO US

Today we had Leon’s dad Bob visit our class to talk to us about the Football World Cup, which starts this Sunday. We learnt a lot of interesting things from listening to Bob and asking him some questions. Here are some of the things we learned:

• Countries in each continent played many games of football (soccer) and the winning teams from each continent were chosen to go to the World Cup. Continents with more countries were allowed to send more teams. There are 32 different countries playing in the world cup.

• New Zealand is playing in the World Cup this year. The last time New Zealand qualified to play in the World Cup was in 1982 (28 years ago!).

• The New Zealand team is called the All Whites and the captain is Ryan Nelson.

• The names of the 32 countries were put into a hat and 4 pulled out at a time to decide which group they would be in. There are 8 groups all together (A, B, C, D, E, F, G, and H) and each country will play games against the countries in their own group first.

• New Zealand will play games against Slovakia, Italy, and Paraguay first. Italy won the world cup 4 years ago!

• The world cup is from June 12th to July 12th and there will be many games of football to decide who the best team is and who will get to play in the final.

• The world cup is a trophy made of solid gold (and very heavy!) and it is won by the best team, the team that wins in the final.

• The team that wins the cup get to keep it for 4 years.

We have put a chart on our classroom wall (on the PE display) to track who wins the different games and who will get to the final.

We then got into small groups and each group was given one of the World Cup groups of countries (A, B, C, D, E, F, G, and H). Each group had to find the four countries in their group on continent maps and then make the flag for each of the countries. We then put the flags on the class world map. We had to work together in our small groups, and as a whole class, to complete this activity, lots of careful listening, communicating, and co-operation!

MAPWORK

OUR FLAGS

GEOGRAPHY GAMES

Today we also played some geography games using our own continent maps that we made. We played ‘Around the World’ with geography questions and ‘Continent and Ocean Bingo’. Some teachers who came through our classroom were really impressed at the geography questions we knew the answers to!

Geography Bingo: We chose 5 places to put our counters on and then Ms Gain called out the names of different continents and oceans. If a continent or ocean was called out that we had a counter on we could take it off. The first person to remove all 5 counters won "BINGO!".

Around the World: We took turns to walk around the class and stand behind each person. At each person Ms Gain asked us a geography question, whoever got the right answer first got to keep moving 'around the world'. Some of us were hard to get out!

Painting

2010-06-09T21:20:00.000-07:00

The weather has been really cold so we decided to warm up Room 2 with some suns! We brainstormed all the things we knew about the sun, some of our ideas were:
It is a star
It has sun rays
It is hot
It is made up of hot rock
It is only seen in day time
It looks yellow and orange
It is very hot
It is a long way away
If we could touch it we would burn!
It keeps us warm

We used warm colours, yellow red and orange to paint a sun. We had to mix a small amount of red and yellow to make orange paint. Next week we will go around our sun rays with red pastel so it looks like our suns are shining down on us!

Being Brave!

2010-06-09T21:03:00.000-07:00

We are learning to (W.A.L.T.)
write a recount about a time we were brave

I was at Taupo. It all happened when I was on my scooter. I fell off my scooter, “ow”, I shouted. My blood was pouring down my knee. My Mum put a plaster on my knee. It hurt a little bit but it was a little bit better but in the morning it was all better. The next day I could take it off.
By Bridie

I went on a boat and I went on an island. I went up on a cliff and I jumped off it. I felt scared. I got to the bottom. I swam up on the boat and I didn’t cry. We went back in the boat. I was brave.
By Henry

I was with my Mum, Dad, Jazze and Maisie. I went up the stairs. Next I fell back down the stairs. Scratch, scratch, scratch, and scratch, bang, bang. I had loads of scratches. I cried only for a little while. I got no plasters. I was really brave.
By Noah

I was across the road. My brother was with me. He accidentally tripped my bike on me. I went to my Mum. I was very, very brave.
By Eliza

At the choir I tripped over in the mud. “Ow”, it hurt and it was bleeding. Someone picked me up. It was Brook. I went to Chilton Medical Room. After choir I told my Mum about it.
By Alice

When I was on the big playground I was playing with my fingers. Then there was a big gate. It fell on my leg. It fell on my right leg. I was with some girls and boys. I was in a wheel chair. I was brave.
By Kahu

I was in Christchurch and….”ow”, “ow”, “ow”. My knee, head and elbow were bleeding red blood. Mum had to pick me up. I was brave.
By Holly

I was at Leon's house playing inside. Then we thought we would play out side. We played on the tramp. Then Leon fell on the grass. Bang! Then I fell on Leon.
By Jasper

I was in McDonalds. I went in to the playground. Scratch! A nail hurt my back. Mum had to call an ambulance.
By Edward

When I was at home I was playing in the henhouse. I broke my arm. My Mum came running up. She was crying. She took me to the hospital. My arm was colourful because it had bruises.
By Georgie

Friday with Ms Gain

2010-06-06T00:53:00.000-07:00

Jasper's World Map Showing the Continents and Major Oceans.

Today we read a story called ‘Where’s Julius’ by John Birmingham. In this story a little boy called Julius is always too busy to come and eat meals with the family because he is off exploring in imagined places including ‘riding camels in Egypt’, ‘cooling hippos in Central Africa’, ‘watching the sun rise in Tibet’, and ‘throwing snowballs with wolves in Russia’. We used our atlases to find all these places and put them on our world map of the continents.

