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

Healthy Diets

Last week we Iron Brion came to school to teach us all about the 4 food groups that we need for a healthy diet. These are:
meat and meat alternatives
milk and dairy products
fruit and vegetables
breads and cereals
Afterwards we enjoyed a healthy burger with salad. Which 3 food groups were covered by this meal?
On Friday we decided to make our shared toast healthier by using wholemeal bread, a good source of fibre.

Our poem last week was Miss Polly had a Dolly. It helped us to look at words that ended in 'll', 'ss', and 'ck'. Here we are performing it with a little help from Jenny. Can you teach everyone at home the actions?

On Thursday we set the scene for our Fresh Water Stream inquiry with a talk from Mel who showed us the types of animals we might find in the stream and the equipment we will be using to study them. We looked at a film which showed what would happen to a stream if were not cared for responsibly.

With all the excitement of the holidays and the Mask Parade we forgot to publish our final piece of work from last term's Fairy Tale Inquiry about good citizenship. Apologies for those of you who have been waiting to share it with friends and family. Here it is......

In week 3 we will be learning some more about verbs and looking at the tricky word 'now'. In art we will be finishing of our fish for the calender project and looking at Van Gogh's sunflowers. Maths will continue with the focus on doubles and halves and work specific to each group. As this is just a 3 day week there will be no spelling homework.

Watch out for all the events coming up during the rest of this term, including our Kowhai syndicate performance of 'Over The Rainbow'. Please sign the list in class if you can help with supervision or transport. on any of the trips.

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

Mask Parade

What an exciting start to Term 4. On Tuesday we had another fun packed session with the kelly Sports team. Have a look at the photos Ben took of us.
Kelly Sports on PhotoPeach

All week we were putting the final touches to our Cambodian masks ready for Friday's big parade. Here we are in the final dress rehearsal and waiting for the real thing. Check our Room 12's blog to see a video clip of us marching in the parade. A big thank you to all the mums, dads and grandparents who helped us to make the masks.

Despite all this excitement we still made time to record this week's poem to share with you. Thank you Tom for the lovely picture. The poem is called 'Spring' and this week we wrote our own acrostic poems about Spring. Look out for them on display with our Spring trees painted in the style of the French artist Monet

In week 2 of term 4 we will be starting our Fresh Water Stream inquiry unit with a talk by our expert friend, Mel. On Tuesday we will be learning about how to have a balanced diet and enjoying a healthy burger when Iron Brion comes to visit. In literacy we will be will be looking at words that end with ss, ll, ff and ck as well as learning about adverbs to help us make our writing more interesting. We will continue our acrostic poetry by writing a poem about ourselves. In art we will be producing art work for 2010 calenders..they will make great Christmas presents. In maths we are conslidating our instant recall of halves and doubles.

As always term 4 will be very busy so keep checking the reminders on each week's blog. Have a great week.

Reminders

Monday: Library books due back

Wednesday: Walk to School Wednesday

Monday 26th October: Labour Day, no school

Tuesday 27th October: Teacher Only Day

Monday 2nd November: Kowhai Parents' Placement Meeting 2.30

Thursday 5th November: Stream study 1.30, helpers needed

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

End of Term 3

Hello to all my Room 11 friends and families. This is a very interantional blog as I am writing it from Kuala Lumpur airport on my way back from Cambodia. Looking at all the things we did in the last week of term 3 has put a big smile on my face. Here we are sharing a massage circle together.

We also had a great time thinking of a different adjective for each section of our giant adjective snake that we made during literacy. Can you think of any other adjectives we could add?



The week ended with a fabulous folk dancing demonstration with Renwick 2. How many of our Room 11 friends can you spot doing the Birdie Dance? Dancing with the Stars ...here we come!

The return to school for our final term of the year will have a busy start putting the final touches to our masks for Friday's parade. In literacy we will be continuing to look at short vowel sounds and learning when to use the word 'an' in a sentence. To help us make our writing more interesting we will be learning about verbs and our tricky words will be 'why' and 'walk'. In maths we will be returning to our numeracy groups with a whole class focus on halves and doubles. Art and poetry this week will have a Spring theme...I am hoping warmer weather might have arrived whilst I have been away. Before starting our final inquiry topic we will be spending some time practicing forming effective inquiry questions. Spelling homework will begin again in week 2.
I hope you have all had a wonderful holiday and look forward to seeing you all and hearing all your news on Monday.

