Test Video

Kid President's Pep Talk to Teachers and Students! We're all teachers and students!

Room 12 Makeover.

Yesterday morning the builders came to school to start building the new deck for room 12. Their class is going to be rebuilt to be flash like our class. We really like watching the builders do their work. We think the children in that class next year are real lucky!

Thanks Grace for the photos.

Using Book Creator

We used book creator in class this week to write our stories. It is fun to use book creator because you get to take pictures with the camera and write amazing stories. We all look forward to having our turn to make a book creator story in class. If you want to read our stories you can come to our class  - we would love to see you.

Room 13

 

SOLO taxonomy explained using Lego - Yay Lego!

What is SOLO? My child is talking about prestructural and multistructural learning... help!
No need to worry, here is a short video to help explain some of the learning we will be doing in class over the term, I hope you enjoy and don't forget to feedback!

Off to the Museum.

Our class was lucky enough to go and see the Lynley Dodd exhibition at the Nelson Museum.

 We had lots of fun learning about Lynley's books and the characters in them.

 We enjoyed listening to a Lynley Dodd story.

 Then we got to do our own art and draw our favorite character - we did some amazing art, pop into class some time and check it out!

Stunning Art!

We have had an awesome start to this term. So far we have finished our family kowhaiwhai panels. These panels are special to us as each of them is unique and tells a special story about our families. Here are a few but you really should pop in to see the rest as they are all amazing! Our next art project is some Maui and the Sun themed paper mache - keep an eye on our blog and see how we get on.

Lifes a Mudflat.

As part of our learning about different environments we went for a visit to the rocky shore and mudflats across from our school.

 We had lots of fun exploring and looking at the different creatures that live in and have adapted to live in this environment.

 We found many different types of animals, and two different types of crabs.

 The day was perfect.

Tis the season...

to be picking olives! Yay. It was that time of year not that long ago and we got to get out and get busy helping with harvesting this years crop of olives.

The junior school had lots of fun working together, we had never seen so many olives! It was a real bumper crop this year.

 All the olives have now gone to the press for squeezing. The oil will be back in a few months when it has had time to settle and be bottled - Yum we can't wait! 

New Math Homework

Term 2 is really starting to get its roll on, and part of this is the introduction of math homework.
It has been great to see many children make a start with this and I would recommend visiting a task or two from this sheet at least a couple of times a week and could be happily alternated with the set tasks on Study Ladder (which can be accessed via our class blog). While your child may find some parts easy to master other parts particularly basic addition and subtraction facts will require more time. With this homework all the answers that your child gives must be instant (within 3 seconds), when the answer is given instantly it has then been mastered and is now part of their “Knowledge”. 
If your child is using their fingers or are counting in their head it is not yet part of their knowledge and further revision is required. These sheets contain a large amount of work to be learnt and mastered and it is expected that a sheet like this will take time and repetition to complete.

Welcome to Science Tuedays!

The Autumn term brings with it not only falling temperatures and warm porridge for breakfast, in Room 13 it also announces the arrival of Science Tuesdays...

What is science Tuesday? I hear you ask. Well it is a chance for us all to don our science hats and act like tiny scientists for a morning. No really, it is a great opportunity for the children to be exposed to a range of scientific ideas and concepts and practice a many different skills good scientists need. These skills include, but are not only limited to making predictions, learning to question as well learning to observe, measure and investigate the world around us.

While Science Tuesday is part of our literacy program which in turn has its own learning goals the real nuts and bolts of Science Tuesday is for your child to develop a love of science and a passion for wondering.

Check out some of these mini scientists in action!

Yay! Term Two.

Welcome back, we have all had a great holiday. You should come and read our stories and see the plans we did.

This week we had buddy time, during buddy time we had the opportunity to read to our big buddies and then have them read to us. It was lots of fun catching up our big buddies after the holidays and listening to what they had to share with us.

See you in class to read our stories soon!

Tinga tinga

To celebrate Purple Cake day last week we decided to try our hand at some traditional Kenyan tinga tinga art. Here are a few pictures of our master piece in progress, make sure you check back soon as we have nearly finished it!

You might be reading to them but are you doing the math?

Parents,

While perusing educational websites on my wet Sunday morning I stumbled across this we gem. It was set up by Laura Bilodeau Overdeck a mother who, while, having no formal teaching background is keen on enriching and developing a passion for numbers in all children. Bedtime Math is her brainchild and by signing up for free you will receive daily differentiated maths problems for all levels. It's about numbers and fun and making numeracy more relevant.

I feel that his could really support the ongoing classroom learning and be a great out of class extension that all you children would enjoy. The one small thing I do see as being an issue is that resource is based in the USA, so some questions might use ideas, concepts and measurements that might be foreign to us. With simple adaptation I believe you could easily make it work for you and you child.

Check it out and let me know what you think.

Bedtime Math

Fun with magic!

Wow! We had a real blast this week with El Grego the magician paying our school a visit. The children really enjoyed seeing all the amazing illusions with the many different animals. While El Grego performed his show he also shared an important anti-bullying message which we all took heed of.

Our Minstrel Messages - Check out these wise words! (and awesome pictures)

"Put the big and small fish back" - Grace

"Use salt water to wash your fish" - Bianca

"Always wear a lifejacket" - Ben

"Take lots of ice to keep your fish cool" - Sophia

The Minstrel

 Wow! We were so lucky last Friday to have the Minstrel come and visit us. He had lots of great messages for us about looking after New Zealand's fisheries and safety on the water.

Keep an eye out on our blog for some of those messages.

School Tryathalon (sic)

On Monday we had our school tryathalon. It was real fun and we all enjoyed ourselves. We had to run and swim and at the end we were all puffed. Here are a few photos that Mr H manage to snap while he was managing the pool.

Here We Are!

Kia ora,

We are the awesome new children who are lucky enough to be in the brand new Room 13. We have started the year with a real hiss and a roar, and are looking forward to the exciting events we have got planned over the next few weeks.

Keep checking our blog for regular updates and super photos of us in learning action!