We then each got a different map, depending on what continent our Flat Stanley is going to, and highlighted the country where our Flat Stanley is going. We looked at the names of some of the other countries on our continent maps and talked about countries we had heard of before and ones which were new to us. Ms Gain also taught us how to play ‘Around the World’ with geography questions. Some of us are becoming real geography experts!

We now all have our own maps of the world, which we have coloured and labeled with the names of the continents and the major oceans. We are using these as part of our Flat Stanley project and mapping work. Next week we are going to use our maps to play geography bingo.

Music

Today we learnt some rhymes and tapped the rhythms on our fingers and danced them with our feet. We then tried out some of the rhythms we had tapped on our fingers using percussion instruments in pairs. We also tried clapping and playing rhythms of the names of some fruit and vegetables. We also learnt a song called ‘Good Day to You’ and imagined singing the song to ourselves in the mirror.

Singing to ourselves in our mirrors.

Mapping

Using percussion instruments

In the afternoon we went to the hall to watch a stage show called 'Jungle Bungle'. Some of us got to go up on stage and perform and we all got to join in with some of the songs in the show that we have been learning in class.

Friday And The Flat Stanley Project.

2010-05-30T21:20:00.001-07:00

This week we poured over maps and worked in groups to find information in atlases. We had an atlas treasure hunt where we had to use atlases to label outline maps of New Zealand, Australia, and Japan. We had to find out things including: the names of the 3 islands in New Zealand, where different major cities in Australia were, and the names of the four different islands that make up Japan. We are beginning to become real map reading experts!

We also addressed our own envelopes for posting our Flat Stanleys and we will be bringing them home to post this week.

Our Flat Stanleys - Ready for Adventure!

Heart Jam

2010-05-30T13:38:00.000-07:00

On Friday the Year 1 & 2's took part in New Zealand's Largest Aerobic Class!! Heart Jam. Thank you to all the children who brought a gold coin donation in support of Kiwi Kids with heart conditions!

Yummy Stickers

2010-05-25T21:49:00.000-07:00

Please bring along Yummy stickers to school and we can add to our chart, the more
stickers we get the more free sports equipment we can have for the school!!!

Frog life cycle

2010-05-25T21:43:00.000-07:00

We have been learning about the frog life cycle. We used the internet and books to locate information and have used what we found to write an explanation for how frogs change.

Frogs always change a lot in the life cycle. First the frog lays an egg. Next the egg hatches! Then the tadpole comes out. Then it grows back legs. Next it grows front legs. The the tail gets smaller and smaller. Finally it turns into a frog! Then the life cycle goes round again.

By Oscar

Frogs always change a lot in their life cycle. First the frog lays eggs. Some times the frog lays its eggs under a lilly pad but sometimes it does not. Next the tiny tadpole cracks its egg and comes out of its egg. It grows back legs and then front legs. Finally it turns into a frog.

By Bridie

Heart Jam

2010-05-25T21:40:00.000-07:00

This Friday at 10.00 the students will be partaking in Heart Jam which will be held in the hall.

Please remember to bring along a gold coin donation on Friday. Your donation will go towards babies who are born with a heart defect!

Thank you!!

Friday: Flat Stanley Project Update

2010-05-23T13:09:00.000-07:00

Oscar and Jack Mapping

Jasper Mapping

We now have most of our addresses for our Flat Stanley project and we are really excited about all the different places our Flat Stanleys are going! Today we continued to mark on our world map where our Flat Stanleys are going. We revised our continent knowledge and learned the names of the major oceans in the world too:

The North Pacific Ocean
The South Pacific Ocean
The North Atlantic Ocean
The South Atlantic Ocean
The Indian Ocean

We have all made a good copy of a world map that has been coloured and labelled with the names of the 7 continents and major oceans. Ms Gain is going to laminate them for us and we will be able to bring them home next week to share.

Today we also finished our letters. It is hoped that next Friday the Flat Stanleys will be in their addressed envelopes ready for adventure!

Water to ice

2010-05-19T21:04:00.000-07:00

We put water and green dye inside a glove and then put it inside the freezer. We discussed what would happen to the water. We knew it would turn to ice but wanted to find out why water changes into ice.
We found out everything living has particles called molecules. We used drama to learn about what happens to the molecules. Their are photos of us moving around quickly and then when we get cold we move slower and stick together to freeze.

We wrote some explanations here they are:

Why does water change into ice?
We put green dye and water in a glove. The molecules started to slowly cuddle up into ice.
By Georgie

Why does water change into ice?
First the molecules start off fast. When you switch the tap on the molecules start to go. When you put the water in the freezer the molecules go slow.
By Rufus

Why does water change into ice?
The molecules move fast to stop them from freezing but when it gets put in the freezer it gets cold and the molecules all freeze to death and they stick together.
By Noah

Why does water change into ice?
The molecules start to stick together.
By Sam

Wish bone in Vinegar update!

2010-05-10T22:01:00.000-07:00

What we did:
We put some vinegar in a container but before we put it in we put a wishbone in. I think it will turn into ice cream. It was fun. After a lot of days we checked it but it didn’t turn to ice cream at all it turned soft and squishy.

By Holly

We poured the vinegar into the bowl. Next we put the wishbone into the container. I think it will grow more skin. After 7 days it felt spongy and it smelt like vinegar!

