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

Running, dancing, moving.

Even though last week was only a 4 day week we managed to squeeze in an amazing number of special events. Thanks to all the parents who made this exciting week possible through their support.

On Wednesday morning we learnt all the positive things that are happening linked to recycling and reusing at the Transfer Station in Tahuna. On the way back to school we visited the York Valley landfill where we realised how much rubbish is being buried when it could actually be recycled. Take at look at some of the things we saw and see if you can spot items on the video clip of the landfill that could have been recycled at the Transfer Station.

In the afternoon we took part in the school cross country event. Well done to everyone, Room 11 had a great "can do" attitude!!!! Take a look at some of our friends doing their very best racing round the course.

We spent Thursday afternoon with Esther at the Suter Gallery looking at art works that made us want to jump, dance and move. Here we are warming up at the start of the session. Remember there is no charge at the Suter on a Saturday, so why not pop in and share the art with all the family.

Our poem from last week was 'Jack in the box", listen out for the 'x' sound at the end of one of the words. The picture was coloured by Will.

This week we will learning the sounds and actions for the digraphs 'sh' and 'th' and our tricky words will be 'said' and 'put'. In maths we will continue to develop quick recall of pairs of numbers that add up to 10. In our inquiry topic we will be planning how to present our 10 ideas for saving the planet. Now that cross country has finished we will be working on large ball skills in P.E. Have a great week!!

Reminders

Library books due back on Mondays

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