Reminders:

Friday 16th October: Mask Parade 4.45pm Montgomery Square

Fairy Tale Inquiry

Last week we had a special visit from some of our friends n Room 1. They shared their modern day retelling of traditional fairy tales with us. Well done Room 1, your ideas were very entertaining and you read your stories clearly and expressively.

We were making the most of the warmer weather this week by practicing our measuring skills and learning about capacity in the sandpit.

We have been continuing the acquiring knowledge part of our Fairy Tale inquiry unit by learning about how different personalities deal with conflict. Come and have a look in the class and decide if you are a fox, shark, turtle, teddy bear or owl. We also looked at key areas of good character inluding: responsibility, fairness, trustworthiness, caring and respectfulness. This week we will be using this knowledge to help put together character profiles for some of our favourite fairy tale characters. Can you work out which fairy tale our poem from last week was about? Thank you to Lucy for the illustration.

We have been busy writing letters to Ben, who is off school with a broken leg. We hope to give the letters to you when you visit us this week. In the mean time here is our message to you.

In the final week of term 3 we will be looking at fractions in numeracy and finishing off our masks in art. Our tricky words will be 'make' and 'came' which will help us learn more about magic 'e'. We will hard at work practicing for our folk dancing performance and look forward to seeing you all there at 2.15 on Friday.

Reminders

Monday: Library books due back, there will be no library books issued for over the holiday.

Friday 25th September: 2.15 Folk Dance Performance Trinity Hall, Term 3 ends at 3pm

Monday 12th October: Term 4 starts 8.55am

Friday 16th October: Mask Parade

Good Citizens

Last week we worked on the chalk pastel background for our manu pictures inspired by the John Bevan Ford Exhibition at the Suter Gallery. Take a look at our pictures below or come in and see them on display in Room 11. Don't forget you can see the Suter Exhibitions for free on a Saturday.

We continued setting the scene for our Fairy Tale Citizens inquiry topic by thinking about our own good citizenship. You can listen to our ideas below or read them on the display in class. We illustrated our ideas using tuxpaint and kidpix on the computer.

Despite the heavy rain on Friday we did find a quiet enough moment to record our poem of the week that was linked to the 'qu' digraph. This weeks picture was coloured by Tom. Can you find the 'qu' words.

This week we will be revisiting the digraph 'ar' as in 'car' and looking at the tricky words 'use' and 'make'. Our instructional writing will be basd on making yoghurt. Check out our volcano instructions for last week on the room 11 Kidz stuff blog on the right panel of this blog. In maths we will be continuing our unit on measurement by learning about weight and capacity. In inquiry we will be moving to the acquiring knowledge stage of the SAUCE model by looking at the different ways people deal with conflict...are you an owl, turtle, teddy bear, shark or fox? In P.E. we will putting the final touches to our folk dances ready for the shared performance in week 10, check the date below. Art is a hustle and bustle of getting out Thai masks ready for next terms mask parade...any help is very welcome.

Have a great, safe week from Tracy and all our Room 11 friends.

Reminders

Monday: Library books are due back

Wednesday: Walk to school Wednesday

Friday 25th September: 2-3pm Folk Dance Performance for parents

Friday 25th September: Term 3 ends 3pm

Monday 11th October Term 4 starts 8.55am

Friday 15th October: Mask Parade in the evening

John Bevan Ford Exhibition

Last week we visited the Suter Gallery to look at the John Bevan Ford Exhibition. As always Esther's workshop was much enjoyed by the children and the adults. We will be finishing off the backgrounds for our manu pictures later this week so watch out for them up on the wall. On Friday we wrote recounts of our visit, here is Will's:

Last Tuesday we went to the Suter. We put patterns on pieces of paper which had birds on them. After that we did a humungous jigsaw puzzle. Everything made me feel happy.

Take a look at us working as a team on the puzzle.