By Rufus

What we did was put some white vinegar and we put a wishbone into the vinegar. I think the wishbone will grow some skin and it is growing some skin! It’s white skin very white skin. After 7 days we felt it and it felt like a rubber band and it was soft.

By Leon

We put some white vinegar in a container. Next we put a wishbone in and left it for 7 days.
What I think will happen:
It will go white.
After 7 days we checked it. It felt slimy and soggy.

By Bridie

What we did:
We put the wishbone in the container. Next we left the wishbone.
What I think will happen:
I think it will grow new skin.
After 7 days we checked it and it was slimy.

By Edward

Friday And The Flat Stanley Project

2010-05-09T20:17:00.000-07:00

On Friday we started learning about the different continents in the world. We learnt that there are 7 major land areas in the world called continents. The continents are:

Australasia (where New Zealand is)
Europe
Asia
Africa
North America
South America
Antarctica

We coloured in the continents on world maps and played Geospy, which is a game on the kids National Geographic website that tests you on your knowledge of the continents and countries. The link for this game is on the right hand side tool bar of this blog page if you want to try it at home!

We looked at some of the addresses that people have brought in so far and started to find these places on our map. We finished our Flat Stanleys and wrote a letter as a whole class to go in the envelope with our Flat Stanley to explain what we want people to do. This week we will address our envelopes and publish our letters. Then we will be ready to post our Flat Stanleys. We are all looking forward to learning more about the countries in the world through our Flat Stanleys' adventures.

Learning spelling words made fun!

2010-05-06T20:16:00.000-07:00

Here are some ways you can help your child study their spelling words! If they choose one a night they will be ready for Friday’s spelling test!

Type ‘Em - Type all of your spelling words on the computer you can even email them to me!

Fancy Letters - Use old magazines, or newspapers to cut out letters and glue them down to spell your words!

Spelling Baseball - Draw four bases on a piece of paper or set up four chairs to be the bases. Pitcher selects a word. If batter can spell it correctly, he moves forward one base. If batter cannot spell word, he remains where he is. Child receives point every time he passes home base.

Spelling Bingo

Snowman or Scarecrow (Hangman) - Draw a snowman with a hat and three buttons. Play like hangman (don't forget to draw the lines to show how many letters the chosen word has), but show a part of the snowman for each guess. The object is to guess the word before the snowman melts.

Water Wash - (Warm day required!) Use a paintbrush and water to write your words on the sidewalk!

Trace Around - Print one of your spelling words neatly. Take a colored pen and draw an outline around the word, closely following the shapes of the letters. Close your eyes and remember the shape. Now try to write the word.

ABC Order - Write your words in alphabetical order. Then write them in reverse alphabetical order.

Riddle Me - Write a riddle for each word.

Connect the Dots - Make a square of 4 rows of dots with 4 dots in each row. Before taking a turn, the player must spell a spelling word. If the word is correct, he connects two dots. When a player forms a square, he can write his initials in the box. Player with most squares at the end wins.

Story, Story - Write a story using ALL of your spelling words.

Sentence Please - Write a sentence for each spelling word.

Colourful Words - Use two different colour pens to write your spelling words. Use one colour to write the consonants and the other for the vowels. Do this one more time. Close your eyes and picture the word in your mind. Now try and write the word with just one colour.

Word search - Make a word search puzzle. Do it online here!

Memory Game - Make pairs of word cards. Flip them over and try to match the pairs!

Finger Tracing - Use your finger to spell out each of your words one letter at a time on your Mom or Dad’s back. Then it’s YOUR turn to feel and spell.

Practice Test - Take a practice test (this is especially good on Thursday night before the REAL test!)

Scrabble - Use Scrabble tiles to spell your words.

Sings Them Loud, Sing Them Soft - Have your Mom or Dad sing the letters of a spelling word to you in a loud voice. You echo the spelling and then sing it again softly. Now BOTH of you sing the word in the voice you choose!

Alliterations - Do any of your spelling words begin with the same sound? Even if they don't, you can write alliterations for them!

Stair steps - Write words as if they are stairs, adding one letter each time

Rainbow Words - Write a spelling word with your pencil. Now trace around the outside with a crayon, hugging the same but not touching the letters. Pick two other crayons to continue tracing outward!

Volcano eruption!

2010-05-03T21:12:00.000-07:00

Room 2 and Room 4 put on their green hats (creative thinking) and became scientists!

We made our own volcano and created a chemical reaction (chemical change) by adding food colouring, liquid detergent, baking soda, vinegar and water. After mixing the baking soda and vinegar we watched the chemical reaction, green lava fizzed and bubbled out the top!!

We are interested in finding out why mixing baking soda and vinegar creates a chemical reaction.

We wrote explanations about what happened to the baking soda and vinegar:
When the vinegar mixes with the baking soda a gas is formed called carbon dioxide and the bubbles push the "lava" out the volcano.

