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