Our digraph for last week was 'ng' and we chose to use an 'ing' poem as this week's digital movie. Can you recognise the tune we are singing to?

This week we will be busy working on our masks from Thailand ready for the mask parade next term. Lots of bits need painting and any help would be much appreciated. In "Fairy Tale Citizens" inquiry topic we will continue to set the scene by thinking about what makes a good citizen. keep checking our display in the reading corner to see how we are progressing through the SAUCE model of inquiry.
In literacy we will be revising the digraph 'qu' and adding the last squares to our class quilt whihc we started last term. We will be learning about capital letters and proper nouns and our tricky words will be 'give' and 'gave'. In maths we will be starting a 2 week unit on measurement by having a look at length.
Reminders
Monday: Library books due back
Wednesday : Walk To School Day
Friday 25th September: Folk Dancing Performance in Trinity Hall 2-3pm, all parents welcome.

Zoom, Zoom, Zoom

On Tuesday of last week we had a surprise visit from the poet Greg O'Connell. He shared three of his poems with us: Zoom Tube, The Sink and A Spider's on the World Wide Web. The poem Zoom Tube was the inspiration for art this week. We created a water slide mosaic after having looked at pool paintings by David Hockney. If you want to find out more about Greg's work check it out at http://www.gregoconnell.com/

Any visitors to our school on Friday would have had a big shock to see so many wacky hair styles. All the fun was in aid of raising money for Daffodil Day to help cancer sufferers. Can you name the owners of the wacky hair styles in this picture?

Here we are being helped by a school council member to add our gold coins to the daffodil coin trail.

Also on Friday we had our second Fun Food Friday morning, this time learning how to make French Toast...yum!

In the afternoon we started planning the photo books that our Room 5 buddies will be helping us to make. We then shared our digital story about visually impaired poeple and Nelson Central School with our buddies and our mums and dads. If you missed it take a peek below.

Next week we will be revsing the digraph 'ng' and learning about proper nouns. Our tricky words will be 'where' and 'were'. We will be setting the scene for our new inquiry topic on fairy tales and continuing our P.E. program of folk dancing and large ball skills. In maths we will be developing speedy recall of number facts to 10. In Te Reo Maori we will be putting together our display of kidpix and tuxpaint drawings linked to classroom objects. Art this week is top secret!?! Don't forget to come along to the Suter with us on Tuesday and have a look at the John Brevan Ford exhibition: He Aho Tangata: The Human Threads.

Reminders

Monday: Library books due back

Tuesday 1-3pm Suter Gallery visit, helpers needed

Wednesday: Walk To School Day

The Postman

Last week we celebrated our first birrthday in Room 11 when Laura-Joy turned 6. We shared balloons, fairy bread and popcorn and did a special Maori version of the Hoki Toki dance.

We continued to use the information acquired in our inquiry unit along with the green thinking hat to help us come up with ideas to help make Nelson Central School a better place for visually disabled friends. This week we will put these ideas into a digital format and a letter to send to Dr Potaka and Chrisitine.

On the theme of letter writing we now have our very own Room 11 postbox. The collection times are Monday-Friday 2.55pm. If you want to send a letter to a Room 11 friend check out the rules on the top of the postbox. If anyone has old envelopes that we could reuse please pass them onto Tracy. Our poem last week was "The Postman" to celebrate our new postal service. Have a listen on the clip below.

This week our tricky words are 'there' and 'these' and we are sorting out the difference between the 'th' and 'f' sound. We will also be looking at what a noun is and linking this to our Te Reo work on classroom objects. In maths we will continue to work on instant recall of basic facts to 10.

Check out the new links on the right of our blog to Little Animals Activity Centre and Digraph poems. Don't forget that Friday is Wacky Hair Day with a gold coin collection going towards the daffodil cancer fund.

Reminders

Monday: Library books are due back

Wednesday: Walk to school day

Friday 28th August Wacky Hair Day

Tues 1st September Suter visit 1.00 John Bevan Ford, Maori Art , helpers needed.

Library Week

These pictures were from our visit to the Suter Art Gallery to look at the Bing Dawe exhibition about some of our less loved animals. We had great fun making our own clay models of birds and can't wait until Esther has fired them in her kiln and we can paint them.