Friday with Ms Gain

2010-04-30T15:35:00.000-07:00

PEAK DALE FARM BOOK STUDY

Corridor of Thought

Our Class Map of Peak Dale Farm

FLAT STANLEY PROJECT

Stanley is Flattened by a Bulletin Board

Flat Stanley Folds Himself up in an Envelope

Flat Stanley is Posted Away for an Adventure

FACES OF ROOM 2

PEAK DALE FARM BOOK STUDY

This morning Ms Gain started reading us a chapter book called ‘A Calf Called Valentine’. We worked together as a class to recall how the author had described the farm and some of us took turns to scribe the information. Others in the class gave their ideas to the scribes and some helped with sounding out words. We then made a class collective map of the book’s setting: Peak Dale Farm. We all made different things to go on our map using information from the book. Our farm had a farmhouse, a red tractor, 2 barns, cows, sheep, a horse called Silver, chickens, owls in trees, a croft, fields, a river that went past, and an old stony bridge.

We then talked about the different characters in the story. We made a list of all the characters and then we made a Role on the Wall for the character Anna. We drew a picture of Anna and on the outside of her body we wrote things about what she looked like. On the inside of her body we wrote words that described how she felt when she arrived at Peak Dale Farm. We then made a corridor of thought where we stood in two lines facing each other. One person walked down the middle and, as they walked past each person in the corridor, they spoke aloud thoughts that may have been running through Anna’s head on her first day at Peak Dale Farm. We all thought of one thought that Anna might be thinking and then spoke it aloud in the corridor of thought. Here are some of thoughts that were spoken aloud:

“I miss my mum”

“I want to go home”

“This is house is scary”

“Its dark”

“Its cold”

“I wish I was at home”

“The stairs are creaky, I’m scared”

“I don’t want to stay here”

“I wish I could see my mum”

“This place is strange”

ENRICHMENT

On every second Friday this term we will be doing Enrichment for one hour before lunch. For Enrichment we get to work with different children and teachers in the junior syndicate. We are all in different Enrichment groups, which are a mixture of children from all the different junior classes from new entrants to year 2. In Enrichment we get to do art, music, drama, singing, and more!

FLAT STANLEY PROJECT

Back in Room 2 with Ms Gain after lunch, we started a Flat Stanley project. Flat Stanley is a book by Jeff Brown about a boy named Stanley who is flattened by a bulletin board and becomes as flat as a pancake. Because he is flat he is able to fold up and travel in an envelope, and in this way he travels around the world on lots of adventures. We are each making our own Flat Stanley to post away in an envelope to someone we know in a different city/country. We are looking forward to hearing about the adventures our Flat Stanley will go on and seeing photos of him travelling in a different city. Flat Stanley will help us learn all about interesting places all around the world.

ALSO….

Come and see the photos of all the faces in Room 2, today we put them on the wall in our atelier.

Wish bone in Vinegar

2010-04-29T19:21:00.000-07:00

On Thursday we put a wishbone in vinegar to see what changes will take place. We will leave it for one week then take it out to have a look and a feel!

We discussed and wrote about what we think will happen. These were some of our ideas, the wishbone will change colour, new skin will grow, it will disappear, it will shrink and it will go soft.

We will blog what happens!!

Changes Chemistry Experiment

2010-04-26T20:37:00.000-07:00

Can something be a solid and a liquid at the same time? Sounds impossible! What do you think?
Some of the class didn’t think so whereas some related it to the concept of water being a liquid then freezing into a solid and then melting back to liquid so thought it was possible.

EXPERIMENT

What we used:
Corn flour
Water

What we did:
1. Placed a cup of cornflour into a large bowl.
2. Added about ½ a cup of water and mixed to a thick paste
3. The power is solid. The water is liquid. Do you think the mixture will be a solid or a liquid?
4. Actually, it was both! With our hands we grabbed a handful of mixture. It became firm. As soon as we stopped rolling it in our hands we watched it turn back to liquid.

What happens
As it is in the bowl the mixture is liquid. It’s only water with powder floating in it. However when we roll it, the water molecules are forced into the middle of each grain of powder so the mixture becomes solid.

Learning about ANZAC Day with Ms Gain

2010-04-23T21:47:00.000-07:00

Today there were lots of people wearing red poppies and the whole school had a special ANZAC day assembly. In class we talked about why people wear red poppies and what ANZAC day was about. We brainstormed what we knew about ANZAC day and decided we knew a little bit about it but we wanted to find out more.

What we knew:

-There is a type of biscuit called an ANZAC biscuit.

-On ANZAC day you wear red poppies

-On ANZAC day you remember and thank the people who fought in the war (only a couple of us knew this).

We read a story called ‘My Grandad Marches on ANZAC Day’, which was about a little girl who gets up very early, at dawn, on ANZAC day to watch her Grandad march in a parade. We then came up with some questions.

Our questions and some answers that we found:

1. What is memorial? (some of us thought it was a shop or a church)

A place where you remember something important that has happened. It might be a statue, a tree, a building, or a special sign.

2. What is a bugle? (mentioned in the story we read)

It is a musical instrument like a trumpet.

3. What do you do on ANZAC day?

You can go to a dawn ceremony and parade where soldiers who have fought in wars and their families march to remember everyone who fought and helped in the war. You can buy and wear a red poppy to remember also and the money you use to buy the poppy helps the army and people who have fought in wars.

4. Why do we wear red poppies?

Red poppies grew on the fields where soldiers in the first world war fought.

5. What does ANZAC stand for?

Australia and New Zealand Army Corps

6. How do people marching in the parade feel?

Happy because the war is finished. Sad when they remember the war and how hard it was and how many people died. Proud to have fought in the war and kept their country safe.

