Happy Holidays!!!!!!

Last week started with a visit from some of our Grove Street Kindy friends who will be joining us next year. Here we are sharing our learning about 2D shapes with them.

Monday evening saw plenty of sunshine for our Nelson Central Family Picnic. Good food, company and games were shared by everyone. Who is this enjoying the evening with her family?

On Tuesday and Wednesday we shared our Kowhai performance of 'Over The Rainbow" with friends and family. If you missed it watch this clip of part of the Room 11 Mighty Torneado dance.

On Thursday afternoon we had an afternoon of designing and making our own decorations for the Room 11 Christmas tree. Take a look at our wonderful designs. Does our Christmas song sound familiar?

This week our end of year celebrations continued with a very successful Kowhai Big Day Out at Tahuna Beach. We rode on the trains, looked at the model museum, built a wide variety of sand sculptures and had lunch in the Lion's playground. In the afternoon we had the first dip of the summer in the NCS pool
Tahuna Big Day Out on PhotoPeach

On Tuesday we had a picnic lunch with our Room 5 buddies in the Queen's Gardens. Thanks for the lovely cards Room 5!

Room 11 and Room 5's Buddy Picnic on PhotoPeach

Finally on Tuesday afternoon we were entertained by our parents with another ukulele sing-a-long. Everyone was in good voice and joined in enthusiastically with the percussion. Have a listen to Jingle Bells performed like you have never heard it before!

Thank you to all our Room 11 families and friends, we have had a great year learning and growing together and this has been made even more special by all your support. Have a wonderful, safe summer and I look forward to seeing you all settling into your new classes next year.

See you on Wednesday 3rd February 2010!!!!

Tracy

WOW!!!!

We started last week with a special visit from Lucia's tiny frogs. They had grown from the tadpoles she had last year and are very quick at catching flies. Lucia's mum told us lots of interesting facts about frogs, including that they breath through their skin. Now we are waiting to see if our class tadpoles will turn into frogs before the end of term.

On Monday afternoon we had our final visit of the year to the Suter Art Gallery. We looked at a range of amazing sea inspired art, including some clay pots that had been left in the sea for 10 years and are now covered in oyster shells. In our groups we designed WOW sea costumes. Pop into Room 11 and have a look at them. Remember if you want to check out the Aqua Marine exhibition you can go along free every Saturday.
Aqua Marine Costume Design on PhotoPeach

On Tuesday of this week Tracy was very very excited when we were given a new voice recorder called an Easi Speak microphone we can use it by ourselves and had plenty to say on our
first practice.

Here we are using the Easi Speak microphone and our bodies to share with you what we have learnt about flat, or 2D shapes this week.

This week we are going to be very busy with our Kowhai production of Over The Rainbow. The dress rehearsal is on Monday before lunch and on Tuesday and Wednesday we will be performing for our friends and family. To ensure plenty of time for the performance the start time has been moved forward to 1.30pm.

When we are not being stars on the stage we will be continuing with our shape work and learning about solid, 3D, shapes. We will be learning about compound words and words starting with 'wh' as well as learning some more tricky words. In art we will be designing and making our own decorations for the class Christmas tree. This week we will be working with our Room 5 buddies to put together our photo story books.

Have a great week and we look forward to seeing you at the family picnic on Monday evening and later in the week at the School of Music.

REMINDERS

No more books to be issued this year

Wednesday: Walk to School Wednesday

Monday 7th December NCS SCG Family Picnic 5.30-7pm evening

Tuesday 8th and Wednesday 9th December Kowhai production "Over the Rainbow" 1.30pm School of Music

Monday 14th December: Kowhai Big Day out at Tahuna Trains, all welcome

Tuesday 15th 2.15pm Room 11 ukelele sing along, all musicians welcome

Wednesday 16th December: Final Assembly 11.15, school at 12.15 for summer break

Making Books

Great news.....Jack's grandma's painting has won the Yellow Pages competition. Watch out for Jack and his friends on the front cover of the next issue. Thank you to everyone who voted for her.

Last week we were busy working on two types of books to get them finished by the end of term. The first are the story books we have been making with our Room 5 buddies The stories are based on an adventure our soft toys had at school. On Friday we decided which of the photos we took last week would work best in our books. Then we worked on the computer to type up the text from our story boards. Watch out for how we get on compling our books next week.