During the week we continued to acquire information for our inquiry unit by interviewing Jane, who helps us in our classroom and is visually impaired. We asked her about the things around school that help her and ideas she had for improvements.

We then used this knowledge and de Bono's yellow thinking hat to list all the great things at NCS that help visually impaired friends to get around, learn and play just like the rest of us. Finally we photographed all our ideas. This week we will using the green thinking hat to help us come up with some creative ideas for improvements around the school.

On Friday we celebrated Library Week by dressing up as our favourite book characters. We shared our costumes with our other friends at the Kowhai assembly.

This week we will be revisiting the digraph 'th' and looking at the different sounds it can make e.g 'th' as in 'thumb' and 'th' as in 'this'. In maths we will be focusing on instant recall of number bonds to 10 as a whole class as well as continuing our specific focus for each group. This week's social skill is " Doing Our Best", look out for our ideas on this around the classroom later in the week.
Reminders
Monday: Library books are due back
Wednesday: Walk to school day
Friday 28th August Wacky Hair Day
Tues 1st September Suter visit 1.00 John Bevan Ford, Maori Art , helpers needed

Acquiring Knowledge

Last week we were busy acquiring knowledge for our topic on Visual Impairment. On Tuesday Anne and her guide dog, Peddie, came to talk to us. We learnt that you must not touch a guide dog when it is working and that Anne can tell Peddie which way to go by using her voice or pointing her feet in the correct direction. Why do you think her cane is so shiny in the picture below?

On Thursday Mike came to talk to us about all the sports he still takes part in even though he can only see out of a 1/4 of one eye. He rows, plays cricket with a special ball that makes a sound as it moves and has even taken part in a Marathon in New York!

We used the knowledge we have gathered so far to think about the best way to send a thank you to our visitors. Our ideas included sending soap and flowers as they could smell them, sending one of our fish sculptures for them to feel and making a voice recording for them to listen to our thank you. We will be working on these items this week and sending them off on Friday. The picture below shows us working on the paper fish sculptures, adding tissue paper scales. Come and see the finished fish in Room 11.

On Friday we acquired more knowledge when we went to visit the Science Fair in Rooms 1,2,7 and 8. Thank you to our older friends who explained their experiments very clearly. Here we are learning about seeds.

Also on Friday we learnt how to make toast and very much enjoyed eating the results. We had such a great time that we have decided to include a special Friday toast spot on a weekly basis. If you have interesting, nut free, toast toppings to share please send them in to add to our collection. We all wrote our own instructions explaining how to make toast and used these to make a class digital story.

This week we will be writing questions to ask an expert about the things around Nelson Central School that make it easier for visually impaired people and any ideas they have for improvements.

Our sound for this week is 'ch' and we will be starting to look at alphabetical order and capital letters. We will be looking at the poem Caterpillar Crunch and making 3D hanging caterpillar sculptures. On Tuesday we are off to the Suter to look at an exhibition about animals and have a go at modelling with clay. In maths we will be practicing instant recall of doubles to 10 and in P.E. we are starting our unit on large ball skills. On Friday we will be celebrating Library Week by all dressing up as a book character, remember to bring in the book that your character is from if you can.

Reminders
Monday: Library books are due back
Wednesday: Walk to school day
Tues 11th August Suter visit 1.00 Bing Dawe, Animals and Sculptures, helpers needed

Friday 14th August Book Character Dress Up Day
Tues 1st September Suter visit 1.00 John Bevan Ford, Maori Art , helpers needed

Maori Language Week

On Wednesday of last week we had the chance to try out our miniball skills with Dallas from the Jack Robins Stadium. If you are interested in taking part in more sessions please contact Sheryl in the office. Have a look at how we got on and what a great 'can do' attitude we all had. Well done Room 11!

In the afternoon we looked at different types of sculpture and made our own paper shape sculptures. Check out our individual blogs to see the results.

We continued the 'Acquiring Knowledge" part of our inquiry topic by having a go at eating our morning tea blindfolded. We soon realised how taste and touch helped us to work out what we were eating. We also wrote effective questions to ask our visually impaired expert when they visit us next Tuesday.