7. Who was in the war?/ Were girls allowed in the war?

There were soldiers who fought and people who looked after the soldiers, like medical people.Girls were not allowed in the first world war but helped more in the second world war, but not as soldiers. There were also animals who helped in the war and even some who won medals! We were really surprised that there were animals in the war so we looked at some animals that helped in the war.

We learnt about donkeys who helped carry water to soldiers who needed it on the field after fighting and also helped carry soldiers that had been badly hurt back to their home bases so they could be helped by doctors.

We also learnt about carrier pigeons that helped soldiers who needed help in the fields to get emergency messages to their home bases. Here is what we learnt:

Pigeons can fly home without any person pointing out the way.

Rufus.

Pigeons carried notes to help people in the war.

Noah.

Pigeons can save people.

Holly.

There was a pigeon called Cher Ami. She won a medal for flying bravely even though she got wounded.

Bridie.

The notes are tied onto the pigeon’s leg.

Sam.

Notes were put in small inch sized containers.

Bridie.

Pigeons take messages to the men at home base.

Georgi.

Pigeons can fly to your home without out pointing to your house.

Henry.

In the photo you can see our pigeons we drew. We tried writing small notes to our own homes, imagining that we had our own carrier pigeon in class with us who we could release and would then fly home with a message. We rolled up our small notes and attached them to our pigeons’ legs. We also visited Room 3 to show them our pigeons and told them about what we had learnt. Some of the messages we tied onto our pigeons:

Mum, come back for another hug

Georgi

I forgot my lunch, please bring it.

Alana

Don’t forget I’m having Muritai Munchies on Friday.

Leon

I love you all

Daniel

Mum, how about I watch TV tonight, Jetro

Oscar

To mum, I will see you at school when school ends

love from Bridie.

Hi Mum. Thank you for doing my spelling this morning.

Jack.

Hi Tabbie and Suzi

Knock knock

Who’s there

Don’t

Don’t who?

Don’t forget to pick me up.

Kahu.

Mum, how about we have pizza for tea.

Edward.

Mum, please can I go home at lunch tomorrow?

Noah.

Sam, Mum, and Dad.

I love you mad! With lots of love,

Olivia.

Painting

2010-04-20T21:47:00.000-07:00

We have been learning to mix two primary colours ( red, blue and yellow) together to make a secondary colour.
Here are some photos of our colourful flowers!

Come into Room 2 and check out the rest of our beautiful flowers!

Photo Booth

2010-04-20T21:43:00.000-07:00

We used Photo Booth on the laptops to experiment taking photos of ourselves, we had a lot of fun! Here are some photos of us

Eastbourne Fire Station Visit

2010-04-15T20:08:00.000-07:00

On Friday we walked to the fire station. I saw a huge fire truck! Everybody got a turn inside the fire truck. I heard people chatting about how big it was. It was giant! We got a good go at the hose. The water went so wide that I squirted one of the cars! It was so funny because there was water all over the car! I squirted the teacher as well! She was so wet! She ran and ran and ran. She stood on top of a chair and ducked into the garden. Finally we walked to our class.

By Olivia

We walked to the fire station and we had a turn of the hose. We went into the fire engine. Then we went inside and we talked about fire alarms and we got a bag. We went back to school and did handwriting. Finally we had lunch.

By Kahu

Assembly

2010-03-24T20:23:00.000-07:00

This week Room 2 hosted assembly. Kahu and Olivia were our two assembly hosts. A few children stood up and shared their What am I? writing. The audience had to guess what living thing they were describing. Our What am I? writing is on the wall in our class, come and read them and then guess what is being described. You can check you have the right answer by lifting up the writing to see the drawing of the living thing!

Before our assembly we talked about ways we could get the "best class behaviour bear" and guess what, we got it!!!! We were so happy with each other for being the "best we could be" WELL DONE!

Fire Safety

2010-03-22T19:57:00.000-07:00

We wanted to find out the answers to the following questions:

How do you know there is a fire?
What do you do if there is a fire in your house or in your classroom?

We went on a fire exit hunt. We walked around the school and made a tally chart of all the fire exits we passed. Then we used our green hat thinking (creative thinking) to draw our own fire exit sign, we made sure it was big and colourful so people could easily identify it!

In groups we discussed and made a list of ways to identify a fire, these are some signs we know that there is a fire:
Smoke
Smell
Smoke alarms beeping
Someone calling out "Fire, Fire"

We dramatised what to do if there is a fire in our house or in our classroom. Here are some photos of us lying down and crawling underneath the smoke to the nearest fire exit, if our clothes are on fire, we stop, drop and roll.

Butterflies

2010-03-22T19:39:00.000-07:00

We have been so excited watching the caterpillars on our swan plant. We have seen amazing things!! We saw caterpillars getting fatter from eating the leaves, then hanging up side down and making a pupa. We watched the pupa change colour from green to black. After about 9 days we watched a butterfly emerge from the shell and flap its wet wings so they would dry. When the butterfly had dried its wings we released it outside to fly away!

Inquiry

2010-03-15T20:06:00.000-07:00

On Monday two lifeguards from Eastbourne swimming pool came and visited us. They talked to us about water safety and about being a life guard.

In our class we brainstormed other times we have to be safe. We were interested in fire fighters and ways we can prevent and stay safe around fires.
Some questions we want to explore the answers to are: What do fire fighters do? How do fires start? What do we do at school and at home if there is a fire? What do fire fighters wear? What do fire fighters need to put out a fire? What do you do if there is a fire behind you? What happens if there is a giant fire? How many fire engines do you need in a giant fire? How do you know if there is a fire? What happens if you are in a burning building?