On Wednesday we used the palette of coloured papers we had created to make our own bugs in the style of illustrator Eric Carle. Take a look at the colourful results and watch part 2 of our movie on how to make an Eric Carle picture.
Eric Carle Bugs on PhotoPeach

This week we will be looking at alternative ways of making the 'ue' sound e.g. 'clue', 'threw', and 'tune'. Our Tricky words are 'would' and 'could'. On Monday we will be having our final visit of the year to the Suter Art Gallery. As we move into December our poem of the week has a Christmas feel and in art we will be making hanging star Santa's. We will be busy rehearsing for Over The Rainbow with our first whole syndicate run through on Wednesday. Don't forget to send costumes in by Friday this week. In maths we will begin our final topic on geometry looking at the properties of 2D and 3D shapes. Meanwhile our tadpoles are growing well and eating alot of pond weed, if anyone can spare some pond weed please drop it to Room 11.

REMINDERS

Monday: Library books due back, no more books to be issued this year

Wednesday: Walk to School Wednesday

Monday 30th November: Suter Visit Aquamarine 1-3pm helpers needed

Friday 4th December: last day to send in costumes for production

Monday 7th December NCS SCG Family Picnic, evening

Tuesday 8th and Wednesday 9th December Kowhai production "Over the Rainbow" in the afternoon

Monday 14th December: Kowhai Big Day out at Tahuna Trains, all welcome

Tuesday 15th 2.15pm Room 11 ukelele sing along, all musicians welcome

Wednesday 16th December: Final Assembly 11.15, school at 12.15 for summer break

Eric Carle

As the end of term gets closer we are busy rehearsing our 'wind' dance for the Kowhai production of Over The Rainbow and learning the words to all the songs. You will have received a picture this week explaining the costumes we will be wearing. The only items that need to be provided from home are a t-shirt and shorts or tights in either white, pale blue, silver or grey. The rest of the costume is being made at school. Costumes need to be sent into Room 11 by Friday 4th December in a named bag.

Sometime ago we made clay birds with Esther at the Suter Art Gallery. The finishing touches were put on hold due to mask making for the Mask Parade but finally here are the finished perky pukekos. We. are all looking forward to our final Suter visit of the year on Monday 30th November, check the reminders list for details.

Perky Pukekos on PhotoPeach

As part of our art focus and stream study we are making a class book of imaginary stream creatures illustrated in the style of Eric Carle. This week we created a palette of different coloured and textured papers. Take a look at how we did this.

Check in next week to see how we turn the paper palette into a stream creature collage. To find out more about Eric Carle check out his website at http://www.eric-carle.com/home.html

This week we will be looking at words that contain the letter 'o' and silent 'e' e.g. smoke, hope as well as thinking about alphabetical order. Our tricky words will be 'there' and 'should'. This will be our last week of numeracy in maths so we will be revising doubles, halves and addition and subtraction facts to 10.

Tracy will be out of the classroom on Tuesday, for Interactive White Board training and Thursday for report writing.

Have a great and keep practicing those dance moves.

REMINDERS
Monday: Library books due back
Wednesday: Walk to School Wednesday
Tuesday 24th November: last day to vote for Yellow Pages art work http://www.yellowartawards.co.nz/
Monday 30th November: Suter Visit Aquamarine 1-3pm helpers needed

Friday 4th December: last day to send in costumes for production
Tuesday 8th and Wednesday 9th December Kowhai production "Over the Rainbow" in the afternoon
Monday 14th December: Kowhai Big Day out at Tahuna Trains, all welcome
Tuesday 15th 2.15pm Room 11 ukelele sing along, all musicians welcome
Wednesday 16th December: Final Assembly 11.15, school at 12.15 for summer break

Swim Safe

On Wednesday Fiona, from the Swim Magic team at Riverside Pool, talked to us about water safety. We learnt how to keep ourselves and our younger brothers and sisters safe not only in the swimming pool, but also around rivers, the sea, the home and farms. Later in the week we wrote thank you letters to Fiona and told her all our water related tales. If you want to learn more about the lessons Swim Magic offer check out the website at http://www.swimmagic.co.nz/

In poetry we have been looking at rhyme in the nursey rhyme Humpty Dumpty. We then worked with a friend to make up our own Humpty Dumpty poems and illustrated them with oil pastel and dye. Have listen to the fabulous end results.

We also set ourselves the challenge of writing a whole class alphabet poem using alliteration. This is what we have come up with so far:
Angry, annoyed, adorable ant. Busy, bendy bee. Crooked, crazy, colourful cat. Donald the dancing dog. Excellent Eddie Elephant. Fantastic flowers. Green grass. Harold the hungry horse. Interesting insects. Jumping, joyful jellyfish. Kicking kangaroo.

Can you come up with any alliterative lines for L-Z? If so please send it to us in a comment.