As this has been Maori Language week we have shared a number of different Te Reo activities. Elmas read us a story about finding friends called Hohepa te Puru (Joseph the Bul.l). He also taught us a counting game and we made a digital story of the counting song 'Tahi is One'

To finish off the week watched an episode of Sponge Bob in Maori.

Next week we will be revisiting the sound 'sh' and ordering words in sentences to make sense. Check out the Making Sense' game on the Roy The Zebra website accessible through 'links for kids' on our Nelson Central homepage. Our tricky words will be 'away' and 'when' and we will be writing instructions to make toast. In numeracy we will continue skip counting in 2's and learn about odd numbers. Our work on sculpture will continue using paper, this week we will be making fish.

Reminders

Monday: Library books are due back

Wednesday: Walk to school day
Tues 11th August Suter visit 1.30 Bing Dawe, Animals and Sculptures, helpers needed

Tues 1st Septemnber Suter visit 1.30 John Bevan Ford, Maori Art , helpers needed

Parent helper slot available Tuesdays 9-10.30

100 Days of School

This week we began "setting the scene" for our inquiry topic on "Rights for the Disabled". We discussed what being disabled means and experienced what it would be like in various situations. We had a go at painting with our feet.............

...... and walking around blindfolded with the help of our Room 5 buddies.

On Wednesday afternoon we met some new friends from Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. They are at NMIT for 7 weeks studying English and looking at sustainability in New Zealand. We showed them our digital story of "10 Ways to Save The Planet" and they showed us a Vietnamese duck dance!

Thursday was the much anticipated 100th Day of School. A fabulous time was had by all despite the wet weather outside. We made 100 Day crowns with 100 pictures on them.

Jenny brought in 100 soft toys........

...which we counted by sorting into groups of 10.

As a special treat at the end of the day Will's dad and Nico's mum led a sing-a-long on their ukeleles accompanied by plenty of enthusiastic parents. What a fabulous experience for us all, we are already planning another one for the end of the year! Thank you to everyone for all the amazing 100 Days projects you have produced with the children at home.

This week we will be starting the "acquiring knowledge" phase of our inquiry by writing effective questions to ask visually disabled experts. In literacy we will be revisiting the digraphs ou oi ue and er. Our tricky words will be 'you' and 'away'. We will be learning to write simple instructions about our before school jobs and writing some more thank you letters. In maths we will be practicing our number bonds to 10 and skip counting in 2's. Folk dancing starts this week so start practicing those side steps and skips.

Finally thank you to everyone for booking their parent interview times using the new online system and I look forward to sharing your child's successes with you in the coming week.

Reminders

Parent interviews Mon, Tues, Wed

Monday: Library books due back

Wednesday: Walk to school day

Super Sandpit!

On a rather chilly Monday afternooon in the second week of the holidays an energetic band of helpers arrived armed with shovels, brooms, buckets and wheelbarrows. Their challenge was to move 4 cubic metres of sand from the driveway between Room 11 and Room 10 into the junior sandpit. What an amazing team we all made and after just one hour the sand was all shifted and we were rewarded with a refreshing juicy. Take a look at us hard at work and then enjoying the newly revamped sandpit. Well done everyone and a big thankyou to the School Community Group for making this happen!

End of Term 2

The final week of Term 2 was, as always, busy but rewarding. We started with a visit to the museum to learn about Maori musical instruments and to make our own Koauau flutes from bamboo. In the afternoon we made special holders to keep our koauau safe by reusing old cardboard tubes. Playing a koauau needs a lot of practice but as you can hear on this clip we are slowly getting the hang of it.

As it was the last week of term we were busy checking all the knowledge and skills we have acquired duirng the first half of the year. I am looking forward to sharing these results with you all at parents' evenings in week 2 of term 3. Don't forget to book your online appointment time through the NCS home page.

But without a doubt the most exciting thing we achieved last week was the completion of our work on '10 Ways to Save the Planet". Have a look below and watch your child's face as they see the finished movie for the first time! We will be sharing our movie with some govermnet officials from Asia who will be visiting in the first week of next term to see our work on sustainability.