Our class will be using books, a visit to the fire station and the computer to find answers to our questions. If you find any information at home to help us answer these questions please send them along to school!

Number, Geometry and Measurement

2010-03-11T18:14:00.000-08:00

Number
We have been focusing on number recognition to 100 and numbers before, after and between to 100. We would love to practice this at home!

Shape

We have been learning to;

Identify and Describe 2D shapes according to how many sides and corners they have.
Discuss differences and likenesses of the shapes
explore, experiment and talk about the form and function of the shapes in their own language

The students used a range of 2D shapes including, triangle, square, circle, oval, pentagon, hexagon and diamond to draw a person.
At home, have a game of I spy a shape for students to practice describing and locating shapes e.g. objects around home and food.

Seaweek 7th-14th March

2010-03-09T18:36:00.001-08:00

This week is Seaweek - a celebration of our living ocean.

We brainstormed all the things that we thought of when we heard it was Seaweek. Then we wrote a sentence about what makes the sea special for us.

The sea is special because you and me can see the fish. By Holly
The sea is special because I can see the fish in the water. By Eliza
The sea is special because I like looking at the dolphins. By Alice
The sea is special because I can see the whales. By Henry
The sea is special because I like swimming in it. By Leon
The sea is special because I can see fish and hermet crabs. By Finn
The sea is special because I can see jelly fish in the sea. By Edward
The sea is special because I like looking at the dolphins. By Olivia
The sea is special because it is fun to swim. By Bridie
The sea is special because I like fishing. By Noah
The sea is special because I jump off the wharf with my Dad.By Oscar
The sea is special because I eat fish & chips there. By Ryan
The sea is special because I see fish. By Georgie
The sea is special because there are squids. By Sam
The sea is special because I like going to visit. By Sophia
The sea is special because I love the fish. By Alana
The sea is special because you can find paua shell. By Rufus
The sea is special because there are octopus. By Oliver
The sea is special because I can see a whale. By Jack

We drew an octopus sea picture. There are some photos of our pictures at the top of the page. Come and check out our finished product in the class!

Swimming

2010-03-09T10:53:00.000-08:00

The 10th of March will be our last swimming session for this term

Our visitor - Radha Sahah

2010-03-04T16:11:00.000-08:00

Today we had Radha Sahah visit us. She is a very talented singer/song writer. She has written a lot of the Kiwi Kids songs we love to sing in junior assembly and in our own classes.

We sung a few songs with Radha and she taught us how to use expression in our singing through the use of loud and soft voices. Some songs we sung and danced to were, Hey Crocodile and Copy Cat Rap. We made up some of our own verses for 2-legged mice, which was fun. We got to play some instruments while we sung.

We asked Radha some questions. One question we asked was “Why do you write songs” she replied with, because they bubble up inside me and make me feel happy and I hope they make other people feel happy. They certainly make us feel happy when we sing them!

Bridie thanked Radha for sharing her songs and having fun with us.
We all used our best manners and are looking forward to welcoming another visitor to our class!

New Students

2010-02-28T18:35:00.000-08:00

Welcome Eliza and Oliver to Room 2!

Sun Safety

2010-02-28T18:30:00.000-08:00

We used our green hat thinking (creative thinking) to make a beach bag. Mrs Cody gave us a piece of material and we had to design and make our own bag. We were given a choice of 20 items to put in our beach bag to take to the beach. We were asked to choose 6 of the items. We had to think carefully about what to take so we would be safe in the sun. We chose wisely! Some of the things we took were, sun lotion, sun hat, glasses, drink bottle, lunch and a t-shirt.

Road Safety with Constable Julie

2010-02-21T10:52:00.001-08:00

Questions for Constable Julie.

Constable Julie visited Room 2 on Friday 19th of February with her teddy bear friend ‘Officer Ted’. We got to have turns holding Officer Ted while we asked Constable Julie some questions about road safety, which we had been thinking about in class. Here are some of the questions we asked Constable Julie’s and her answers.

• How do traffic lights work?
-There are pressure pads under the road that measure how much traffic there is. This makes the lights work. Some lights will turn red to make traffic stop and other lights will turn green to let traffic go. The lights are designed to only let one lot of traffic go at a time to stop cars having crashes.

• Why do we have to walk on the footpath?
-the footpath is a safe place for people to walk.
-you are not allowed to ride your bicycle on the footpath.

• Why do you have to watch before you cross the road?
-You have to stop, look, and listen otherwise you might end up squished like a hedgehog or possum.

• Why do cyclists have to ride on the road?
-It is not safe for people walking if cyclists are on the footpath.
-If you are cycling on the road and are under 10 years old you have to have someone with you who is 10 years or older.

• What makes people crash?
-not allowed to use cell phones when driving now because they caused a lot of crashes.
-people not concentrating, being tired or distracted
-people reading maps or not looking at the road
-people driving too fast. Not allowed to drive faster than the speed signs even if you have a super duper-racing car!

• Why do we have to wear seatbelts?
-You have to make it click.
-If you are not buckled in and you are in a crash you can go flying out the window and get very hurt, a bit like a squished hedgehog or possum.