In Week 6 our tricky words will be 'does' and 'goes' and we will be looking at words with the i-e sound e.g. time, smile. In maths we will be playing dice games to help practice the different strategies we have learnt for adding small numbers. Our soft toys will be coming to school at the start of the week to be photographed for the books we are making with our buddies from Room 5. We will be writing a shared narrative story about what the toys get up to when they sleepover in the classroom. In art we will be looking at book illustrations by Eric Carle and starting to think about our class book on the bugs we saw on the stream visit.

I will be out of the classroom on a number of days over the next 2 weeks for report writing and ICT professional development. I appreciate your understanding and all should be back to normal by the end of Week 8.

REMINDERS

Monday: Library books due back

Wednesday: Walk to School Wednesday

Tuesday 24th November: last day to vote for Yellow Pages art work http://www.yellowartawards.co.nz/

Monday 30th November: Suter Visit Aquamarine 1-3pm helpers needed

Tuesday 8th and Wednesday 9th December Kowhai production "Over the Rainbow" in the afternoon

Monday 14th December: Kowhai Big Day out at Tahuna Trains, all welcome

Tuesday 15th 2.15pm Room 11 ukelele sing along, all musicians welcome

Wednesday 16th December: Final Assembly 11.15, school at 12.15 for summer break

Stream Dipping

On Thursday of last week we ventured up the Brook, just above the first dam to investigate how healthy the stream is at this location. We saw clear, fast running water and caught a range of stream creatures including the sensitive mayfly larva. These findings told us that the stream is healthy and unpolluted in this section. Share our experience with us through this slide show.

We continued to enjoy the sunny weather on Friday afternoon when our Room 5 buddies gave us a lesson in frisby throwing.

Our poem last week was all about fireworks. It contains a number of nonsense words, how many can you spot?

Watch out for our firework haiku poems and art coming on the Room 11 Kidzstuff blog later this week.
This week we will be looking at magic 'e' and 'a' words e.g. mat/mate, hat/hate and we will be learning about initial blends e.g. 'cl', 'cr', 'br' and 'bl'. Our tricky words are 'before' and 'just'. In writing we will be working on alternative versions of the traditional nursery rhyme Humpty Dumpty and then illustrating them in art. We will be using dice in maths to help memorise our number facts to 10 and 20. In our inquiry we will be working on effective questions to help us find out more about the lives of the stream animals we saw last week.
Finally some very special news from our Room 11 community. This painting by Jack's grandma has been shortlisted in the top 3 pictures to be used on the cover of the new Yellow Pages telephone directory. If you would like to see one of our Room 11 friends on the front cover then make sure you place your vote at http://www.yellowartawards.co.nz/ on or before 22nd November.

Reminders
Monday: Library books due back
Wednesday: Walk to School Wednesday
Friday 13th November: Extended last day for ordering calendars and cards
Monday 30th November: Suter Visit Aquamarine 1-3pm helpers needed

Tuesday 8th and Wednesday 9th December pm Kowhai production "Over the Rainbow"

Monday 14th December: Kowhai Big Day out at Tahuna Trains, all welcome

Wednesday 16th December: Final Assembly 11.15, school at 12.15 for summer break

Calendar Fish

On Thursday we completed our fish pictures ready for families to order 2010 calendars or cards. Have a quick look at them here but you can also check them out on your child's individual blog at Room 11 Kidz Stuff. Final orders need to be in by this Friday, 6th November.
Room 11 Calendar Art 2010 on PhotoPeach

Our poem this week was 'A Busy Day' by Michael Rosen. Thank you Zandi for the lovely colouring. How many times can you hear the word 'pop' as you listen to our class performance.

Due to this week just being 3 days we do not have much else to share with you but have a look at what we will be doing in week 4 of term 4.

In our Fresh Water Inquiry topic we will be working on forming effective questions to help us acquire the knowledge we need to discover how to keep a stream healthy. On Thursday afternoon we will be going on our first stream visit and seeing how many different types of animals live in the stream. All helpers very welcome..bring your gumboots!

In literacy we will be looking at short vowels to help us with our spelling, adverbs to make our writing more interesting and the tricky words 'two' and 'because'. Our poetry focus will be a haiku poem on the subject of fireworks. In art we will be doing observational drawings of stream creatures and producing a picture to go with our firework haiku. Our focus in maths will be subtraction in the range 0-10 as well as our specific focus for each group. In P.E. we will be continuing to join in Jump Jam sessions with Room 6 and start exploring throwing skills.

Have a great week and stay safe.

Reminders

Monday: Library books due back

Wednesday: Walk to School Wednesday

Monday 2nd November: Kowhai Parents' Placement Meeting 2.30

Thursday 5th November: Stream study 1.30, helpers needed

Friday 6th November: Last day for ordering calendars and cards

Monday 30th November: Suter Visit Aquamarine 1-3pm helpers needed