The first Thursday of next term will mark 100 days at school for Room 11 2009. A day of special 100 activities is planned ending in a ukulele sing-a-long with Nico's mum and Will's dad. I hope you are all busy coming up with creative, imaginative 100 days ideas to make over the holiday.

Our new inquiry topic for the first 5 weeks of term 3 is " Rights for Everyone" with a specifc focus on rights for the visually impaired. If you are able to assists in anyway with tihs study please pop in during week 1 to have a chat .

In the meantime I wish everyone a wonderful holiday and look forward to seeing you all back safe and well in Room 11 at 8.55 on Monday 20th July.

Matariki

Last week we joined with our other Kowhai friends to celebrate Matariki, the Maori New Year. Take a look at some of the activities we shared during our round-a-bout of activities last Wednesday

In Renwick 2 Dianne taught us some new stick games using rakau.

In Room 10 Teresa showed us how to weave Maori putiputi

In our own room we made Matariki pictures by printing stars and adding glitter. Look out for the end results on our individual blogs along with our retellings of the Maori legend 'Tane and the Star Fish".

Our poem from last week also had a star theme, can you work out which popular song the poem is based on?

This week we will be continuing our Maori studies on Monday morning when we visit Nelson Museum to take part in a workshop to learn about Maori musical instruments.

Our sounds for this week are 'er' and 'ar' and the tricky words are 'by' and 'going'. In maths we will continue our work on telling the time and use the clocks we made last week to practice reading o'clock and half past times. This week we hope to complete our digital story on "10 Ways to Save The Planet". In P.E. we will continue developing our skipping skills, take a look at how we got on last week when our Room 5 buddies gave us a hand.

Reminders

No library books will be issued this week.

No reading books will be sent home over the holidays.

Friday 3rd July: last day of Term 2

Monday 20th Juky: start of Term 3

Reuse

In our inquiry topic last week we were busy creating images and sound files for our digital movie "10 Ways to Save The Planet". This clip is our favourite so far and shows how our class carpet came from the transfer station and is an example of reusing items. Watch out for the premier of the finished movie in week 10!

Listen to our sound recording of the nursery rhyme " The Queen of Hearts", can you hear the 'qu' digraph. This week's picture was coloured by Will.

This week we will be learning the sounds and actions for the digraphs 'oi' as in 'point' and 'ue' as in 'blue'. Our tricky words are 'out' and 'down'. We will be sharing a range of activities to celebrate Matariki, Maori New Year, including a round-a-bout of workshops with other Kowhai classes on Wednesday and looking at the legend of Tane and the Stars. In maths we will be starting a 2 week on 'Time" and Friday our buddy class will be helping us with our skipping skills.

Reminders

Library books due back on Mondays

Wednesday: walk, bike, scoot, run to school

Monday 29th June Maori Musical Instruments workshop at the Museum 9.10-11am

Rain, rain rain!!!

What an incredibly wet week we had last week. However, Room 11 have shown their great social skills of turn taking, sharing and being good friends to each other during all the indoor playtimes we have shared. Well done Room 11 friends!

In art last week we have finished off our printed caterpillar pictures, watch out for them crawling around the walls of the classroom soon. We also started a papier mache project making special boxes to keep our tricky word mini books in when they are sent home. Here we are putting on the final white layer with our Room 5 buddies.

Instead of recording our poem from last week we have made a digital story of the big book we shared, "Mrs Wishy Washy". We hope you enjoy our first digital shared book and remember to listen out for words containing the 'sh' digraph.

Our sounds for this week are 'qu' and 'ou' and the tricky words 'little' and 'when'. We will be sharing the big book "Baby Bear's Quilt' and having a go at making a class quilt on the theme of "Saving The Planet". Our poem also has a 'qu' link as it is the nursery rhyme " The Queen of Hearts" .

In maths we will be developing our instant recall of number bonds to 5 as well as learning to image the solution to addition and subtraction problems. If the weather remains dry we will be starting a unit on skipping in P.E so get those ropes out and start practising at home!

Reminders
Library books due back on Mondays

Wednesday 24th June Matariki Kowhai shared kai

Monday 29th June Maori Musical Instruments workshop at the Museum 9.10-11am