If you’re in the front seat
Or if you’re in the back
Click goes your seatbelt
Before you hit the track….

Traffic means anything that goes on the road! Not just cars but trucks, vans, bicycles, motorbikes etc….

Buddies

2010-02-16T16:14:00.000-08:00

As part of our fitness programme we have been learning small ball skills. Our lovely Room 13 buddies helped us by demonstrating and guiding us how to throw an overarm and underarm pass. We also practiced rolling and catching a ball. It was a lot of fun!

2010-02-11T17:46:00.000-08:00

Greedy Cat Descriptions
W.A.L.T. (we are learning to)

Describe a character so the reader can close their eyes and imagine what the character looks like

Use full stops and capital letters

Greedy cat is really greedy. His fur is scruffy and soft. He sneaks up and eats. He is fat. He always meows. He likes to play. Underneath his chin his fur is white. He has long whiskers. He ate all the sausages.

By Olivia

Greedy Cat is greedy. Katie is his friend. Greedy cat is fat. He is mean because he eats everything.

By Daniel

Greedy cat is greedy. She meows and meows and meows but nobody lets Greedy Cat have anything.

By Sophia

Greedy Cat is greedy she likes to sit by the fridge door and meows and meows. Greedy cat likes Katie. Nobody gave her food. Greedy cat likes food.

By Georgie

Greedy Cat is so greedy. He is fat. He always eats. He had ginger fur. He is very naughty.

By Leon

Greedy Cat is sneaky. He has ginger fur. He sneaks good snacks and he is hungry. Greedy Cat’s fat. He’s as big as Katie. No one will give him some food but Katie will because he is her friend.

By Kahu

Mathematics

2010-02-10T18:27:00.000-08:00

We are learning numbers before 1 to 20, we would love to practice at home!

We are also learning about tally charts, pictographs and bar graphs. Today we used the food in our lunch boxes to make a tally chart. We remembered 4 lines and a line through the middle represents 5!

2010-02-08T16:21:00.000-08:00

This term we are investigating different ways we stay safe, in the sun, in our classroom, around the playground, on the road and in the water.

Enjoy the links on our blog which relate to our inquiry

Swimming

2010-02-07T21:54:00.000-08:00

Room 2 will be swimming on Wednesdays so don't forget your togs and a towel!

Our wonderful 2010 Room 2 class!

2010-02-07T14:07:00.001-08:00

"Wonderful Wheels"

2009-12-13T17:10:00.000-08:00

Today we got to bring our toys and ride around on the courts. We were very careful of one another and did not hurt ourselves. We had lots of fun!
By Room 2

Junior Christmas Concert

2009-12-13T12:25:00.001-08:00

E.O.T.C.

2009-12-08T16:55:00.000-08:00

We have been having education outside the classroom!

Our Year 0-2 athletics was an enjoyable event where students participated in 6 events, shotput, sprints, javelin, high jump, long jump and quoits. The students put in a lot of effort using skills they have been learning with their teachers.

Kelly Sports came to our school. The students were put into 14 teams and played 7 different games. Luckily the rain stayed away until prize giving which we had in Room 5.

As we have been learning about our body we were interested to visit the exhibition "Tickle my Senses" at the Dowse Art Gallery. We got to use our 5 senses to explore art. After our workshop we went to the library where we got to go into a "secret room", this was where we saw what happens to the books people return.

Check out some photos from our E.O.T.C.!

Twit Characters

2009-11-29T17:48:00.000-08:00

We used modeling clay to make a character from The Twits by Roald Dahl. We worked co-operatively to share the clay.

3D art

2009-11-19T19:33:00.000-08:00

This term we are learning to use a range of materials to create a 3D structure.

We had a look at some art from Alberto Giacometti and decided to make a 3D athlete. We got into small groups and discussed what sport we wanted the person to be doing. Together we twisted the paper and used masking tape then we covered it with tin foil.

Can you tell what athletic sports they are doing?

HANGI

2009-11-19T19:27:00.000-08:00

On the far field on Friday near the far corner on the right we had a hangi. The smell was good, when I ate it it tasted even better. I ate it all up. Next my teacher took me to the bin. Next I went to get my hat then I ran back to the field. After eating a fire engine came and squirted the hot metal. When the fire engine had gone it lifted up the metal.

By Ben

On Friday we had a hangi. At 5.00 in the morning we dug a hole. It was on the far field. Mrs Gain lead us to the table. The food smelt delicious. We sat on the far field. The food was delicious!

By Tom

On Friday we had a celebration for the Green Gold Environmental award. Also we had a hangi on the far field. The food smelt like chicken. When we ordered a meal we went and sat with our friends. It tasted delicious. I want a hangi again!

By Pra-wa

At the hangi I tried my food. It was lovely. I had pork. Then our teachers took us back to our classrooms to do maths. Well I thought maths but no we were having lunch. I liked the hangi. It was my favourite part of the day. I hope we will have another one!

By Luke

On Friday we had a hangi on the far field. There was heaps of food. I had a chicken drumstick and vegetables. At the end we saw the fire fighters truck to put out the hangi. I felt superb!

By Theo

We started at 5.00 in the morning. Then at lunch time it was prepared for us to eat. We waited with our plates and cutlery. We got served. We sat down to eat. I ate a chicken drumstick. It smelt delicious. Then the fire truck came. I felt so full after the hangi.

