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.