By Grace

Poems about our Mums

2009-11-18T19:41:00.000-08:00

W.A.L.T. we are learning to use a simile to write a poem. A simile needs the words like or as.

W.I.L.F. one simile, adjectives and 4 sentences

My Mum By Millie

My Mum is like a star
She sparkles at night when she kisses me.
Her lips shine.
Her face glows.
When she comes out on the deck it looks like she is flying.

My Mum by Grace

My Mum is like a love bird.
Her back is like a tail.
When I hold her hand she feels soft.
I love my Mum so much.
She's very beautiful.

My Mum by Lachlan

My Mum is as beautiful as a butterfly.
When my Mum goes out side she sparkles in the sky.
When she tucks me in at night she is beautiful.

My Mum by Theo

My Mum is like a racing car.
Shes as bright as a racing car lights.
Shes as fast as a racing car.
Shes cool like a racing car.
Shes as loud as a racing car.

My Mum by Thomas

My Mum is like a star.
She twinkles.
She cooks heaven food.
Her smiles shines.
She glows through the night.

Reading

2009-11-12T11:58:00.000-08:00

Our teacher is reading the Twits By Roald Dahl to us. We are enjoying listening to all the tricks the Twits get up to!

Kapahaka

2009-10-29T19:41:00.001-07:00

Once a week for 5 weeks the junior syndicate are very lucky to have Kapahaka with Mr Chadwick.
The photos show what happened this week. Some of the senior boys taught the junior boys how to do the haka. The girls learnt a Maori song alongside using a poi. Each group got to share in front of others. Both the teachers and students enjoyed watching one another!

Sunflowers

2009-10-15T18:01:00.000-07:00

Vincent Van Gogh

This week we have been looking at Vincent Van Goghs Sunflowers and talking about his painting style. Grace brought along a book from home which had many of Vincent Van Goghs paintings in them. The students enjoyed looking at these.
We decided to paint our own to use for our calendar art.
We hope you buy a calendar and our artwork brightens up your days!

Rarotongan Flowers

2009-09-21T21:33:00.000-07:00

We drew some Rarotongan flowers using two pastel colours which complimented one another. We blended the two colours together. We used white crayon and green dye to draw leaves and then attached them to our flower.

Writing

2009-09-15T16:48:00.000-07:00

We have been innovating text books. We innovated Where the Wild Things are. We had to use adjectives, nouns and verbs to add interest to our writing. We are also learning how to vary the way we begin and join sentences.

Where the Wild Things Are by Renee

It was a sunny Sunday and I was in my bedroom because I broke Mum's vacuum cleaner. Suddenly my room turned into a jungle and then there was a swing. I went on the swing and it was so much fun. I jumped off the swing and landed on a tree branch. I jumped of the tree branch and then I was on a big butterfly. I went on the big butterfly and it could not hurt me but.... it could fly very high! The big butterfly landed on the ground. The big butterfly flew away. Next I saw hundreds and thousands of butterflies everywhere in the sky. I got a net and caught a very pretty butterfly and I said let the butterfly party begin. One little butterfly danced. Suddenly I was in my bed and there waiting for me was my lunch and it was still hot.

Where the Wild Things are by Ben

It was a Monday night Alex was breaking glass then he made Mum clean it up so he got sent to his room. Suddenly Alex's room turned into a lake. There waiting for him was a jet plane. Yikes a witch. Alex tamed them with a magic trick. Let the party begin. The witches did magic. Alex was lonely he missed some one very much so he got back in his Jet Plane and he flew back. When he got home he saw his dinner and it was still hot!

Where the Wild Things are by Tom

It was a stormy Monday night when Tom was sent to his room for hitting his sister with hard rocks. In his bedroom a forest grew and grew until.... there were no holes in Tom's bedroom. He ran until he came across the biggest lake in the world. Tom went on water skies to a island. There on the island were monsters. The monsters showed their horrible claws. The monsters thought for a minute to make Tom king of all the monsters. Tom said the monster dance begins. Tom sneaked on to his water skis to his forest where his dinner was still hot.

Where the Wild Things are by Millie

It was a sunny morning on Sunday. My Mum said "go out side Millie". "No". I started throwing soccer balls at my Mum. I got sent to my room. When I woke up my room turned into a palace. A whale came I hopped on the whale. The whale took me to a island. I met mermaids. They splashed and turned on the rocks. They made me Queen of the mermaids. I said let the party begin. The mermaids splashed and turned on the rocks and flipped and rolled. I said Stop. I sent them to bed with out dinner. I did not want to be there I said I want to go home. I saw my dinner and it was still hot!

Maths

2009-08-24T21:56:00.001-07:00

We are learning about Money. We are able to recognise NZ coins and their values. We have been using role play to purchase items using different coins to pay for the item e.g. We paid for a 50c apple using two 20c coins and one 10c coin or using one 50c coin. We would love to practice coin totals at home this week!

Te Reo

2009-08-13T19:54:00.000-07:00

We have been learning new songs and actions in Te Reo this week. One song we have been learning in class are the Maori days of the week. Here they are:
Rahina - Monday
Ratu - Tuesday
Raapa - Wednesday
Rapare - Thursday
Ramere - Friday
Rahoroi - Saturday
Ratapu - Sunday

Today we visited the senior school to watch the kapa haka group perform a powhiri. It was very exciting for us to watch the actions and listen to the singing!